How Often Should you Adjust Your Digital Marketing Campaigns?

Are you wondering whether you're spending your money on the right marketing tactics? You're not the only one! At least 14% of small businesses fail due to poor marketing tactics, and another 14% failed because they didn't listen to their customers (which goes hand-in-hand with marketing).   

The problem is that many businesses lack a thorough understanding of the best practices for optimizing their advertising efforts before getting started, especially in digital marketing. Even worse, a solid marketing plan isn't put in place either. Nearly 50% of all small businesses in a survey admitted they didn't have a solid digital marketing plan for the year. Knowing the right tactics ahead of time sets you up for success.  

Fortunately, you can follow these simple steps to identify when, where, and how to optimize your digital campaign.  

Setting Your Campaign up for Success  

Setting goals at the onset of your campaign is key because it can help you track and measure when and where you need to adjust your campaign after it has launched. Research even shows that marketers who set goals are 376% more likely to report success, in addition to 397% more likely to be successful when organized.   

Your goals should be: 

• SMART — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. 

• Matched with your marketing tactics — clearly defined goals should always play a significant role in what marketing tactics you pursue since not all tactics will contribute to the success of your goals.  
• Used to identify your KPI's upfront — ensures all of your performance metrics are on the same page about what tactics will be deemed successful (i.e., click-throughs, purchases, etc.).  

How to Optimize Your Digital Campaign  

Research your target audience 

You should start any campaign or initiative with a clear and thorough understanding of who you're targeting. After all, how could you possibly reach and resonate with the right people if you don't know who the right people are?   

To start, you may do a mix of research that includes: 

• In-house data collection (i.e., surveying existing customers, reading feedback, reviews, etc.). 
• Partner with a research company to source their data. 
• Check-in on the competition (i.e., what is and isn't working for them? What can you use for inspiration and make better?) 

• Work with a media partner to see what analytics they can provide based on your industry specifically. 

Know your stats going in to be able to track your analytics  

Know what you're starting with and where you want to be so you can properly track and measure your results. By having a good understanding of where you're starting, you can make tweaks and adjustments to ensure you're getting where you want to be in your campaign. It’s also important to know what action you’d like your customer to take. How will you be measuring your key performance indicators in your campaign? Click through rates? Phone calls? Purchases? All of these are important to factor in so you can accurately track performance and cater your messaging to the action you’d like the consumer to take.  

Leverage the power of automation  

Automation is quickly becoming the top digital marketing trend to look out for, improving efficiency and limiting errors in many areas of business. Not only does it limit the impact of human error on your bottom line, but it speeds up the marketing process, saving money and time in the meantime. 

More than half of businesses (51%) are already utilizing the potential of marketing automation, with at least 58% of B2B businesses currently preparing to adopt the technology in the coming year.  

Have a creative message that accomplishes the goals of your KPI's 

Your creative is one of the most important components of your digital marketing campaign. Think of it this way: no matter how good you are at getting your ads to the right people, it won't matter if the creative doesn't appeal or resonate with them.  

Consider the goal of your KPIs — i.e., website traffic, sales, awareness, etc. — and craft your creative with that in mind.   

Follow the buyers journey  

The buyers journey tells you where your consumers are in their purchasing decision. While it can sometimes vary, the buyers journey is typically split into these three stages: 

• Awareness — just getting familiar with their problem and the products/services they'll need to resolve it.  
• Consideration — getting to know their options and weighing the pros and cons of all of them. 
• Decision — the customer has chosen you, but it doesn't stop here! Continue marketing to them to create repeat purchases and brand loyalty.  

Use this insight to develop a marketing strategy that reaches and resonates with each customer you interact with. This way, you're appealing to their individual needs in each stage of their buyers journey — adding value to their experience and keeping you top of mind.  

Perfect Timing  

Your goals, the interpretation of the data that is available to you, and your automation tools are critical to understanding when and how often you should adjust your digital campaigns. Knowing your customer's path to purchase and where they are in the buyer's journey is key to getting the results you want. To maximize your potential and results, work with a media partner to determine the perfect timing for your digital marketing campaign.