IS MY BUSINESS ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN EFFECTIVE?

Advertising expenses as opposed to returns are sometimes very difficult to quantify. If you own a small or mid-size business quantifying your return on investment when it comes to advertising is very important. If you track customers, you will want to measure how many new customers are buying your products or services every month and how much are they spending on average. Keeping track of profit margins is also important to see if any incentives you may be offering in your ads is adding to your bottom line.

Depending on the ad campaign and its goals you would want to measure its effectiveness between a 30–180-day period. Below are some basic ways to measure the effectiveness of any advertising campaign.

• Sales: Has there been a noticeable increase in sales since the start of the campaign? Can the sales increase be correlated with ads or are there other factors driving the increase, economy, seasonal, etc.
• Profitability: Has profitability increased or decreased with new sales? Are sales or incentives offered adding or eating into profits? What is the actual return of your ad spend for the campaign?
• Closing or Sales Ratios: Maybe you are seeing that the increased traffic but its not equating to an increase in sales. In that case you have take a closer look at your product, the incentives or pricing being offered or at your presentation and sales strategies.

Branding and getting your businesses name out are important, but just as important is tracking your advertising expenditures and your profitability in relation to your expenditures on your ads. Advertising like any other expense has to be quantified and measured to determine its effectiveness.

I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions or need more information or clarification, please email me at emiliano@darkhorsestrategies.org