How to Measure your Online Marketing Efforts

Recently I was reading about click-thru rates of webpage ads and it hit me.

The web people are wrong.

The way to measure has not changed in the past 100+ years. (Even though the Internet is only 40 years old.)

The web people say that measuring your online marketing efforts is easy. All the data is available. Real Numbers, not estimates.

Traditional Media can give you estimates of who is seeing your ad with traffic counts for Billboard exposure, Nielsen ratings for Television shows, Arbitron ratings for Radio stations, Circulation numbers for Print, etc.

But all of these measurements are designed to measure who is watching, hearing, seeing, or reading the advertising medium, not the results that each business receives.

The real measure of the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing is results. Is your company doing better than it was last year? Or perhaps the question might be is your company gaining market share compared to your competitors?

Unless there is only ONE way for people to hear about your business, then all advertising analysis are flawed. And when you consider word of mouth along with advertising, you'll see that there is always more than ONE way for people to hear about you.

So, when I first talk to a client, I want to know all of the methods and medias they are using to spread the word about what they are doing. This includes paid advertising, and free efforts.

Next I want to make sure we are presenting a consistent message in all areas.

Can you measure the results of any marketing efforts accurately? Not really. At least not in the manner that the medias are trying to sell to you.