Closing the Loop. Why Tying Efforts to Outcomes Matters

Over the years I have witnessed many companies’ take on how to report online marketing efforts. What sticks out to me most is often that lack of tying online marketing programs directly to successful outcome. Looking at only the first half of the loop can lead a marketer down the path of wasted time and effort.

Why is this concept so important. Consider the following.

Your company sends out an email newsletter to 1,000 recipients. Let’s assume the value of a conversion remains constant.

Campaign 1: Open Rate: 50% or 500 opens. Unique click through rate: 25% or 125 clicks. Conversion rate of 10% or 12.5 conversions.

Campaign 2: Open Rate: 45% or 450 opens. Unique click through rate: 15% or 67.5 clicks. Conversion rate of 25% or 16.87 conversions.

In campaign 1 your open and click rates are better. If you didn’t track all the way through to a conversion it may seem as thought what you did in campaign 1 was successful. Naturally time and effort would be spent moving in that direction.

In reality campaign 2 had a much higher conversion rate and resulted in 35% more conversions. Even though the open and click rates were lower the program was more successful. Perhaps in campaign 2 the clicks were much more qualified and therefore converted at a much better rate.

Double check your reporting efforts today. Dig through the data and if you find you aren’t tying a direct outcome to the program it may be time to re-think what you are doing, and how you are doing it.