Ways to Get Excellent Return on Investment on Advertising Spend

Marketing is doing all necessary activities to push products to the customers, generate awareness and increase sales. However, one lingering question in the minds of marketing directors, brand managers, marketing executives etc. is “How can we get an excellent return on the company’s ad spend?” Getting value for money spent determines if more money will be spent.

An effective marketing campaign should influence the profitability of the business. The return on marketing investment is an important performance metric to measure. The outcome determines if the marketing channels need to be changed, alternated or utterly discontinued.

When ads are placed online, the money utilized is a part of the total marketing budget. Narrowing to the digital sphere, these are the ways to ensure that marketing budgets contribute positively to the revenue growth of the business.

1. 1. Targeting and retargeting your audience: Marketers need to thoroughly research and understand their target audience, place priority on them and determine the platforms and channels that can be used to effectively connect with them. Focus on their likes, interests, consumption pattern, devices in the case of mobile marketing and their location. Every platform chosen should be in the interest of the audience. The best channels for the audience should be selected and tested to preview results. Devise clear strategies, estimates and projections to attract customers in that niche and re-attract them based on their history.
   2. Rich Content: A great content can increase brand awareness, improve customer acquisition, retention and sustain brand loyalty. Today, majority of customers are attracted to compelling articles, quality images, and engaging videos. Focus on churning great content that would increase click through rate than posting numerous content that are unappealing to the audience. Contents should also be channel specific as what appeals to a customer on channel A will be different from channel B. The overall aim is to convert prospects into customers with contents that can influence buying decisions.
   3. User Experience: Optimize landing pages and websites to improve web experience for customers. Pages should be seamless and frictionless; checkout process should be easy to navigate and customer service kept at top notch. Never stop updating and improving the user platforms, it should stand out from competitors. Doing this will ensure that customers come back to the site and interact more, thereby increasing conversion rate.
   4. Timing: It is particularly important to know the goal and appropriate duration within which it can be accomplished. Often, other objectives like brand awareness, brand loyalty and customer retention could take months to be established. Seasons, events, trends and duration can affect the responsiveness of the target audience and may positively or negatively affect the success of a marketing campaign. While some campaign may require a short time to be effective, others may require a longer period.
   5. Marketing Methods: Focus on the approach and media channel that has been proven to increase sales because this would result in revenue increase. Identify the appropriate channels before the start of the campaign and develop methods that is channel specific. For a promising marketing campaign, one that will yield excellent returns, there would be an early sign of lead generation and conversions. If this is not the case, be proactive enough to change approach and proffer new strategic insights. Do away with outdated methods and consistently track the campaign performance, making necessary changes and adjustments where needed in order to maximize budget spend.

The goal is to achieve a high return on ad spend as possible. For example, to measure returns on a digital marketing campaign done for the purpose of generating sales for a product; one can focus on the number of individuals who like or comment on the ads online, narrow the numbers to the actual number of individuals who visited the landing page or website and then make a comparison with the number of individuals leaving their details to be contacted or making a contact with the organization’s sales rep. If there is much discrepancy between the three groups, then the campaign methods will not yield returns and it is best to change tactics which could be employing any of the aforementioned key ways. This is because, the fewer number of people who make a contact, the lesser the number of people going to make a purchase which will result in poor returns on ad spend.