All too often when it comes to measuring the success of a Branding Campaign, PPC Managers focus only on clicks and impressions. This is not a very thorough way of viewing the data because it doesn’t take into account the natural behavior of the common internet user.
Most people have very little time to spare in their day. In fact, they have no time to spare. Therefore, the idea that anyone is going to click on a Content Network advert there and then is always going to be very slim indeed. However, if the Branding Campaign is effective, you may well find that the same internet user returns to their computer at a later date and actively seeks your site out from scratch in order to then follow through with a conversion.
Awareness of internet user behavior and activity is exactly the kind of awareness that is needed in order to really understand and create effective Branding Campaigns.
Think about things on the following level…
If an internet user sees your banner advertisement over and over again, during a period long enough to give your brand credibility, they are liable to type your brand name into a search engine browser and perform a brand search in order to relocate what they have seen before. This action (a Brand Search) will show up in your campaign analysis, letting you know that an internet user sought out your website by typing the brand name into a search engine browser.
The internet user is NOT liable to go back to their computer and seek out the page they were looking at previously in order to try and relocate that particular Content Network advertisement so that they can click on that link specifically. This would just seem a rather long way of going about things.
If you can get your Branding Campaign to the stage where your banner and brand name are recognized and remembered, then brand searches and visitors to your website overall are bound to increase.
Some internet users will be so familiar with your brand that they will type your URL into the search engine directly, arriving to your site because of the Branding Campaign’s effectiveness but not by clicking on the advertisement itself.
Internet users might not be clicking on your impressions, but they may be arriving to your site by alternative means like a brand search or a direct URL search. This is one of the principal reasons why it is futile to simply analyze the success of a Branding Campaign based solely on clicks and impressions on the Content Network, or by reach and frequency of the same campaign.
In addition, any basic analysis program will let you see how long an internet user stayed on your site and how many pages they looked at before leaving. These programs will also tell you in which geographical region that internet user was accessing the Internet from.
All three pieces of information are vital for judging the success of your Branding Campaign for the following reasons:
1. If an internet user is staying on your site for a long time, they are interested.
2. Maybe there is a page that every single internet user always looks at before leaving your site. If this is the case, then this page may need some serious reworking.
3. Perhaps there is a page that internet users spend a lot of time on. In this instance, you may wish to make this the page that your branding advertisement links to and the page that includes a call to action so that an internet user can convert.
4. If you are running a Branding Campaign using a video advertisement, for example, in a particular geographical area and your website visits from that area begin to increase, then you know that the Branding Campaign is successful too. Even if the internet users are not actually clicking on the video that you have placed on the Content Network, there has to be a connection between this advertisement and the growth of visits from that geographical reason. This is just logical.
The internet users illustrated in the four ideas above may not be converting on the Content Network by clicking on your Branding Campaign advertisement directly, but something that you are doing through your Branding Campaign is drawing them to your website and this should be measured as a success.
Further ways for measuring the success of a Branding Campaign with more precision include monitoring the changes in the CTR and conversions from your Search Network advertisements. Both are also likely to go up if the Branding Campaign is working well.
When a brand is visible enough on the Internet, it becomes well known; it develops a reputation. With this reputation comes trust and with trust comes a higher chance that an internet user is going to click and maybe even convert at a later date via the Search Network. Therefore, by keeping a keen eye on these figures too, you will be able to really see whether your Branding Campaign is successful or not.
Finally, the best feature or measuring technique that Webrageous Studios wants to highlight in this article about Branding Campaigns is a Google creation called The View-Through Tracking Feature.
This Google feature allows you to see which internet users clicked on your Branding Campaign advertisement and did not convert there and then, but who then did return to your website via another route within the following 30 days. This tool then also shows you which users followed through with a conversion.
It is a fantastic PPC Management tool for analyzing the effectiveness of a Branding Campaign because, as this article has been illustrating from start to finish, Branding Campaigns cannot be judged simply by analyzing reach ad frequency. The efforts and effects of a successful Branding Campaign go far, far deeper than this.
In conclusion, if believing that your Branding Campaign is unsuccessful based on clicks and conversions, reach and frequency… think again… think again and re-read this article. Put the analysis ideas that Webrageous Studios as shared with you in this article into action and avoid making the error of giving up on a Branding Campaign that is in fact working really well for you, without you even realizing it.
