One common question that many business owners have is how to evaluate their online advertising effectiveness. Up until fairly recently, it wasn’t too easy to track how well your online ads were doing, not to mention anything about trying to figure out offline advertising results. However, the online techniques have really changed. It’s getting easier and easier to track the progress of your internet marketing advertising and most sites will at least give you the chance to see how many impressions your ad has received and how many people have actually clicked on it.
If you are using Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, the search engines will provide you with relatively sophisticated tracking systems, making it very easy to see which ads are being clicked on and which ones aren’t. More importantly, it shows you which ads are actually converting. Traffic without conversions won’t do you much good.
If you are doing online marketing advertising elsewhere, you can implement your own tracking methods by assigning different values to each of the sites in which your ads are appearing. This way, when and if a customer clicks on your ad, they won’t only be directed to your site but you can then see how they got to your site in the first place. This data can be seen in your web site’s log files, if you are creating redirects, through reports generated by a link program or within your autoresponders, depending on your methods.
One extremely simple way to measure internet advertising effectiveness is to add an unsophisticated referral box right in your site’s shopping cart. Here you can just ask anyone who is making a purchase to answer how they found your site before they complete their order. Many webmasters create a drop-down list which customers can choose from to make the process go by quickly. However, not everyone will enter in the correct information so the data will not be completely reliable.
How do you analyze the information that you’re getting from your tracking methods? If you see that the ratio of impressions to clicks is very low, you’ll at least need to consider making some changes to your ad campaigns. Keep in mind that your ad needs to connect with your target audience and compel them to want to find out more. If you are getting a good amount of clicks, but they aren’t converting, it could mean that your ad didn’t reflect what you are promoting very well.
If you have just started advertising online, make sure to start small and test the waters first. You don’t want to spend a great deal of time and money on an extensive campaign that isn’t bringing in results. Take small steps and learn with each one. Another good idea is to do split testing. For each products or service, create two ads and track which one does better.
Internet Marketing and Online Advertising
The first thing you should do before focusing on advanced internet marketing and online advertising is to give yourself a refresher course on any internet marketing strategies you already use. Use updated materials and sources to see if any new strategies have become available. This is a great start because you can put these to work for you without having to learn entire new methods.
Then turn to books, magazines on internet marketing, and well established websites that are recommended. See what is next in line for you to tackle in your marketing campaign.
There are plenty of options available, so you should be able to sift through them to find one that you are not only comfortable using, but is also relevant to your business. Certain advanced internet marketing methods work better for some businesses than others, so only you can decide which direction you wish to take your marketing efforts.
Don’t Rush, but Move Forward
You don’t have to go racing into new marketing right away if you are doing well at the moment. You can use the opportunity to just learn all you can about the methods you are going to implement next. But you do need to always be learning something and preparing for the next stage of your website and business. This keeps progress and growth from catching you off guard.
If your current internet marketing efforts are based around the same tried and true tactics that seem to be working well, consider adding video marketing or perhaps even social networking to your overall marketing.
It may not be obvious right now, but you are doing yourself a big favor by learning about advanced internet marketing and online advertising new methods. Even if you just research it in your spare time, you will begin to formulate ideas and plans for the future of your business.
