At Flightpath, an ever-growing percentage of our work involves deployment of business-building paid media campaigns. While all campaigns are different, we’re typically using some combination of display, programmatic, paid social media advertising and paid search (SEM). The one constant is the creation of a smart measurement plan that helps us understand the effectiveness of our campaign.
When we set about to create a measurement plan, we start by identifying our campaign audience – who are we trying to reach and why? Then, we map out the following:
Objectives
- Identify the business objectives
- Why does your campaign (or website) exist?
- Think of acquisition, behavior and outcomes
Goals
- Identify goals for each objective
- Requires critical thinking from management, marketers and analysts
- Specific strategies we’ll leverage to accomplish the business objectives
- Conversion goals are always of utmost importance and can range from an ecommerce transaction to a video view
KPIs
- Identify the KPIs
- Those metrics that help us understand how we’re doing against our objectives
Measurable Metrics
- The specific metrics that will be monitored through the tools we utilize.
Targets
- Targets are numerical values you’ve pre-determined as indicators of success or failure.
- An absolutely critical step.
Segments
- Identify valuable segments for analysis.
- A group of people, their sources, onsite behavior, and outcomes.
Once all of these items have been identified and all the pieces are put in place, we kick things off. Every campaign requires a test and learn phase before we can ramp up spend and maximize conversions. It’s important that expectations are clearly shared between client and agency.
Reporting is typically delivered on a monthly basis along with quarterly and annual reviews, though in many cases, such as acquisition campaigns, weekly reports are necessary – but the measurement plan remains our north star throughout.