Along the creative line, think about the actual ad or e-mail you are
sending. Is this message working for me? Remember that an ad or
message might work well with one audience, but not another; on
one particular Web site, but not another. Microsoft’s Bcentral.com
gives a good analogy: If you are promoting Christmas ornaments,
an ad for a football ornament may do well on a sports Web site,
but not on a religious one. So be sensitive to the need to change
your message if necessary as you change your target audience.
Things to consider when measuring the results of an
electronic event marketing campaign:
■Total traffic
■Number of leads generated
■Percentage of leads converted into registrations/ticket
sales
■Actual ticket sales/RSVPs
■Projected repeat customersWhen deciding what to measure, carefully select the criteria.
While it’s easy to measure the “click-through” traffic, sometimes
that isn’t the best method to follow. For example, if you had a very
catchy event banner ad, you may be getting a high volume of click-
through traffic, which would look like a good investment. But if
these clicks are not generating any action, they might not be
effective.
A good way to decide what to measure is to decide what your
goal is. Are you trying to bring more traffic to your site? Then mea-
sure click-through traffic. Are you trying to get more customers?
Then measure e-mail sign-ups. Are you trying to sell a product?
Then measure sales from an ad or e-mail message.
Banner advertisements tend to lose their effectiveness after a
few weeks on the same site. You may consider alternating a vari-
ety of ads on the same site so viewers do not get bored. Another
method to test may be running two different ads on the exact
same site and then comparing the results to see which was more
effective.
Once you have decided what you want to measure, it is time
to determine which particular marketing campaign was the best
at helping achieve your goal. This is when you would consider
Measuring Success 79