How to Measure Marketing Campaign Effectiveness: Metrics and Trends

A thorough marketing campaign tracking strategy is an essential part of any successful campaign — as important as planning and executing its content. These best practices empower marketers to effectively measure each campaign’s impact and understand how to optimize their strategies. 

1. Set Clear Goals: Campaign ideation and content creation must align with overarching goals. To begin a successful campaign, marketers must clearly define their objectives and the timeframe for achieving them, using OKRs (objectives and key results) on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. This approach will help maintain campaign momentum and track its progress.
2. Include Specific KPIs: Comprehensive details about the campaign’s KPIs help the entire marketing team understand the steps they need to take to achieve their goals. Instead of a general KPI like “Increase website traffic,” a more specific and detailed objective might be, “Increase organic website traffic by 20% and referral traffic by 15% within the next six months.” This specific KPI outlines the focus areas and growth targets for different traffic sources, allowing teams to align their strategies accordingly.
3. Set Up Tracking Tools Before Launching a Campaign: Without advance preparation and testing, marketers may not be able to track the metrics they need to understand their campaign’s impact. It’s important to set up and test tracking tools before launching any campaign. 
4. Try A/B Testing: Slow and steady A/B testing in the beginning of a campaign can help marketers understand what they need to succeed. Testing and tracking different variations of ad creative, copy, or even target audiences can reveal a more effective marketing formula. 
5. Consider Outside Influences: Marketing metrics may vary due to outside factors that aren’t related to a campaign, such as a major product announcement or PR push. It’s important to consider these outliers when interpreting  data to optimize a campaign. If there are any unusual numbers, marketers should consider the full picture before making conclusions about their campaign. 
6. Be Patient: Success takes time, especially when it comes to marketing. It could take weeks or even months to see the results of a campaign. If metrics appear to be stagnant for an extended period after launch, the campaign may just be building momentum before taking off.
7. Create a Marketing Measurement Template: Once marketers have determined the best metrics to track their campaign’s goals, they should create a comprehensive template that includes all the KPIs they plan to track and assess. Smartsheet’s marketing campaign management template set enables seamless campaign measurement by managing, tracking, and visualizing marketing campaign data all in one place. 
8. Build a Retargeting Campaign: People often need more than one marketing touchpoint to sway their decision. A retargeting ad campaign aims to reach users who have previously visited a website or engaged with specific content. They’re highly effective at pushing these “warm” leads further down the marketing funnel, maximizing the chances of converting them into loyal customers and achieving higher return on ad spend.