Black Friday and Cyber Monday are some of the most important landmarks of the year for many businesses, both online and brick and mortar. Retail stores choose to run their biggest sales of the year to capitalize on shoppers getting ready for the holidays. But how do you measure how successful your Black Friday digital campaigns are?
In this month’s Vortex Marketing Blog, we will go over some KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to analyze after the campaign, and how to utilize this data in the future.
How to Set Up Reliable Tracking
First, there are two important tasks that need done to prepare for tracking the performance of any marketing campaign: Google Analytics and URL parameters.
We have covered Google Analytics several times in the Marketing Blog, as it is the most reliable and robust platform to measure user data on your website. You simply need to generate the tracking code and paste it on your website.
URL parameters are tracking data you can append to the end of your URLs that Google Analytics can use to identify incoming traffic. Google has its own Link Builder tool that you can use for free! Simply specify the campaign source (Facebook, for example), medium (which audience you’re targeting with your ads), and the name of the campaign. Then copy and use the URL that it generates as the final URL for your ads, or the links in your email newsletters.
In Google Analytics, when filtering by source, the platform will automatically recognize the URL parameters and allow you to filter and analyze each campaign.
Landing Page Bounce Rate
Most Black Friday campaigns involve email newsletters or ads sending users to a specific landing page, whether that is a custom-made page or simply the product page for the item being advertised. One of the best indicators to look at is the bounce rate for this landing page.
Are many users clicking on your ads, visiting the page, but not purchasing? A high bounce rate is most likely the cause. We have gone over bounce rate in past posts, but essentially, a bounce is when someone visits your website, doesn’t interact with anything, and leaves within 60 seconds.
If you notice your landing pages have a high bounce rate, it might be worth looking into the layout, design, calls to action, and other aspects of the page to see where the funnel is breaking.
User Flow and Exit Pages
Along with the bounce rate for your landing pages, user flow is a great metric to look at. This Google Analytics tool maps out visitors’ paths through your website, showing you what page they landed on, where they exited, and pages they visited in between.
After running a campaign, this is a great tool to use to analyze user journeys through your website. Like bounce rate, you can use this information to determine which pages are losing the most visitors, and put together a plan to help build a stronger marketing funnel in the future.
What Do You Do With This Data?
After your campaign is complete, you can compile data like bounce rate and exit pages and use it to improve future campaigns!
Did you notice that your landing page has a high bounce rate? For your next campaign, take a closer look at how it’s set up, if the text is engaging, what kind of imagery you’re using, and try to improve it where you can.
Are visitors exiting on a certain page more often than others? It might be worth looking into where in the site structure this page is, what purpose it’s serving, or if the layout needs tweaking.
Ultimately, you should be learning from every marketing campaign you run, and build upon your experiences to help each perform better than the last.
Looking for help running your marketing campaigns? Is your website underperforming and you can’t figure out why? Visit Vortex Digital Business Solutions or call us at 319.621.0191 today!
