How to Monitor Marketing Campaigns (7 Methods)
Monitor your campaigns in real-time: This is critical for catching issues early, making timely adjustments, and optimizing performance.
Use marketing software to monitor your campaigns: That way, you improve data management, maintain alignment, and increase efficiency across the team.
Focus on the relevant metrics: This ensures efficient use of time, resources, while encouraging marketing and sales alignment.
It's Monday afternoon, and your Director of Marketing has asked you to pull the latest data from your marketing campaign and throw into the Quarterly Business Review deck. But you haven't taken monitoring marketing campaigns serious since you joined three months ago.
You were too busy with onboarding. The horror!
Naturally, no one wants to be in these sort of situations. So, in this piece, I share seven campaign monitoring methods you can set up within a week of taking up your new role. Let’s make sure you crush it at your new job.
What Does It Mean to Monitor Marketing Campaigns?
Monitoring a marketing campaign involves gathering data and using it to analyze campaign performance in real time. Marketers use this information to refine their tactics and stay on track with marketing goals.
Within a marketing strategy, a specific set of data points, known as key performance indicators (KPIs), are outlined to monitor performance. The exact metrics selected as KPIs will vary depending on your goals but often include:
- Conversion rates
- Engagement rates
- Profit margins
Both digital (social media, websites) and traditional (billboards, print ads) marketing channels can be used to track this data. Erik Huberman of Hawke Media says that when monitoring marketing campaigns, “It’s not just about tracking numbers – you need to interpret them.”
Huberman emphasizes that you must investigate what resonates with your audience, understand what drives the best results, and identify areas for improvement. This mindset is the key to maximizing the benefits of campaign monitoring.
Reasons for Monitoring Marketing Campaigns
Monitoring marketing campaigns in real-time reveals a wealth of information for improving current and future campaigns. The key word here is real-time monitoring, as waiting to evaluate performance at the end of a campaign leaves too much room for missed opportunities.
It’s important to invest in tools and software that support real-time data collection so that you can:
- Improve and adjust campaigns with confidence: Consistent monitoring of campaigns ensures peak performance and supports quick, impactful decision-making and adjustments.
- Measure the impact of marketing efforts: Campaign monitoring helps you pinpoint the tactics that work and those that don’t. This information is crucial for optimizing resources, time, and budget.
- Plan for future campaigns: Data from past campaigns can justify larger budgets, define future strategies, and highlight new opportunities.
- Create a more realistic marketing budget: Real-time insights allow for ongoing optimization, effectively allocating resources and delivering the best return possible.
In essence, monitoring marketing campaigns improves campaign performance, increases conversion rates, and promotes greater organizational growth while making marketing efforts more efficient and goal-oriented.
7 Methods to Monitor Marketing Campaigns
To get the most valuable insights on your digital marketing campaign, you’ll need to select a tracking method that best aligns with your goals. As we mentioned above, real-time tracking is best, and there are many ways you can go about this, which we’ll explore next.
1. Take Advantage of Website Analytics
Web analytics tools, like Google Analytics, offer insights into how visitors interact with your site, including how they got there, which landing pages they visit, what they click on, and how long they stay.
To get the most out of web analytics, Suneet Bhatt of ProductLed highlights the importance of tracking your most qualified visitors or those who align with your target audience and are most likely to convert.
“Ignore all the other noise and make this a core metric for your top-of-funnel team,” Bhatt emphasizes.
Other pro tips for website analytics monitoring include:
- Use platforms that align with your marketing objectives and offer detailed insights into visitor behavior. Tools like Google Analytics and SEMrush help break down traffic sources, engagement, and conversion data.
- Leverage UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) tags, which are small snippets of code in URLs that track the source, medium, and campaign that drive traffic to your site. Use URL shortener tools like Rebrandly to set up your specific tags.
- Create segments and filters to highlight the data that matters most. For example, in Google Analytics, you can create segments to focus on specific user groups (like mobile visitors or first-time users).
By monitoring web analytics, you can understand the impact of traffic sources, user engagement, and conversion rates on your marketing campaigns. These insights help you identify where your most qualified visitors come from, how they interact with your content, and which actions drive them toward conversions.
