5 steps to take when your marketing campaign isn’t working

Oct. 1, 2018

This paid piece is sponsored by Click Rain.

By Amanda Chaon, senior digital media strategist

One of the most challenging, yet rewarding, components of digital media planning and buying is campaign optimization. Considering the variety of digital platforms and their differing capabilities, it can be hard to know which lever to pull when trying to improve performance.

If your media isn’t driving the results you had hoped to see, whether that be online sales, in-store visits, email sign-ups or white paper downloads, here are five steps you can take to ensure your campaigns are performing at the highest level possible.

Step one: Be patient.

How long has your campaign been in market? As a media strategist, it is tough not to incessantly check performance the moment your campaign goes live. While we all hope to see an immediate impact to a campaign, digital media typically thrives on time and data. It’s OK — and encouraged — to monitor performance on a regular basis but give your campaigns a few weeks before making any dramatic decisions.

Step two: Review the financial aspects of your media campaign.

Are you bidding enough on your campaign to ensure visibility in the marketplace? Digital media buying is increasingly more competitive, so it is important that your bids balance both cost and visibility.

Another important consideration is overall spend. Could you be spending too much? While you want to make sure to have a solid presence, you do not want to drive excessive frequency. On the flip side, make sure that you are spending enough to reach your audience effectively. This is especially important as it relates to geography, as budget can really fluctuate here.

Step three: Ensure you are reaching the right audience.

If you are confident in who your audience is, make sure that your targeting reflects this. If you have customer data and permission to use it, layer this into your campaign. Using this data to create both custom and lookalike audiences can help to improve overall campaign performance.

If you aren’t sure who your audience is, leverage the data you do have. Take a look at the organic, new users who are visiting your site. Where are they coming from? What pages of your site were they interested in? And better yet, are they converting?

Step four: Review your creative.

Include multiple creative versions in your campaigns and see how your audience is resonating. The testing options here are endless: alternative images, headlines and even formats of ads. If your campaign has been running a long time, a creative refresh may be needed to avoid ad fatigue or “banner blindness.”

Step five: Make sure you’re tracking the right things.

Is the goal of your media campaign clear and measurable? All optimizations should ladder up to that overarching goal. If your main focus is brand awareness, optimize tactics that are going to drive a high click-through rate, boosting traffic to your website.  If the goal is lead generation, know that those who actually convert could look different from those who simply clicked on your ad; therefore, a different optimization approach might be warranted.

While the nuts and bolts of most media campaigns are universal, the optimizations made to each should be unique and relevant to the campaign at hand. Establish a cadence of check-ins, make relevant tweaks, and watch your campaign evolve.

Still not seeing the results you’re hoping for? We love helping clients plan, optimize and report on campaigns to drive business. Visit our website for information.

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5 steps to take when your marketing campaign isn’t working

If your digital media campaign isn’t driving the results you had hoped to see, here are five steps you can take to ensure your efforts are performing at the highest level possible.

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