Maximizing your Digital "R"s
1. Metrics: Close the loop.
Easily the biggest hurdle in tying back spend to revenue is the ability, or lack thereof, to track and assign proper attribution to your marketing efforts. Make sure you have the infrastructure in place to accurately track ad serves, impressions, engagements, clicks, visits and so on all the way through to conversion. Whichever analytics platform you are using, test it thoroughly to ensure the numbers you report are complete and accurate.
Cost-effective Site Metrics and Tools: Google Analytics w/Adometry
2. Timing: Know thy Season.
Whether you're in B2B or B2C ... or B2B2C... understand what it is that drives the peaks and valleys in your total revenue. In industries where sales have longer lead times (such as Financial Services, Life Insurance, etc...) it would be a misstep to time your campaigns to coincide with the apparent revenue seasonality. Conversely, where the research to conversion timeframe is short, marketing efforts should see a more immediate response.
Bottom line: Know when to begin your marketing efforts to put your sales team in the best position to take advantage of the seasonality in terms of consideration. When are common times for consumers to look at your products? Some product seasonality is easy to forecast - such as umbrellas in Autumn. Catalysts for Financial Services, however, may be less obvious. Tax time, back-to-school planning, etc.
3. Retargeting/Remessaging: Follow thy Customer.
Not to be creepy or anything, but you should know enough about your customers to target them where they shop online. Define audience segments so that when your visitors leave your site to surf the web, the cookie you've undoubtedly placed notifies retargeting platforms to serve specific ads based on the specific pages they visited on your website.
According to CMO.com: Retargeting can boost ad response up to 400 percent.
4. Personalize: Establish the Connection.
Deliver every one of your website visitors a tailored and personalized content experience. Again, though, avoid the creep-factor. Present a customized welcome message, welcome-back message for repeat visitors, most relevant call-to-action and the ever-popular "you may also like" module is always a big hit with consumers.
Things to consider ~
Do: Customize your landing page to present meaningful information and next steps to your visitors.
Don't: Let on you know their name, age, date-of-birth, address and what they ate for dinner last night (although you probably do. Thank you, Facebook!)
5. Socialize: Customers Make the Best Sales Force.
Not all "likes" are created equal. But a positive word from a happy customer goes a long way towards building your brand equity. How to do this? Deliver a service, webinar, social after-hours event... for free. Bring your customers into the fold and treat them as partners in your business and they will turn loose on the social networks singing your praises - and driving net-new prospects in the door. This creates a ripple-effect, where each new customer interaction triggers another and another, building up until the impact is something that makes a huge difference.