5 Reasons Your Marketing Agency is Struggling to Measure Its Impact
Ready for your scary stat of the day?
80 percent of marketers struggle to demonstrate the effectiveness of their marketing spending, campaigns, and activities.
How is this possible?
You’ve probably heard the marketing mantra: If you’re not measuring, you’re not marketing.
But let’s be honest. You’re busy trying to complete work for existing clients, reach new clients, and stay on top of marketing trends.
Sometimes measurement doesn’t get the attention it deserves. But if you’re not prioritizing measurement, you’re doing your agency and your clients a huge disservice.
Here are some common reasons agencies struggle to measure their impact (and how to fix them):
1. You’re not making enough time
Time management is an easy problem to have. Luckily, it’s also an easy problem to fix.
When you’re creating a client marketing plan or planning a new marketing campaign, be sure to factor in time for measurement right from the start.
Block off recurring chunks of time to measure and analyze campaign results. For example, if you compile monthly reports for your clients, you should have time set aside within the first couple days of the month to collect data, create presentations on key findings, and identify next steps.
Once the time is blocked off, commit to using it! Even if you face distractions, most things can wait a few hours so stay focused and commit to the schedule you’ve created.
2. You’re not sure what to measure
With the time blocked off, you’re ready to dig into data. Now, where to start?
The metrics you choose to focus on depend on your clients and their specific goals, but the important thing is to move beyond vanity metrics and focus on the results that show clients how you’re affecting their bottom line.
Say you’re trying to increase your clients’ sales with a referral program and you create an email campaign on the clients’ behalf. When it comes time to report on the results, your client will likely be most interested in the number of new customers the campaign received.
Go beyond vanity metrics and identify the metrics that show your real financial impact. This will show your clients that your work is paying for itself!
3. You’re measuring too much at once
One of the best things about digital marketing measurement is there’s no shortage of data available. Tools like Google Analytics can tell you everything from web traffic to visitor demographic to audience behavior.
Email marketing services track opens, clicks, and campaign results. Which metrics should you spend time reporting on?
You don’t have to include every data point— even if they’re positive. Too much data will only confuse you and the client. Stay focused and tell a cohesive story. Show how multiple marketing channels are working together to reach a common goal.
4. You don’t have good benchmarks
What does data mean in a vacuum? To effectively show your impact, you need to give context and compare your data to industry averages.
Especially when you just start working with a client, you probably won’t have a lot of past results to compare to. That’s when you need to go beyond your own work and research industry benchmarks.
If you’ve been working with the client for a while, campaign comparisons are helpful to show clients which campaigns are working best, why, and how you’re going to incorporate these learnings in future results.
5. You’ve set unrealistic expectations
Maybe you have the time and knowledge to measure your results, but you dread doing it because you worry your clients won’t see the results they’re hoping for.
More often than not this is a result of not setting realistic expectations at the start. In this case, your analysis should involve a transparent view of where you are and where results realistically could be at certain points in the future.
Digital marketing efforts like creating an impressive website, building a loyal email list, or developing strong a social media presence, don’t happen overnight.
Focus on small wins and how they get you closer to big gains in the future.
Give measurement the attention it deserves
While measurement might seem like a lot of work upfront, the truth is the time you’ll save by making informed decisions is well worth the effort.
If you’ve been struggling to show your return on investment, it’s likely you’re facing one or more of these snares. Identify the things standing in your way and create a plan to get back on track!
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