Beyond the click – How to track traditional advertising success
In today’s digital age, we’ve gotten a little spoiled when it comes to tracking advertising performance. If you run a digital ad campaign, any good marketing partner can provide you with all sorts of data. How many people saw your ad? How many clicked? How many made a purchase? All that information (and more!) is available right at your fingertips.
But what about traditional media channels? Without clicks, pixels, and cookies to clue you in to which ads are performing, you might think that there’s no way to know how your traditional ads are performing. But while it’s harder to track than digital, traditional advertising campaigns can still be effectively measured for performance and success. Here’s how you can measure traditional advertising success through a combination of direct and indirect methods.
How to track traditional advertising success directly
#1: Ask!
- Email – Ask your email list where they first heard of you.
- Pop-ups or widgets – Add a pop-up survey to your website. To avoid being too aggressive, consider making it pop up once a user reaches a certain scroll depth to ensure they’re interested. Or to tone things down further, you can have a survey widget on your site that is always there but only expands once the user clicks on it.
- Web form – If there’s a form on your site you want people to fill out, such as to get a quote or join your email list, add a brief question about where they first heard of you. Just make sure to include any traditional channels you may be using.
#2: Create unique trackable metrics
Another tried-and-true direct method is to have unique trackable metrics. This can take the form of:
- Phone numbers – Assign unique phone numbers to each advertising medium you use – one for billboards, one for direct mail, etc. Call tracking software will allow you to keep track of how often each number gets used.
- URLs – Create a unique URL that you only use for traditional advertising methods (or break it down even further and have unique URLs for each traditional channel). This could take the form of “yoursite.com/landingpage,” or you could create an entirely new vanity URL. For example, if you run a moving company, you could get the URL “helpmemove.com” and have it direct to your site. Just remember to keep it short and catchy!
- Email addresses – Unique email addresses are another convenient way to track users. For example, if your main contact email is “info@yoursite.com”, consider using something like “help@yoursite.com” on your traditional campaigns.
- Coupon codes – Create unique coupon codes for each traditional channel you use. For example, if you notice that your print mailer coupon code is getting used a lot and your billboard coupon hardly at all, that will provide valuable insights that could affect how you choose to spend your budget.
- QR codes – Of course, this will work for some ad formats and not others. (You can’t exactly expect someone to scan a QR code while they’re blazing down the highway at 80 miles an hour, and you can’t verbally describe a QR code in a way that benefits radio listeners.) However, for other outdoor media – like posters or bus shelters – QR codes are a great way to bring all the trackability of digital campaigns to the traditional media world.
How to track traditional advertising success indirectly
#3: Measure spikes in website analytics
Simply put, this strategy requires that you track your website analytics against your traditional ad placements. If you’re doing a TV campaign blitz that will air at certain times, check your web traffic stats to see if there’s an uptick in site visits around the airing of your ads.
#4: Monitor Google Trends data
While you’re running traditional campaigns, make sure to keep a close eye on Google Trends data. If you find that more people are searching for (and finding!) your business during times when you’re actively running traditional ad campaigns, you can safely assume that your ads are having the desired effect.
#5: Keep an eye on traffic
If your business is of the in-person, brick-and-mortar variety, an increase in foot traffic is a good indicator that your ads are working. But don’t forget to monitor your digital storefront, too! Keep a close eye on your Google Business Profile analytics and insights. If more people are interacting with your GBP and social media profiles, clearly your brand is effectively getting your name out there. Keep going!