2. Use Data from Your CRM Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, like Hubspot or Salesforce, helps you collect and organize data from the entire customer journey into one centralized hub. This includes purchase history, past interactions, contact information, and demographics.
Pro tips for using CRM data to monitor marketing campaigns:
- Use CRM data to segment customers by demographics or behavior, then personalize content for each group to boost engagement and conversions.
- Use CRM automation to score leads based on their interactions, helping you focus on the most promising prospects.
- Utilize CRM reporting tools to analyze data from multiple sources much faster, including surveys, social media, purchases, and more.
With CRM data, you can track customer interactions, segment audiences, and personalize messaging to improve engagement and conversions. For a deeper dive into which CRM platforms can boost your marketing efforts, check out our review of the best marketing CRM software.
3. Explore Your Ad Networks Conversion Tracking Tools
Most ad networks, like Google Ads, offer built-in conversion tracking tools to monitor your ad campaigns' performance. These tools highlight campaign effectiveness by revealing how well your ads drive specific actions, such as clicks, purchases, or sign-ups.
Pro tips for getting the best out of ad conversion tools:
- Set up conversion tracking before launching campaigns. This provides a comprehensive view of campaign performance and ensures you won’t miss out on any valuable data.
- Continuously A/B test your ads. For example, create two different versions of ad copy to test which drives the best results.
- Monitor and retarget customers who have previously interacted with your ads to drive higher conversion rates from warm leads.
Monitor this conversion data to assess the performance of your ad copy, audience targeting, or overall advertising strategy. This information is invaluable for maximizing return on investment and guiding future marketing initiatives.
4. Set Up Campaign-Specific Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)
Another option is to create custom URLs for specific marketing campaigns with UTM tags or Urchin Tracking Modules. UTM tags are small pieces of text added to the end of a URL that helps track where website traffic is coming from.
For example, by adding a UTM tag to a link in a social media post or email, you can see exactly how many visitors clicked that link. However, avoid overcomplicating your tags.
As Damian Jolley of Forge and Smith explains, “One mistake people commonly make is getting too granular with ‘utm_campaign=’ parameters.” He suggests using the “utm_campaign” tag to separate campaigns and then “utm_content” tags to divide content within broader campaigns.
Other pro tips for using UTM tags and custom URLs include:
- Establish consistent formatting for tracking parameters, such as sources, mediums, and campaigns. For example, always use lowercase letters and choose between underscores or hyphens (utm_source vs. utm-source).
- Apply UTM tags across all channels, including emails, social media posts, paid ads, and any other channels you’re using. This will provide a complete picture of campaign performance.
- Create and monitor UTM tags with the help of tools like Google Campaign Builder or HubSpot Marketing.
UTM tags are essential for marketers who want clear visibility into which campaigns drive traffic and conversions.
5. Build Detailed Marketing Campaign KPI Dashboards
Most marketing automation software presents data and reports within customizable dashboards. These KPI dashboards offer a real-time snapshot of your most important metrics, allowing you to visualize performance and make quick adjustments.
Pro tips for optimizing your KPI dashboards:
- To avoid data overwhelm, focus on the right KPIs and include only the metrics that align with your campaign goals.
- Set up automated reporting to reduce the manual effort required for monitoring performance.
- Create customized dashboards for different teams to provide the most relevant insights for sales, marketing, or leadership teams.
These dashboards provide marketing teams with a quick overview of campaign performance in one central place, allowing them to stay aligned and collaborate more easily to adjust and optimize campaigns.
6. Track Your Social Media Performance
Social media monitoring involves tracking the performance of your social media campaigns across multiple platforms. It is essential for marketers, given that 26% of users leverage social media platforms to research products (Statista, 2023).
It’s best to invest in social media management tools, like Sprout Social, to improve the tracking of key social media metrics, such as engagement, click-through rates (CTR), or cost-per-click (CPC).
Other pro tips for effective social media monitoring include:
- When monitoring organic (unpaid) social content, focus on shares, comments, and clicks to identify what resonates best with your audience and maximize this cost-effective approach.
