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Which Half of Your Advertising Budget is Wasted?

Five practical tips to develop an effective measurement strategy for online and offline marketing efforts.

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2. Use Split Testing

When you see a banner, video, text or display ad online, it has been sent to your computer or mobile device from an ad server. In most cases, what this means is that the advertiser will have been given the opportunity to split test their ads – to change their online creative in real time to monitor impressions, clicks, engagement and conversions. Essentially some of the audience will see one version of the ad, while others may see different versions.

But split testing doesn’t just apply to online ads and websites. In fact it can be used effectively with any online or offline marketing piece to test different creative, copy, or calls to action. It allows your audience to tell you in tangible terms which messages they prefer and are inclined to respond to favorably.

3. Create Different Landing Pages

Most small business owners will make the mistake of wasting a lot of money on ads to send traffic direct to their homepage. More often than not, 90% of this traffic will bounce off your website within seconds because the content they are interested in is either not featured prominently on the homepage or is just too hard to find.

In order to maximize the engagement of your traffic and your ROI, you need to ensure that you are taking your leads to pages where the specific content and offer you are advertising is the only information presented.

The easiest way to do this is to set up landing pages on your company site with unique URLs for each offer. The landing page will give each user a more customized experience and it will allow you to set the stage for an inquiry, call to action or sale.

Landing pages are also extremely effective for allowing you to track and measure ROI from both online and offline ads – when a prospect converts, you can directly attribute that conversion to a specific marketing piece because the landing page URL is unique for each one.

When possible, use a user-friendly URL (a URL that is short, relevant and easy to remember) to drive traffic from offline media – it will boost retention, recall and action.

4. Track metrics with Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an invaluable tool that can help you measure what is working and what isn’t on your company website. However, just like the human brain, most site owners haven’t fully tapped into the full potential and power of it.

In addition to telling you where your traffic is coming from and which search terms or links were used to find you, Google Analytics also measures where users click most on a given page, how long they spent on your site and where they go when they navigate away from your page. Google analytics can provide you with enough data to isolate and eliminate marketing that’s not generating profitable growth.

Research indicates that the average conversion rate for a website is between 2.2 – 4%. What this means is that 96-97.8% of the visitors that came to your site today, left without taking any action. They key to minimizing leakage and maximizing the percentage of online visitors that remember your message and take action lies in analyzing the data.

5. Stop Chasing Clicks and Eyeballs

A click or eyeball (viewing of your ad) means nothing to your business. It earns no revenue and creates no brand equity. Your advertising has to have a tangible end goal – and it shouldn’t be to reach the most eyeballs or generate a lot of clicks.

To have a successful small business, you need people to convert: discover how you can cure their pain, seek more information, join your list, or purchase your product or service. Success lies not in how many people know what you do but rather in how many you are able to connect with and inspire to say “yes” to your offering.

Connect with Rhondalynn on Twitter.

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