Optimized Marketing

Have you ever looked up at a billboard while driving and wondered why that particular advertiser decided decided on that particular billboard? Probably not. And have you ever wondered how that person knew that was a good way to spend their marketing dollars? Again, probably not. 

Someone put up a counter and counted the cars that pass by on a daily or weekly basis, figured out the average number of people in each of those cars, used some kind of factor to judge if those people saw it, and came up with a number. That number is the number of impressions that a billboard in that particular location gets. Take that number and divide it by the cost of the ad and the rent on the billboard, the cost of putting it up there and you get cost per impression. It works out to pennies or less. But here's the kicker. How do you know how many people walk in your door, or call you about your services because of that billboard? Kind of hard to tell. 

But, what if you could spend your marketing dollars on advertising that was inexpensive, targeted the people who wanted to know about your offering, and you could measure how well it worked. Welcome to the internet. 

Almost everything you do on the internet is measurable. Where someone surfs, how they got there, where they went after they left, how long they were on a page, where their IP address is geographically, and more can be determined by using a tool like Google Analytics. Probably most of you know by now that these tools exist, but there may be a few late adopters who have no knowledge of the kinds of back room workings of the internet business scene.

For instance, you can tell exactly how many people came to your site, and how many clicked through to contact you or buy a product. This is called conversion rate. If you find that one internet campaign is brining in an acceptable number of conversions, don't change a thing. It works. You're good or lucky or both, so don't change a thing. However, if your conversion rate is low you may have to try several iterations of ads or keywords, or a non-internet supplement to your campaign, like a mailer or a radio ad. It's still measurable, because the activity you see on your website will reflect to a degree the effectiveness of your other marketing efforts, thereby making those efforts measurable as well. 

It's great that you can get so many impressions per dollar spent. What's better is knowing the return on those dollars. Sales per dollar spent is a much better metric. If you spent the money on a website, and you don't know what you are getting out of it, then you are throwing your money away.  If you want to know more go here. This stuff is so much fun!