- When monitoring paid social campaigns, focus on conversion metrics such as CTR and CPC. These metrics can help you determine your return on ad spend (ROAS), another vital metric for monitoring marketing performance.
- Use social media listening tools to monitor brand sentiment and mentions, identify top-performing content, and respond to feedback in real time.
Social media monitoring is key for you to understand how your audience engages with your brand online. By consistently monitoring performance across paid and organic content, your teams can drive improved results from their social media marketing strategies and campaigns.
7. Run Customer Surveys
Customer surveys provide direct feedback from your audience, offering insights into their preferences, pain points, and experiences with your campaigns. Tools like SurveyMonkey or Typeform allow you to collect this valuable information and adjust your strategies based on real customer input.
Surveys can uncover what’s working, what needs improvement, and where new opportunities exist.
Pro tips for getting the best out of customer surveys:
- Keep surveys short and focused. Ask only the most relevant questions to encourage higher response rates.
- Offer incentives, such as discounts or entry into a giveaway, to motivate people to complete your survey.
- Use the insights you gather to make data-driven decisions and enhance your campaigns.
Customer surveys offer invaluable direct feedback from your audience. By acting on this real customer input, you can make data-driven decisions to refine your strategies, address pain points, and uncover new growth opportunities.
How to Start Monitoring Marketing Campaigns
There are many moving pieces when it comes to monitoring marketing campaigns, which can be confusing. Here are the ones I find most important:
1. Define the Key Metrics of Your Marketing Campaign
It’s important to start by aligning your KPIs with the goals of your marketing campaign. Defining clear metrics ensures your teams are aligned and focused on what’s most important, allowing for efficient use of time and resources.
When defining the key metrics for your campaign, be sure to:
- Choose KPIs that reflect campaign objectives best. For example, conversion rates for sales campaigns or engagement rates for brand awareness.
- Create a short list of metrics you’ll track, focusing on critical metrics to maintain clarity and efficiency.
2. Choose Your Marketing Campaign Monitoring Tools
Your next step is to select the right tools for monitoring your campaign. Let the algorithms and automation do the heavy lifting to streamline data collection and analysis. This will save time and improve accuracy.
If you’re shopping around for campaign monitoring tools, be sure to:
- Assess your needs and list key features like predictive analytics, automated reporting, or specific software integrations.
- Consider ease of use and time necessary for full-scale adoption to ensure consistent and timely use by your team.
- Take advantage of free trials or demos to test out and explore your options and gain a deeper understanding of which tools fit your needs.
3. Create Your Monitoring Dashboard
Now that you’ve identified the metrics you’re tracking and the tools to support you, your next step is to create and optimize your KPI dashboard. Dashboards simplify data visualization, making spotting trends and adjusting campaigns easier.
When building your monitoring dashboard, it’s best to:
- Include only the most relevant metrics to keep it clear, focused, and optimized for primary campaign goals.
- Incorporate visual elements like charts or graphs to improve data interpretation and readability of otherwise data-heavy reports.
- Ensure your dashboards are accessible to all relevant team members and create custom dashboards for different teams to improve performance monitoring.
4. Analyze Results, Test, and Optimize
Analysis, testing, and optimization are ongoing aspects of any marketing campaign. Regularly analyzing and testing different strategies allows you to optimize marketing efforts based on tried and tested data.
To build processes for continuous analysis and testing, it’s best to:
- Set consistent times to evaluate performance and adjust strategies accordingly.
- Prioritize A/B testing to test different versions of your content or ads to understand what performs best.
- Use the data you’ve collected to act on insights quickly and make immediate improvements.
Best Practices to Keep In Mind When Monitoring Marketing Campaigns
With your monitoring process coming together, let’s look at best practices for tracking performance. These best practices will prime your marketing team for collaboration, efficiency, and success.
1. Align with the Team on a Project Plan
Project plans outline clear timelines and execution steps for your marketing initiatives, including goals, target audience, budget, and more. They provide strategic direction for your team by setting clear timelines and execution steps.
To craft an effective project plan, it’s essential to:
- Assess your current position with a SWOT analysis, outlining your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
- Set clear, actionable goals using the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound).
