Do you know the cost of not measuring your marketing?
I see too many business owners pour time and energy into their marketing without measuring the impact of their efforts.
To unpack this, I recently chatted about marketing performance with Brooke Huckerby, a marketing analytics consultant and the founder of Penn & Lytics, on the Brand Chats podcast. Today, Brooke is here to share her insights on making informed decisions, optimising your marketing strategies, and achieving tangible results and returns.
Ready to harness the power of marketing analytics? Let’s dive in!
Do you know the cost of not measuring your marketing?
I liken marketing without data to driving blindfolded. We would never drive blindfolded; how would we see the road ahead? So, similarly, why would we put all of our marketing goodness out to the world without having a clear view of what’s working, and not working?
When we market without the ‘knowing,’ we lack clarity and direction which often results in feelings of overwhelm, confusion, and frustration. This makes marketing, let alone marketing measurement, feel all too hard.
Did you know only 53% of businesses use their marketing data to inform decisions (Gartner)? This highlights a HUGE opportunity for your business to get the upper hand and gain a competitive advantage through your data.
We know there’s value in measuring our marketing, that it provides us with a competitive edge, and we know it’s important, but often the hesitance to get started comes down to the unknown that surrounds data. Not knowing where to start, what metrics to look at, how to use Google Analytics, or how long it will take (there already aren’t enough hours in the day!). So, the default is, that analytics is popped in the too-hard basket, and we tell ourselves we’ll deal with it another day, but the reality is, we never do.
It's easy to avoid marketing analytics and everything that goes into measuring your marketing. As humans, we tend to avoid the things we find hard, instead choosing to bury our heads in the sand when faced with the unknown. We’ve all been there in different capacities, we can all relate!
If you’re nodding along, thinking “I can completely relate to this!” Let’s start with a shift in mindset, and ask yourself, “What’s it costing me to not measure my marketing?” Rather than looking at things like the time it will take to get started, or the effort to get started with measurement, think about all the hidden costs in your current marketing efforts as a result of not measuring.
Let’s look at an example. Consider Emma, who runs a gym. Emma has noticed a decline in class sign-ups and decided to ramp up her digital presence with Facebook ads. She’s invested $300 a month and is spending hours developing engaging content for her audience, and potential new audiences. Despite these efforts, she’s unsure if her campaign is reaching or attracting new members to her studio.
Emma’s ads are effective at driving traffic to her website (awareness stage), and her social media content keeps her audience interested and engaged (consideration stage). However, without strong retargeting and pipeline nurture strategies or segmented email campaigns, she’s missing out on converting the interest generated from her Meta campaign into actual sign-ups.
By not tracking the key metrics along her pipeline, and aligning to her SMART marketing objectives, Emma is less informed about the exact marketing channels, campaigns, and content that is resonating and nurturing her audience through each stage of her buyer’s pipeline. As a result, Emma’s losing potential clients who might have just needed a small nudge to join his classes.
Let’s talk about the high cost of guesswork.
When we play the guesswork game, we’re relying on gut feelings rather than data. Sure, your ads might look great, but are they reaching your audience? Are they driving sales or just gathering likes and shares? Without tracking, you’re in the dark.
So, what are the hidden costs of not measuring your marketing?
Let’s break down the real costs of not tracking your marketing:
1. Wasted ad spend: You’re throwing money at ads without knowing if they’re effective. This is essentially the same as throwing cash out the window. Imagine if you’re targeting the wrong audience entirely, but you have no idea.
2. Missed opportunities: Without insights, it’s difficult to know if your marketing efforts and messaging are reaching and resonating with your target audience, or if there’s a whole opportunity audience you hadn’t considered.
3. Limited growth: Without understanding what’s working, you can’t refine and improve your marketing strategy, leading to limited growth.
It’s important to focus on the metrics that align directly with your business goals and SMART marketing objectives. Ask yourself questions like, “Are people clicking through to my website?” “Are they booking appointments,” or “Are they sending enquiries or making purchases?”
So, how do you start tracking your marketing?
Define clear goals: What do you want to achieve? More sales, higher engagement, increased bookings? Be specific!
Identify key metrics: Determine the metrics that matter most to your goals. This could be click-through rates, conversion rates, average order value, or purchase volume.
Choose the right tools: Use tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager or Looker Studio to gather and analyse your data.
Test, learn, and optimise: Regularly review your data to see what’s working and what’s not. Don’t be afraid to tweak your marketing strategy based on your findings.
When you don’t track your marketing, the knock-on effect is very clear. From lost sales, confusion in your marketing, frustrated potential customers, and wasted time, resources, and money spent. By understanding and utilising your marketing data, you’re able to make informed decisions, optimise your marketing efforts, and see real results, and returns.
Brooke is a marketing analytics strategist & data enthusiast. She started Penn & Lytics to be your marketing analytics partner because she’s passionate about empowering small business owners to unlock the potential within their marketing data.
Together, she helps business owners identify the key metrics that matter most for their business and guides them through how to leverage this data to inform smart decisions and take actionable steps in their marketing efforts. Through this, she empowers business owners to optimise their campaigns, channels and content, understand and better connect with their target audience, to ultimately maximise their return on investment.
You can connect with Brooke over on Instagram.