The Power of Tracking: How to Boost Your Marketing Results

You Can't Improve What You Don't Measure

In today's fast-paced digital world, businesses must constantly adapt and improve their marketing strategies to stay competitive. However, you can't improve what you don't track. If you don't know which campaigns or channels are driving the most traffic, leads, or sales, you're essentially shooting in the dark.

Tracking your marketing efforts helps you identify what's working and what's not, so you can optimize your campaigns accordingly. By analyzing your data, you can uncover hidden trends, patterns, and insights that can help you make more informed decisions.

Moreover, tracking allows you to save time and money by avoiding ineffective strategies. Instead of wasting resources on campaigns that don't work, you can focus on the ones that deliver the best ROI. This can make a huge difference in your bottom line, especially if you're working with limited budgets.

In addition, tracking your results is essential for demonstrating your success to others, whether it's your boss, your team, or your clients. By showing tangible results, you can build trust and credibility, and get buy-in for your future campaigns.

In short, tracking your marketing efforts is crucial for improving your results, saving money, and demonstrating your success. In the next section, we'll explore what you should be tracking and how to set KPIs.

Key Metrics to Track for Marketing Success

Once you understand the importance of tracking, the next question becomes: what should you track? The answer lies in identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) that are directly related to the success of your company.

Primary KPIs are those that represent your main objective, such as pipeline or revenue. Secondary KPIs roll up to the primary ones and can include metrics like leads, opportunities, cost per lead (CPL), cost per click (CPC), and more.

It's essential to clearly identify your KPIs, give them a target, and establish a benchmark. This will enable you to track your progress and make data-driven decisions to optimize your marketing campaigns. Without KPIs, you won't have a clear sense of what is working and what isn't.

For instance, let's say your primary KPI is revenue. If you don't track your secondary KPIs, such as leads or CPL, you won't know which channels are generating the most leads or which campaigns have the lowest CPL. By tracking these metrics, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize your campaigns for better results.

Tracking Frequency and Format: Finding the Right Balance

Now that we have identified the KPIs, it is important to determine how often to track them and in what format. Tracking daily might seem like a good idea, but most indicators do not change drastically day to day, and it does not give your activities enough time to show results. Waiting for a full month, on the other hand, might be too late to make adjustments.

Weekly tracking is the sweet spot - it provides enough time for results to show and enough frequency to make adjustments before it's too late. The importance of visual review cannot be overstated. Visual charts are great for a quick and easy look, but data tables provide more information and are essential for deeper analysis.

Burn up charts are a great way to track progress over time, and they make it easy to spot within seconds if your progress is good or not. Make sure to have graphics that are easily readable and can give you a clear understanding of your progress. Remember, you want to be able to track your results effectively and quickly to make any necessary changes.

Progress Isn't Linear: Why You Need to Adjust for Seasonality

When tracking your marketing results, it's essential to understand that progress is rarely linear. Business operations are subject to various external factors such as holidays, trade shows, and training events that can affect productivity. Some weeks may be more productive than others, which is why it's crucial to take linearity into account when estimating progress.

By acknowledging the lack of linearity in business, you can make more accurate projections and plan for periods of slower growth. You can also avoid making assumptions about your results that could lead to underperformance and incorrect projections.

For instance, if your marketing campaign has produced 50 leads in week one, 60 leads in week two, and only 40 leads in week three, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that the campaign is losing momentum. However, this could be a result of external factors that impacted the productivity of the week three. Without taking into account the non-linearity of the business, it's easy to get discouraged and change the direction of the campaign, even though it's still on track.

By acknowledging the importance of linearity, you can create a more realistic picture of your progress and better estimate your future performance. This will help you make more informed decisions about your marketing strategy and adjust your expectations based on actual results. 

Looking Ahead: The Importance of Projections in Marketing

As the saying goes, "failing to plan is planning to fail." In the marketing world, this couldn't be more true. To be successful, you need to have a clear idea of where you're headed and how you plan to get there. That's why projections are so important. 

Projections are estimates of where you'll end up at the end of a certain period, based on your current progress. They can be incredibly helpful in terms of planning and forecasting, and they're especially useful for demonstrating to others that you're in control of your business. 

Of course, projections are never perfect. No one can predict the future with 100% accuracy. But by taking into account your own insights, experience, knowledge, and historic data, you can get a pretty good idea of where you're headed. And the closer you get to the end of the period, the more accurate your projections will be.

When you have a clear idea of where you're headed, it's much easier to make adjustments and course correct along the way. You can identify potential roadblocks and plan for how to overcome them. And if you do end up falling short of your projections, you can take a step back and figure out what went wrong, so you can make improvements going forward.

Projections can also be incredibly helpful when it comes to communicating with others in your organization. If you're able to show that you have a clear idea of where you're headed and how you plan to get there, it can instill confidence in your team and your leadership. It shows that you're in control and that you have a plan for success. 

The Four Elements of Effective Marketing Tracking

To make tracking as simple and effective as possible, it is recommended to focus on the four key elements that matter the most: current result, target as of today, total target for the quarter, and projection. By regularly updating these elements and reviewing them on a weekly basis, you will be able to quickly and visually assess whether you are on track or lagging behind in reaching your goals.

The first element, the current result, is the most straightforward one. It shows you where you currently stand in relation to your targets. The second element, the target as of today, is the objective that you should have achieved already, based on your preset linearity. It takes into account the time that has already passed since the start of the period and is adjusted accordingly.

The third element, the total target for the quarter, is the overall goal that you are aiming to achieve. It gives you a clear picture of what you are striving for and serves as a reference point for your progress. Finally, the fourth element, the projection, is your estimate of where you will end up at the end of the quarter. It allows you to make informed decisions and adjust your strategy as needed.

By tracking these four key elements and reviewing them regularly, you will be able to identify trends and patterns, spot potential issues early on, and make necessary adjustments to ensure that you stay on track to meet your targets. 

Using a Template: Simplify Your Tracking Process

Now that you understand the importance of tracking your marketing efforts and the key elements to keep an eye on, you may wonder how to effectively do it. Tracking progress can be tedious and time-consuming, especially if you don't have the right tools. However, you don't need fancy and expensive software to track your results.

Instead, using a well-designed template can allow you to track your progress easily without much effort. You can find templates in various formats, including spreadsheets, apps, or even paper-based methods.

The key is to choose a template that suits your needs, one that enables you to track your vital signs for progress, including visuals, linearity, projections, and burn-up charts. The ideal template should be user-friendly and provide a clear overview of your marketing performance.

There are plenty of templates available online, but be careful when choosing one. Avoid complex templates that are difficult to understand or require too much manual data entry. The template you select should be straightforward, easy to use, and customizable.

To save you time and effort, I have selected the perfect template that can be downloaded and used immediately to track your marketing vital signs. This template includes all the essential elements discussed in this article, such as visuals, linearity, projections, and burn-up charts, to help you simplify your tracking process and stay on top of your marketing performance.

Julien Rio.