You just launched a brand advocacy campaign, but do you know how to measure its success? A crucial part of any marketing campaign is developing a method for measuring its effectiveness. There are many different metrics you can capture in social media marketing efforts, but when it comes to brand advocacy in particular, there are some key performance indicators that you should be focused on.
There is no one-size-fits-all formula to measuring success, and organizations will have to consider the ultimate goals of a campaign when deciding what KPIs to pay extra attention to. There are also both qualitative and quantitative metrics that can be captured to measure the effectiveness of the campaign. Both are important, but some key metrics to capture include:
- Post engagement: Many social media platforms have analytics built-in to help marketers view the number of likes and shares, as well as who in particular is sharing content. These numbers can provide insight into the types of content, topics, and platforms work the best and drive the most engagement. This can help inform strategy for content creation in the future.
- Web traffic from social media: With most analytics tools, you can monitor visits to the website, and trace them back to their origins. In advocacy marketing campaigns in particular, it is important to note how many people were drawn to the website from social media, as the goal is to generate buzz on social that ultimately drives people to the website to learn more. A recent report stated that social media is the #1 driver of all website referral traffic. Monitoring how these numbers to see if the traffic from social media rises as a result of an advocacy campaign can help in evaluating the effectiveness.
- Website bounce rate: It is helpful to identify if there has been an increase in website visits, but looking at that number alone is not enough. Pay careful attention to the bounce rate, which is the percentage of visitors who exit out of the website from the landing page. High bounce rates are a bad sign, as they indicate that people are clicking on to the website, but not doing any exploration or research within the website. Average bounce rates can vary by industry, so it is helpful to do some research to know what to aim for. If bounce rates are high, you should refocus on the website and how to make it more engaging. If the website does nothing to draw people in, the impact of advocacy campaigns will be greatly diminished.
- Brand mentions: A common goal of advocacy marketing is to increase brand reach. People are more likely to engage with a brand after seeing it mentioned on social media- 54% of Twitter users reported that they have taken action after seeing brand mentions in Tweets. Thus, you should be paying close attention to brand mentions across social media platforms. By tracking hashtags and mentions, you can see who is talking about your brand or organization on social media, and what exactly saying. This provides both quantitative and qualitative information that can inform future strategies and provide insight into people’s opinions about the brand.
These are just a few ways that you can begin to measure the effectiveness of your advocacy campaign. As mentioned, each organization is different, and each advocacy marketing will have different goals. Individual organizations must use their end goals to inform the process of developing a strategy for measuring the success of an advocacy campaign. Companies trying to get increased brand awareness, for example, may pay extra attention to brand mentions. Companies that are focused on driving sales, on the other hand, may pay more attention to indicators like conversion rates and lead generation. Nevertheless, properly measuring the effectiveness of a brand advocacy campaign is crucial, and should not be overlooked.