What is the point of marketing? Is it to identify with your target audience? To get your brand name known and recognized , or is it designed to simply boost your sales and generate you a tidy income? Every company will have a specific reason as to why they utilize marketing, developing campaigns to fulfill a purpose. This is why marketing should not be neglected nor taken for granted and with clever monitoring and tracking, marketing can be at the heart of your business success. It doesn’t matter how strong your message is, if no one is able to hear it, is there any point in taking the time to develop it?
Creating the right way to meet your KPIs is not an overnight process, and it can take time, loss and failure to ascertain the right marketing strategy for your brand. This is precisely why it is crucial to monitor your marketing efforts. Investing time and money into an avenue that simply isn’t working is foolish, whilst neglecting a strong campaign can be a missed opportunity. Whether you are focusing on Retargeting, Content or PPC, there are tools designed to inform and oversee the progression of a campaign making sure you are making the most of your financial investment and are on track to meet those all important objectives.
Tools Depending on your Marketing Campaign
PPC
PPC, or pay per click, campaigns are one of the most effective marketing strategies, with the ability to generate instantaneous results, something that every business owner desires. Used purely to increase the traffic driven to your site, it is a form of Internet advertising, which, depending on your niche can be costly. It is for this very reason that you need to ensure you are monitoring the success, or failures, of your efforts to protect your revenue.
AdWords – offers the ability to set your own affordable budget for your daily campaign. AdWords is free, until PPC starts to generate results. You are able to review the performance of your campaign at any time simply by logging in to your AdWords accThis is the most commonly used tool.
Prosper.tracking202.com – it may not look particularly pretty, but this tool offers great features, especially for those who are new to the PPC game. 1-1 support is on offer to deal with any question, query or concern, whilst features and tools are regularly updated to enable you to stay ahead of the game. Prosper uses hosting partners to set up PPC campaigns quickly, perfect for those with high traffic figures.
Certified Knowledge – as we know, PPC requires investment, how substantial this is depends on your niche. Certified Knowledge has a report analyzer to determine whether keywords, etc. are profitable or non-profitable and considers ROI goals within reports. They offer training and guidance for those with limited PPC knowledge whilst pumping users full of industry news and updates.
AdGooRoo – this tool offers one of the strongest reporting functions available, with the ability to benchmark your PPC campaigns over time allowing you to compare performance. One great month in PPC may not mean overall success, instead you need to identify the campaign as a whole to judge its performance. AdGooRoo also has a customer service team offering training for users.
Market Defender – this tool has been created by our sister company, Sticky Eyes, with the view to offering detailed insights to PPC enthusiasts. As we know, PPC can be a competitive market for many niches and with this tool, you are able to review competitor campaigns whilst setting up alerts for new competition or changes in ad copy. Daily, automated reports are also available that are bespoke to offer you the insight relevant to you.
WordStream – for those business owners that simply do not have the time to monitor and implement a PPC campaign, WordStream is the answer to your prayers. Upon initial set up, they can take over the running of the campaign. They are partners with Google, suggesting they have the insights needed to make a success of PPC, whilst reports can be created within 60 seconds to stay constantly up to speed with your campaign performance.
Thesearchmonitor.com – these guys pride themselves on their data, whether it’s how competitive a market is or how many ads are out there across the 100 languages they track, they bridge the gap between Consumer and Agency. In terms of reporting, they offer bespoke reporting which you can receive on an hourly basis if necessary.
Report Garden – this is designed purely for reporting on your PPC campaign, whether that is for business owners or board directors. Pulling in data from AdWords and Google Analytics, Report Garden offers custom reports, detailing the information you need to see. With a dashboard accessible at all times, you can stay completely up to date with your campaign’s performance.
Raven – Raven is all about offering detailed insights into PPC campaigns, allowing you to create tailored reports that are designed to relieve the stress of monthly reporting. Reports are online and interactive with the option to download. Another tool with a customized online dashboard, you are able to benchmark performance to monitor just how well PPC is fulfilling objectives.
Swydo – scheduled reporting, personalized alerts on PPC costs increasing or keyword performance dropping.
Email marketing may seem a little old school, but it remains one of the most effective ways to remind your target demographic that you are there, waiting to fulfil their consumer needs. A form of marketing that works best for eCommerce sites. You can now gain more insight than ever before for your email campaign, thanks to a number of tools….
Campaignmonitor.com – not only can you design and deliver your email marketing through Campaign Monitor, but you can also test the performance, looking at figures including engagement, sharing and call to actions all through interactive analytics available through your smartphone.
Mail Chimp – this is probably one of the best known / recognized performance tracking tools for email marketing. Reports are available on all aspects of the campaign, including an overview of subscriber behavior and information including location and look at social channels. Mail Chimp has a mobile app, which enables you to send out campaigns, add notes and review reports.