- Set aside a dedicated marketing budget and align project expectations with available resources.
Consider investing in project management software, like ClickUp, to improve team organization further and streamline project execution. If you’re currently shopping for a tool, check out our shortlist of the best marketing project management software and what each of them does best.
2. Ensure Your Marketing Goals Align with the Business Goals
Marketers who set clear goals are 377% more successful than their peers (CoSchedule, 2022). Your goals act as your north star, clearly defining what marketing success means to your organization.
For this reason, your marketing goals must be aligned with overall business objectives. Otherwise, you risk misallocating resources, pursuing the wrong initiatives, and creating confusion within your team.
To be sure your marketing goals align with business goals, it’s best to:
- Familiarize yourself with your organization's mission, vision, and strategic objectives.
- Collaborate with key stakeholders, such as executives, department heads, and other teams, to align priorities. Set aside time for regular communication and updates toward shared goals.
- Ensure all team members understand their goals and how their roles contribute to achieving them. This is best outlined in your project plan.
These additional practices will ensure your marketing goals are aligned with your organizational objectives, enhance the impact of your campaigns, and contribute to overall business success.
3. Always Keep the Big Picture in Mind
When monitoring marketing campaigns, it's essential to look beyond individual metrics and consider the broader impact of your efforts. By keeping the big picture in mind, you ensure your campaigns align with your company's mission and long-term goals.
To avoid tunnel vision and remain focused on the bigger picture, it’s best to:
- Regularly revisit initial goals and company objectives to be sure your campaigns continue to support them.
- Connect each campaign’s objectives to business outcomes, like revenue targets or market expansion.
- Communicate with other teams and departments to understand how your marketing efforts impact their initiatives and efforts.
Always align your campaign monitoring with overarching objectives to ensure every effort contributes to your organization's success.
4. Use A/B Testing
A/B testing can reveal slight changes that drive big improvements to your campaign success.
For example, a simple A/B test revealed that Hubspot’s email campaigns generated higher open rates when using a personalized sender name vs. a generic company name. This small change resulted in 131 leads being gained.
Best practices for performing A/B tests include:
- To isolate its impact, only test one variable or element simultaneously between two versions.
- Randomly divide your audience into two groups to ensure unbiased results.
- Use built-in A/B testing tools inside marketing software like Hubspot to keep all testing, analytics, and data in one place.
You might be one minor tweak away from higher conversions, but without the proper tests, you’d never know. Always A/B test your campaigns to monitor their impact and make timely adjustments.
5. Delegate, Delegate. Delegate
As we’ve covered in this guide, campaign monitoring involves numerous tasks, such as analyzing data, tracking KPIs, and continuous reporting. To accomplish all this, it’s necessary to distribute tasks effectively across your team.
Delegating tasks enhances efficiency, promotes accountability and allows for more detailed analysis. In fact, companies run by leaders who effectively delegate grow faster, generate more revenue and create more jobs (Gallup, 2015).
When delegating tasks for campaign monitoring, it’s best to:
- Assign specific monitoring tasks based on individual strengths and expertise.
- Allocate different aspects of campaign monitoring to each team member. For example, social media metrics, email marketing performance, web analytics etc.
- Establish a regular meeting schedule to report on key insights and data. This maintains alignment and collaboration even when tasks are split.
By splitting monitoring duties with your team, you tap into everyone’s expertise and can be sure all eyes are locked on success. This improves efficiency, collaboration and boosts the success of overall marketing efforts.
Ready to Monitor Marketing Campaigns? Yes!
Real-time monitoring is the best way to keep your marketing campaigns on track, successful and aligned with organizational goals. No matter which method you choose, remember these best practices:
- Define the KPIs that best reflect the goals you’re looking to achieve, and create a short list of the most relevant metrics to track.
- Leverage technology as much as possible to simplify tracking and analysis, and provide a centralized hub for all campaign data.
- Outline a project plan to enhance team collaboration and delegate monitoring tasks to team members based on their strengths.
Monitoring marketing campaigns can feel like a lot, but with a strategic process and the right tools you can drive revenue growth, and build stronger, more effective campaigns.
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