The Green Sheet Online Edition

March 14, 2011 • Issue 11:03:01

Measuring your ad's ROO

Measuring the effectiveness of your advertising is important but can be challenging. Unless you have sophisticated contact relationship management tools in place, it might be better to evaluate your ad's return on objectives (ROO), rather than return on investment (ROI).

Objectives for an ad can be as simple as getting someone to call for more information about a product, watch a webinar or visit your booth at a tradeshow. Here are steps to help you make sure your ad achieves its intended purpose:

• Create benchmarks: Create simple numeric goals on how many calls, replies or visits you would like to generate. Creating this type of benchmark helps you compare results with future campaigns that have similar characteristics.

• Design "trackability" into the ad: Incorporate content, such as special incentives, that helps distinguish one ad from another, particularly if you have several running at the same time. Also, make sure the way in which you want audience members to respond is clearly highlighted in the ad, whether it is a landing page URL or a dedicated phone line.

• Explore existing tracking mechanisms: Discuss with ad reps what their media offer in terms of tracking capabilities, such as numbers of impressions for online advertising or advertiser response cards for print publications.

• Create your own tracking mechanism: Be ready to collect information that will reveal the source of a call, visit or reply once the responses start coming in. This form will, of course, include the question, Where did you hear about us? But it can also reveal the quality of the lead generated.

• Train staff to use the tracking mechanism: Ensure staff is asking for the referral source information consistently so that you'll get a true reading of how many people are responding to your ad.

Creating objectives for an ad and deciding how you are going to measure whether the objectives are being met should be part of your planning, not an afterthought. This information influences ad design and also helps shape future campaigns.

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