Signs It’s Time to Re-Evaluate Your Digital Marketing Campaigns

Nov 17, 2015 | Sales + Training

Even in this era of on-demand everything, ROI for digital marketing campaigns often takes time to become apparent: Forbes estimates it takes at least 90 days for a pay-per-click campaign to fully take hold. But how do you know when your efforts aren’t simply slow to grow — they’re just falling flat?

If you’re wondering whether your digital marketing campaign is on the right track, look for signs.

 

You’re Seeing No Engagement

Slow growth is one thing, but if your Facebook posts are netting zero likes or shares, you are probably doing something wrong. These engagement issues can be a product of a number of things, some of which include:

  • The content isn’t aligning with your audience
  • Targeting that has been selected for the particular campaign is either too broad or too narrow to reach the desired customer.
  • You need to invest more ad money to boost its range
  • You’ve chosen the wrong channels to reach your customer

All press is decidedly not good press, and if a social media campaign is drawing lots of internet ire, it’s time to re-evaluate the tone and temperature. Pivoting can be a daunting process, but there are ways of testing the waters in order to ensure a smooth transition.

The negative feedback that you are receiving is not necessarily due to your lack of effort, or the customer not enjoying what you are providing, it is often a product of narrow-mindedness, you’re too close to it. A proven and highly recommended way of determining the right message and tone to deliver can be found in testing and analysis. One of these efforts include competitor analysis; look at what the competition is doing, see why their customer (your customer) is aligning with their message, what channels are seeing the most engagement, and define the psychographic of the customer. Once you’ve completed this, re-define the personas that you have been reaching to attract. Then, test, analyze and repeat. Engagement doesn’t just happen, a community must be fostered and nurtured, you can’t expect to build it and have them come, it takes a group effort. Use those insights developed through the competitor analysis, communicate with the people you want to buy your product, and feed them with hearty content that is enticing and engaging.

 

You’re Unable To Maintain The Campaign

Sure, starting a blog sounded like a great idea… until three weeks in, you realized there’s no one around to keep it up. Unless you’ve deputized someone to truly own your campaign, to tend to it and grow it, you’re going to find it’s hard to keep up. What do you do if your campaign is showing one (or more) of these signs? It’s simple. Reconsider your efforts, and what you’re hoping to achieve.

The first question to ask is: Are you spending your ad money correctly? If the answer is that you’re not spending any ad money at all, you should definitely reconsider. Though merit and great content alone can drive lead generation, sites like Facebook and Google definitely prioritize those who spend money (even just a little bit).

 

You’re Asking the Wrong Questions

Next, it’s time to tailor your purchases. For example, if you’re utilizing the Google Search Network it might be time to consider which keywords you’re going after. Are you looking for highly-searched (but extremely broad) keywords, or more niche, long-tail words that will pay off if you can dominate them in the long run? Are your groupings inefficient? These are questions worth asking.

If your campaign is drawing negative feedback, seeing zero engagement, or netting the wrong kind of leads, it might be time to re-evaluate your strategy — and consider directing your investments in a different way.