Reach Mail – this tool is ideal for small businesses and those with an email marketing campaign on a reduced scale. The simplistic reports cover general performance, looking at basic stats and facts and are downloadable to Microsoft Excel ready for personalization and formatting.
AWeber – this tool has one of the best reporting systems, allowing users to constantly stay in touch with their email marketing campaign. One hour after sending out the first emails of a new campaign, users will be notified on their smartphones of performance stats so far, allowing the campaign to be tweaked slightly should the figures not be encouraging. The campaign can be monitored at all times from any location thanks to the app.
My Emma – this tool has different packages and price plans, depending on the nature of your business, whether you running this campaign on your behalf or that of a client’s. An in-depth reporting dashboard and mobile app are available for all users with notifications coming right through to your phone.
Fresh Mail – analytical reporting is at the heart of this tool, as Fresh Mail goes in-depth with the overall performance of your email campaign. The reports are customizable, allowing you to decide on the most important elements that you and your colleagues need to see. Reports are also available at any time
Zoho Campaigns – keeping company information secure is crucial, and Zoho realized the importance of this when it comes to reporting on the success of marketing efforts. The automated reports are available to view at any time by any confirmed member of your team through a secure URL, meaning your higher ups stay informed without risking the exposure of your personal data.
Mail Gen – aligning data with Google Analytics, you are able to pull real time reports to cover any aspect of the marketing campaign focusing on the stats that mean the most to you. Able to track conversion rates, ROI can also be calculated allowing users to keep track of expenditure.
dotmailer – this tool offers an in-depth overview of the consumer path, from the opening of the email to the conversion rate. With a customizable reporting suite, users can use the data on offer to form a stronger email campaign. This tool also offers the ability of pinpointing consumer locations to allow marketers to identify the regions where they are strongest.
Content Marketing
We all know that content is the basis of one of the strongest marketing ploys. Getting your brand name out there in the form of online PR, or simply encouraging users back to your site with the offering of informed and insightful content, content is one of the best ways to appeal to the consumer. But, how effective is your content? Are you targeting the right people? Is anyone actually taking any notice? Below is a list of tools which enables you to study the success of your content can help you shape the content types you are offering.
Google Analytics – Google Analytics is typically used to review the performance of your site, but it can go deeper than that, offering an insight into content engagement, traffic increases, blog post landing pages or social performance through an increase in social offerings, for example. Although there is no reporting tool as such, you are able to customize your dashboard and review past data to offer performance comparisons.
Hubspot – this tool takes the management of marketing campaigns to a new level. Offering the ability to monitor and track all marketing campaigns in one personalized dashboard, you can pull reports at a moment’s notice, receive updates to your smartphone or monitor ROI without having to battle through masses of information.
Trackmaven.com – this tool focuses on content engagement, particularly in comparison to competitors. The second there is a change to any data, a copy of the report will automatically be sent to specified users.
Rival IQ – using social media and SEO analytics, Rival IQ uses competitor data to offer greater insight into content performance and the audience you are and should be targeting. Reports can be customized and are automated with the option to schedule download and sending.
SimpleReach – this content creator and distributor uses competitor data to form and place the content that will positively impact your ROI. This is one of the priciest tools on the market but can be worth the investment, especially for those who do not have the time or resource to dedicate to content marketing efforts.
SEMrush – keyword performance of yours and your competitors’ business in order to produce relevant content. Keyword performance can be monitored on an on-going basis as the content campaign takes hold and begins to have an impact on key term positions. This can be an area of inclusion in pre-prepared reports.
HitWise – your content needs to be visible to the target audience and ensuring its placement has a strong traffic figure is half the battle. HitWise monitors the weekly traffic figures a site generates, and this can be the deciding factor in whether this placement is suitable. Visible content will have a positive impact on overall site performance and traffic figures. This can also be a great KPI to set against your content campaign to ensure objectives are fulfilled.
Social Media Marketing
Social media allows your brand to have a voice, to interact directly with the consumers that you should be engaging with. It has become one of the best ways to identify your audience and to influence their thought processes. With any social media marketing campaign, it is vital that its performance is monitored to ensure your efforts are having the desired impact, and your voice is being heard.
Simplymeasured.com – the free reports monitor the engagement of your brand across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. This is one of the simplest tools to utilize but contains and reports on enough data to be effective in measuring the performance of your social campaign.
Crowd Booster – this tool monitors the size and growth of your audience database which then enables you to step up your efforts in your social campaign. The customizable dashboard looks at current and historical social data with reports that offers recommendations on social posting, content and schedules. Again, the reports are customizable and offer real time views on performance and analytics.
