When it comes to digital marketing, tracking your success can be a complicated dance. Even with easy access to all of the analytics (# of click throughs an ad received, # of leads you got from a post, etc.), how can you translate all that information into something you can analyze? And more so, how can you find out if these numbers are actually predicting and reflecting the success of your business?

Just for a moment, let’s focus on our goals outside of a spreadsheet. If your eyes glaze over looking at tables and graphs on your Google Analytics report, have hope. Let’s focus on some concrete steps you can take to set tactical and definitive goals for your digital marketing strategy, identify key successes, and improve your tactics when the data gets overwhelming.

Digital Marketing Terminology

If you are new to the world of digital marketing, you may find an overwhelming number of three letter acronyms such as PPC, AOV, CPA, DID. There are a variety of different metrics and processes available to assist you in measuring your return on investment on a digital campaign – but it can be difficult to make sense of this data. Digital marketing is made up of a variety of categories that are used in conjunction to benefit your online presence. These include (but are not limited to) search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), social media marketing (SMM), and search engine marketing (SEM) – among others.

Look Through A Customer’s Eyes

With so many moving pieces, approach your digital marketing strategy holistically. To get started – we’ll keep it simple. Pretend you are your customer. Perhaps they are on their phone during lunch or grabbing coffee, waiting in the doctor’s office or in a long line at the grocery store – or maybe even possibly opening a real computer at home and doing some research on your product/service. Where do they look? What do they expect or hope to find?

Prioritize Your Goals

As a business owner, what do you hope to provide them? What action do you want them to take? Are they signing up for a newsletter, reaching out to your company after seeing an ad that was relevant to them, or simply purchasing a product based on your social media post? If you are seeking to impact current rather than prospective consumers, analyze your online presence through their eyes. What message are you sending? How is the information shared relevant to the mission of your company?

Look Beyond the Numbers

When it comes to digital marketing, the most important piece of your strategy is just that – a web of intricate details that result in a holistic and well-organized campaign that reaches the customer/client you are looking to attract. Before you narrow in on some pay-per-click ads, identify what measurable result you are hoping to achieve, beyond percentages and pretty graphs. This may sound simplistic, but with so much data at our fingertips, it can be difficult to look beyond the numbers at the actionable goals we want to derive from digital.

Before you even start a conversation about DID targeting, or “boosting” those Facebook ads, make a list of what you hope digital can do for you. Do you want consumers to be aware of a new service you are offering? Or are you looking to attract a different audience, or expand upon your current base? If you were to increase your number of “leads” – what is the outcome? Defining your holistic goals before getting started, will help in measuring how your investment in digital marketing is achieving deliverable results.

Once you have your goals in place, check out part two of this series, where my colleague Pieter will explain how to put your goals into practice and achieve measurable results!

Anna Strickler, Marketing Associate, HighRock