Know What Works Blog

When you decide to renew your advertising, what do you use to make the decision?  Numbers? Gut feeling? Recommendations from others? Cost?  Peer Pressure?  Comfort in that you’ve always done it?  Any thought at all? 

Many marketing and advertising decision makers don’t use any thought at all.  They rely on the information that the sales rep gives them.  And, obviously the sales rep isn’t going to say something negative or against the possible sale. 

Using numbers to verify success from an advertising purchase is the logical way to decide if you should renew.  However, sometimes the numbers don’t tell the truth.  If humans are responsible for entering in the data, and it isn’t cross checked somehow, the numbers won’t be accurate.  That’s when you have to think. 

Here’s the story:

A few years ago, a new client of RedClick’s gave us a report that listed all of the source codes of thousands of calls.  One of the largest codes pulling the most calls was Previous Customer.  Do you see what’s wrong with this picture?  Right!  Previous Customer is not a source code.  It was what the Customer Representative used because the caller was a Previous Customer and it was easier than asking “Where did you get our number today?”  We had it changed in the tracking system, and then we had to change it in the minds of the client’s co-workers.  Now that was the tough part.  It took months of watching and coaching.  Now they understand why it is so important.   

Okay, now suppose it is evaluation time, and I need to renew $100,000 worth of advertising?  I check the reports and see that the ads didn’t get that many calls.  If I didn’t think about it, I would have dropped the advertising.  But when I see that too many calls are going to incorrect codes, I get suspicious.  I need to make the assumption that the call count and revenue totals are understated.  But how do I make the decision to renew the advertising?  All of my tracking efforts are wasted. 

Not all of them.  Figure out the total revenue that was attributed to the advertising, and divide the cost into that.  (Cost/Revenue)  This will give you your cost percentage.  If your goal is 15%, and the percentage is 15% or lower, then you should renew the ad.  If not, negotiate to reduce the renewal cost so that if everything continues as it is, your cost percentage will go down.  If this isn’t possible, look at other data such as where people are coming from, ask the people who talk to the customers, spot check by randomly calling a few customers and asking them.  You can call it a Quality Care Check and ask some follow up questions about their experience while you’re asking about how they got your number.  A mathematical method would be to take the percentage of calls that the renewing ad has.  For example, let’s say that it is 12% of the total.  You could take 12% of the incorrect ad codes and attribute them to calls for the renewing ad. 

Please post your ideas for gaining accurate tracking data.