In the life science tools industry, much of our marketing budget is used for traditional marketing, so many of our campaigns use offline marketing channels. We may not always meet the revenue target for the campaign as our industry goes through a typical buying cycle. There are often promotional budget overruns.

The question here is, should we only look at a revenue target when it comes to determining if a campaign is successful? From a business point of view, YES. But from a marketing point of view, NO.  It’s important to look for other indicators as well (KPIs).

The buying process is generally longer. The lead to sale duration often gets prolonged with process flows and admin formalities. In this scenario, looking at revenue generation as the only success factor for a campaign is often frustrating from a marketer’s point of view. Many times, your campaign KPIs can reveal a lot about your campaign effectiveness.

Important KPIs to look at are

• Traffic to Lead ratio – which says how much traffic landed on your landing page and went ahead to fill the lead form. This determines how attractive your promotion is.
• Landing page conversion rate- A beautiful landing page doesn’t always guarantee conversion. A landing page that does not convert is meaningless. There is room for improvement on the landing page experience if your conversion rate is poor.
• Branded keyword search volume- Branded keywords are the keywords which include a company’s brand name in the search term. An increase in search for branded keywords is a healthy sign for the level of awareness created by your campaign.
• Role of Social Media – Its important to look at social media’s contribution to your campaign success. Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn -which channel is working for you? A good traffic/ lead ratio and conversion rates are healthy indicators for future campaigns.

These KPI analyses will enable marketers to plan more robust campaigns focusing on higher conversion rates and lead generation.

This article discusses how to gain insights from online KPIs that you can use to enhance the impact of offline marketing activities.

For example, I’m marketing a multiplex assay reader at a regional level (let’s say, in India), where I’m running a special campaign to generate leads. I prefer traditional marketing methods to reach my target audiences, so I’m conducting workshops, Be Our Guest (BOG) programs, demo drives, seminar series, ”special offer” pamphlets, direct emails, distribution network, or enlisting direct sales teams to take my promotion to the market.

Here, offline KPIs can be defined as the number of hot leads or the number of quotes that are sent. But there are other valuable KPIs in my website log data —­ traffic increases to specific website pages and other strong indicators to look at that would improve my campaign performance. Let’s take a closer look.

Web analytics

Your website is likely the first asset to be affected once your offline campaign goes live.

Here are several online metrics to review:

• Overall web traffic after the campaign went live
• Traffic specific to the landing page for the product under campaign (the multiplex assay reader)
• Source of traffic to the landing page (direct/email/search/social or referral), location, average time spent on the page, bounce rate.
• Nature of the engagement event (eg, video views, downloads whitepaper, related product views, shares)
• Pages visited — identifies how your traffic engages with your site

In this example of a multiplex assay reader, an increase in website traffic during the campaign period from India indicates that the audience requires more information. And if your offline campaign and website landing pages ask the right questions, you’ll also have an indication of what information is needed.

Getting started with website analytics

Create a custom URL for your campaign 

Don’t use your homepage as the landing page for your promotion. Whether you are launching a new product or running a massive campaign to drive sales, it’s essential to create a custom URL for your campaign. It’s also recommended to keep the URL name simple and interesting.

Benefits:

• You can promote the URL in your offline prints ads
• A simple-yet-interesting URL is easy to remember
• A dedicated landing page enables you to tailor content according to your target audience.
• You can customize the look, call-to-action and user experience

Utilize Google Analytics 

Once you get your custom URL and landing page ready, you can track the traffic on Google Analytics. In this example, you would clearly see the traffic to your landing page during campaign period, session duration (engagement), bounce rate (session closed after viewing only one page), and conversion (filling the lead form). Go to Behavior>Site Content>Landing pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enable Tracking: UTM Tagging , Short URL & QR Codes

One of the simplest methods to track offline campaign performance by using UTM-tagged short URL. “UTM” stands for Urchin Tracking Module which is a simple code attached to a custom URL to track a source, medium, and campaign name.

Google’s URL builder helps you create a UTM-tagged URL which can be tracked on Google Analytics (GA). To simplify the URL, use goo.gl or bit.ly to shorten it. If you use email marketing as your promotion channel UTM tagged URL will help you track channel efficiency and if you use mobile/SMS marketing as a channel, UTM tagged short URLs will help you track. Once you add the UTM tag to your URL, transform it into a QR code and include  the QR code with your promotional materials to help drive traffic to your online assets.

Benefits:

• Simple and direct tracking tactics
• QR tags drive offline traffic to your online assets

To check performance of UTM tagged URL (campaign landing page) on Google Analytics go to Acquisition>Campaigns>All Campaigns

 

Now it’s your turn 

Your web development team or marketing team can help you set up your analytics and develop your landing page. The references and the checklist below will prepare you for the conversation.

• Google Analytics Academy
• How to Use UTM Parameters in Google Analytics 5
• The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics
• The Small Business Guide to Google Analytics
• Landing Page Optimization

Checklist for Tracking Offline Campaigns with Web Analytics

1. Integrate web property with web analytics program
2. Create a customer landing page
3. Enable UTM tags and QR codes
4. Print QR code on promotional materials
5. Analyze traffic on analytics platform
6. Gain insights and improve campaign performance

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Prativa Satpathy

Prativa has over a decade of experience in marketing and business development in life science in healthcare industry. She holds General Management certification from IIM, Bangalore and a Gold Medalist in Masters in Biotechnology. She is known for implementing new ideas in marketing strategies and increasing revenue and profitability.Proven track record with significant YoY growth. She is passionate about Digital Marketing.