Summer School: Part 2 Creating A Measurement Plan

Part 2: Creating A Measurement Plan 

The most common causes of failure in digital marketing campaigns is the lack, or limited structured thought towards clearly defined business objectives and how those business objectives are tied to website or campaign goals. When it comes to a website for example, ask yourself “what do I want the user to do?” - maybe it’s to fill out a contact form, purchase a product or read an article. Your answer to that question will help define your online goals and customize your analytics reporting. Below is a process for developing a measurement plan for your organization with a school example. 

1. Identify Relevant, Executable Business Objectives

Work with senior executives to define the parameters for the work you’re about to undertake, ensuring that each business objective is concise, measurable and easy to understand. Executives should lead the discussion, marketers playing a contributing role at this stage.

 2. Define Website Goals For Business Objectives

Defining specific website goals for each business objective is the next step. This is a collaborative approach between executives and marketers. 

 3. Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) That Will Accurately Evaluate Your Objectives

What actions signify goal success? A PDF download, a phone call, a contact form submission, email promotion sign-up or online purchase are examples of actions we may want users to take. This should be done with a digital or data specialist, if you have one at your organization.

 4. Assess Important Segments

Perhaps there are specific groups of users that you are interested in analyzing. If possible, it’s great to further define who these groups are to get a very specific understanding of their behaviour and outcomes. For example, users by traffic channel if you are investing heavily in YouTube advertising. Or, users from a specific location if you are hoping to drive more traffic from a new market. This is done by a digital data specialist, with input from the marketing team. 

5. Configure Website Tracking

Once KPIs have been outlined, plan which tracking tags are necessary and determine their requirements in order to analyze the right data in Google Analytics. This is done by a digital data specialist. 

A proper measurement plan lets you cut through the vast amount of data available and focus on what is important and measurable for your business objectives.

Missed part 1 of our Summer School Session? Read it here.