Back in the day, tracking how many people interacted with your ad was nearly impossible. Advertisers would pump millions into TV and print ads and hope that they could increase sales of the advertised product. There was no accurate way to determine how many people saw the ad and made a purchase because of it.
A lot has changed since then, and no longer do you have to blindly hope that your ads get results. You can now accurately find out how many people engaged with your ads using ad tracking solutions.
So, let’s dive into what ad tracking is and how you can use it to meet your marketing goals.
But first, what is ad tracking?
Ad tracking is the process of measuring online advertising campaign performance. Digital advertising is a large part of how businesses build brand awareness, and as such, you must be able to track your campaigns appropriately to determine their effectiveness. You can use ad tracking to measure your return on investment and track how your ad expenditure translates to increased sales.
You will gain countless granular data points from your paid search advertising campaign, making it easy to see how your advertising efforts impact your company’s fortunes in almost real-time. While pre-internet marketers struggled with having no data to back their ad campaigns, modern marketers have more than enough data. They must devote a lot of time to extract the most valuable trends and insights using data analytics.
Ad tracking has made it easy to measure the effectiveness of your ad campaigns, test new campaigns, and revise existing ones in response to the data you’ve collected from your tracking tools. Setting up ad tracking is more complex than it seems, but you can make it a valuable part of your growth marketing strategy with the right tips and techniques.
There are several methods for tracking ads, and it’s up to you to decide which ones are appropriate for your goals. They include:
Tracking URLs
This is probably the simplest form of ad tracking. A tracking URL is just a standard URL with a tracking token. When a user clicks the link, you will receive a report stating where the click originated. Tracking URLs are incredibly useful in tracking the success of multiple ad channels used in the same campaign.
Tracking pixels
A tracking pixel is a tiny 1×1 image space you can add to an email, landing page, or display ad. The pixel sends a report to your tracking tool when it loads to notify you that a recipient has viewed the page.
Tracking pixels also collect comprehensive user data based on their web activity. This will help you gain valuable insights into the customer’s buying journey and relationship with your brand. However, you should use them conservatively and only track data that will help you provide your customers with a superior brand experience.
Cookies
Cookies are temporary files that help advertisers gain valuable insights about the visitors to their websites. Almost every website uses them to learn about their visitors, but marketers need explicit consent from their users before using cookies to track user activity. Once permission is given, marketers can use cookies to customize the user experience.
Advertisers use cookies to build a user’s profile based on their web habits and activities. Cookies capture information about your visitor’s browser configuration, preferred language, and location, making it easy for you to target them with the right offers. They are also ideal when you need to retarget users based on the products they have demonstrated an interest in.
What are the benefits of ad tracking?
Here are 5 reasons why ad tracking is fantastic for your growth marketing efforts.
Better audience data
Ad tracking provides your team with immense insights about your target audiences;
- Interests
- Behaviors
- Motivations
- And more
If you’re not tracking your ads, you miss out on valuable insights that can shape your campaign. Instead, you will be creating and running campaigns you ‘think’ will resonate with your target users. While this approach can work with a brand-new campaign, it isn’t sustainable in the long term. You will want to start a campaign and use data from your tracking tools to refine your messaging and targeting.
Customized content
Ad tracking will also help you send customized content and offers to your target users. Google operates AdSense, a platform that allows you to display ads next to your online content.
This information gives you a better idea about the type of adverts users want to see. You can use this information to create customized content your audience will happily engage with. This will result in more clicks and conversions as people visit your website to examine your offers in great detail.
More qualified leads
Ad tracking is crucial to gain more qualified leads for your next campaign. Tracking software collects valuable customer data you can use to create profiles for your ideal customers. This information is helpful for every marketer since it gives the characteristics of the people you will target when running a campaign.
Such qualified leads have a higher chance of converting since they have everything you’re looking for in a customer. The leads will be more receptive to your messaging and offers, and you will not have to do much work to move them down the sales funnel.
More conversions
Highly qualified leads convert at a higher rate because your offers make sense to them. The leads were probably looking for your products, and your ad showed up at the right moment. Such people will be happy to engage your ad, visit your website and even schedule a call to talk to one of your marketers.
Ad tracking also helps you retarget users who have interacted with your online assets and left without completing an action. Such people may need a little more convincing, and ad tracking allows you to follow them as they browse the web and remind them about your unique products. This increases your chances of earning more conversions, which generates a better ROI for your business.
Make it easy to optimize your campaigns
Tracking your campaigns across multiple channels helps you understand what’s working and isn’t. Ad tracking lets you know the channels generating the most leads and the ad designs that appeal to your target users.
You will use this information to optimize your campaigns and stretch your ad budget to maximize your return on investment. Work with a growth marketing agency to run A/B tests on different elements for effective campaign optimization.
You will learn more about using data to improve your campaigns in our blog, Big Data Analytics: How to Find Hidden Opportunities.
Ad tracking can deliver many benefits for your next campaign, irrespective of the number of channels you intend to have. It will help you understand your audience better and serve their needs more accurately.
Want to get the best results? The team at Growth Marketing Genie can help. We will hook you up with the best ad tracking strategies for effective campaign management.
Struggling to reach the right people with your ads? Take a look at our digital advertising strategies to improve your targeting.
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