Recently, a client asked us for help in calculating the ROI on their SocialToaster campaigns. No problem, we thought. In any long-term marketing initiative, there should be times where the marketer sits down with the numbers and figures out what’s working, what isn’t, and what she can optimize. And that’s exactly what was needed here.
There was catch, though. The client hadn’t set up Google Analytics to segment traffic generated from SocialToaster. As you might know, if you don’t take the steps needed to segment traffic from specific sources, a lot of traffic gets dumped into the “Other” category. Not very helpful, is it? Luckily, the fix will only took us about 5 minutes. Here’s how we did it, and how you can, too (if you’re using Google Analytics):
- In the menu, click on Conversions, and then click on Top Conversion Paths or Assisted Conversion report
- Click Channel Groupings as the Primary Dimension, and select Create a custom Channel Grouping.
- Enter a name for the channel grouping.
- Click Define a new channel for each label you want to appear in your reports. To group all SocialToaster traffic, create a rule that filters all traffic except where Source = SocialToaster.
- Click the Done button to save the channel definition.
- When you have finished adding rules, click the Save button.
Simple, right? Now that’s analytics is configured, it’s easier to focus on what’s important: Tracking the right metrics.
There are obvious metrics that most companies want to monitor, such as bounce rates, time on site, number of pages per session, and clicks on links that were shared by Superfans (people who have signed up through your SocialToaster campaign). These metrics will tell you if your SocialToaster campaign is engaging your audience, which is the first step towards creating a vibrant, vocal and vigorous community. Without engagement, you’re talking into the wind.
But there’s a whole world of secondary metrics that should be tracked. These should focus on goal conversions. That could mean people completing a contact form on your site or completing a purchase (if you’re an ecommerce site, for example).
These are clearly the most valuable people to visit your site, and now that you’ve created a separate channel in your analytics (if you haven’t done this yet, go back to the top and reread!), you can examine their behaviors and optimize for them. You can see what types of content is driving the most engagement, and subsequently conversions, from SocialToaster. You can see that traffic generated from content you send at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday stays on your site longer than traffic sent on Sunday night at 7 p.m., but content sent on Thursday at 11:36 a.m. converts the most, even though they spend less time on your site.
These are just a few examples of some helpful data nuggets that you’ll be able to uncover. Moreover, you can track over time how these metrics shift and change, and you can optimize what content you promote through SocialToaster and when to send it, and that data won’t get jumbled up with any other data.
So, what did we find once the client’s analytics were configured? Well, we found that Facebook content was converting almost twice as well as any other network, but that Instagram had the highest engagement (the most shares, likes and comments). Taking this data, we were able to help the client better formulate a plan to optimize Facebook content and boost conversions even more.
Want to see more examples of how SocialToaster can supercharge your marketing? Contact us and we’ll show you!