Curalate – integrating with Google Analytics, offers insight into traffic levels from Pinterest and Instagram. You have the ability to find the most popular user images, including these on your site to encourage traffic to remain on the site longer. The biggest draw of this tool is the option of having one reporting dashboard for multiple social and content marketing campaigns, storing all information, stats and facts in one place.
Socialbakers – again, competitor data is the backbone of this tool, with insights into how competitor brands promote their content. Socialbakers offers an ‘executive dashboard’ that allows users to enter all campaigns including CRM, web analytics and sales data for refined and personalized reporting.
Tweriod – this tool only looks at and offers insight into Twitter which can be restrictive for those looking to dominate the world of social media. However, this tool could be a great one for those just starting out, especially as it is FREE and relatively simply to use. Notifications are sent via email or Direct Message as soon as a report is ready to view and if any significant changes to your campaign take place.
HootSuite – this is by far one of the most recognized and effective tools for monitoring your Social Media campaign. The business plans offer different levels of features depending on your needs and capabilities. With their own social analytics readily available, reports are more informative, and it is therefore easier to highlight strengths and weaknesses within your campaign. View your reports using any medium, whether desktop or mobile to stay in touch with your campaign.
Affiliate Marketing
Designed to increase customer base and, most importantly, sales, the premise of affiliate marketing is to encourage other brands to sell your products and services whilst increasing the awareness of your brand. Due to the financial cost of affiliate marketing, it is vital to ensure this is the right avenue for you and your business, and to do so, monitoring your efforts is crucial.
Click Meter – this is one of the most affordable tools to support an affiliate marketing campaign, a necessity for those with a smaller business or restricted marketing budgets. You are able to receive daily reports that include your brand logo and are created with a specific time zone, currency, and language. The report offers a breakdown of each aspect of campaign and is sent directly to your email account.
Link Trust – this has a customer portal and log-ins for each employee. The real time reports are kept current to the millisecond, offering the strongest collection of data possible to ensure your marketing campaign stays on track. Setting the data and figures you need to see makes reporting and monitoring simple.
Impact Radius – the mobile app makes tracking campaign performance straightforward and easy to do from wherever you are. Tracking the impact on your online advertising can mean the difference between a positive ROI and a wasted expenditure.
Hit Path – the multi-channel tracker offers real time reports and prides itself on presenting informed, accurate data. Again, this tool has a mobile app for campaign monitoring.
Improvely – focusing on conversion rates, Improvely sends you email and audio notifications, so you are constantly kept up to date on the campaign’s performance. Looking at organic analytics to breakdown the traffic that is being driven to your site, you are able to explore and identify the best method to increase the right traffic.
Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting is one of the most effective forms of marketing, keeping your brand front and center. Online sales are increased, and brand awareness remains at a steady level. Each time your retargeting ad pops up, your brand gains traffic and recognition, but how do you monitor this?
Google AdWords (GA) – due to the fact AdWords and GA tie in so well with each other, AdWords is one of the best ways of setting up and monitoring a retargeting campaign whilst GA can accurately monitor the performance, identifying the number of users that have made a return visit to the site thanks to the targeted ads.
Rocket Fuel – with a programmatic marketing platform, Rocket Fuel allows you to manage the data stemming from on-going marketing campaigns to allow analysis to happen in one place.
SEO
The purpose of SEO is to make sure that your site is fit for purpose, is discoverable by the audience, is created to suit their needs, and to ensure the user experience is strong enough that they convert and make repeat visits to the site. SEO goes beyond just traffic figures; you need to ensure your site is in prime position to fight off the competition and that the all-around campaign is effective to fulfill KPIs and long-term objectives.
Google Analytics – whether you want to review the performance of your content, the traffic that is being driven to your site or the suitability of your social campaign, GA can offer an insight into any aspect of your site’s performance. Although reports are not automated, you can use this data to inform another, tailor-made report, which can be as detailed as needed.
Moz – regularly reviewing your site’s analytics is important, and Moz offers weekly reports highlighting potential on-site issues, the performance of rankings and overall site positioning to ensure you are constantly in tune with your performance in SEO.
SEO Monitor – not only can you measure organic performance with SEO monitor, but you are able to generate predictions on how your site’s performance will grow and identify opportunities for future campaigns. The reporting tool allows you to monitor traffic levels, keyword tracking and site errors.
Takeaways
- Pick a tool that is cost effective and in line with your budget to ensure your marketing budget is allocated in the right places
- Keep up to date with performance by having notifications and updates sent to your smartphone
- Customize your reports and dashboards to reduce the time you are having to spend on formatting
- Admit defeat – if a marketing campaign is not working for you, then admit it and pull the plug, moving your efforts and your budget to a more suitable area
- Do your research, and find a tool that is going to show you the data you want and need to see
- Never write off a marketing form as being ‘out of date;’ you never know, it could be the perfect way to target your demographic
