Effectively measure conversions and ROI for your clients

I’m always astonished when I ask agencies how they measure the performance of their client demand generation and I’m told they don’t, or it’s a simplistic method such as just counting how many leads they get.

An agencies raison d’etre is to run profitable campaigns for clients. Building up trust over time means giving clients the ability to accurately measure how your campaigns have turned into revenue for them.

The last B2B Content Marketing report from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs stated that 87 percent of B2B marketers use analytics tools to manage content marketing, but only 35 percent say they measure the ROI from it.

They’re spending money they don’t have to. Agencies aren’t fully proving their worth to clients and no-one is realising as much revenue as they could be. The old phrase of “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” applies here. The same report says that over 50% of marketers think their marketing efforts are “moderately successful” – including those coming from agency side. But how do you prove this?

With so much data available, there really is no excuse to do things on a hunch. Data driven marketing provides massive advantages over competitors.

There are three main reasons why marketers don’t always use all the data available to them:

  1. there’s no formal justification needed from management,
  2. need an easier way to do it
  3. they don’t know how to

If you want to stand out from other agencies, then getting clients to adopt a data driven approach is a great way to do it. You’ll drive more conversions and sales as a result. And in doing so, you can grow your billings. As news of your honest, open and successful approach spreads, you’ll increase your client base too.

Help drive the formal need for measurement

Don’t hide behind a client’s reticence to hold agency marketing to account on ROI. Be bold and take the lead. Tell your clients that you won’t just deliver campaigns, but you’ll show them how they perform with revenue. Hard sales numbers not just how many clicks they’re getting. I’m talking about revenue from all channels – online or offline. Imagine how your next review meeting when you show your client revenue growth as a result. And it’s hard for them to initiate a new agency search or push you on the cost of your retainer when you can prove that your efforts are yielding results.

Make it simple for them

The very fact that you’re partnered with a client means you can shoulder some of the effort and show them how you have a best-in-class way to measure success. If in-house marketers are finding it hard, use your detailed expertise in Google Analytics, Ads and tracking tools such as Mediahawk to create dashboards and actionable intelligence. This should give you actions points to share with your clients that will make them look like marketing heroes in their organisations and keep your relationship strong for years to come.

Take their pain away

And for those client-side marketers who don’t know how to measure the ROI, how refreshing when choosing an agency to meet one who ‘gets it’. Someone whose approach is so refreshingly honest that they’re proving their worth every day. When I get the choice of working with someone who is this open or someone that vaguely promises “more leads, strident campaigns and great creative content” I know who I’d choose.

Mediahawk enables marketers to measure, track and improve their marketing ROI, by showing a complete picture of attribution, regardless of channel. Our referral partner scheme helps you prove your clients ROI – find out more.

About the author - Natalia Selby

Marketing Executive at Mediahawk, with 20 years experience in analytics and content management.