If you’re a marketer, you’ve probably delivered a lackluster campaign report at least once in your career. Maybe your media didn’t deliver the return you were expecting, maybe your campaign just didn’t drive the results you were hoping for, or maybe you saw a general lift in business, but just couldn’t get the metrics you needed to prove it was due to your marketing activities.
When marketers struggle to prove the results of their marketing, the problem usually boils down to this: most marketing tools aren’t built around easily confirming the results that Finance and the C-Suite care about.
Aside from online conversions, which can be skewed by weak attribution, most of the data marketers are forced to use for their reports are media metrics. Likes, Clicks, Impressions, Shares, Engagement Rate, otherwise known as Vanity Metrics.
Obviously, a campaign report breaking down a variety of Vanity Metrics doesn’t answer the biggest questions that your company’s leadership has about marketing activities. Specifically, “How does this contribute to revenue?”
How to Report with Results in Mind
For Finance, it’s not about How you report, it’s about What you report. Media metrics? Don’t waste your time (or theirs). But bottom-line impact, like foot traffic, in-person sales, sales lift, check growth, and market share increase? Report those numbers and everyone’s happy.
Obviously, we know it’s not that simple. The KPIs that truly prove the effectiveness of your campaigns are often the most difficult to measure.
That’s why we do it for you.
GroundTruth offers native foot traffic attribution, proving when your ad convinces someone to take real-world action. Rather than trying to correlate increased clicks and impressions to increased store traffic without concrete proof, why not just prove your ads are driving store traffic?
Same goes with Market Share improvement. GroundTruth offers a Market Share metric that compares your storefront’s foot traffic data with competitors in the area, showing when you’re taking a bigger slice of the pie.
Sale Lift? While this feature is expected to be released soon for all GroundTruth users, some already have access and are using it to great effect in their reports. Duke Cannon and Gary’s QuickSteak, 2 powerhouse CPG brands, have been able to prove the impact of their ads on sales lift using GroundTruth. Soon, you can too.
These are the types of metrics your campaign reports should include. You can (and should!) use media metrics to better understand and fine-tune your campaign, but at the end of the day, your reports need to highlight your contributions to your company’s revenue.
Why Good Reporting Matters
- Marketing is too often seen as a cost center for the business. If you can prove you’re driving real business outcomes, you can transform your entire department into a revenue source.
- How often have you needed just a tiny bit more budget to really turbocharge your campaigns? A report showing how your campaign drove real business results goes a long way in unlocking that for you.
- Your team works hard to build campaigns that help the business. Reporting on Vanity Metrics does a disservice to both you and your team, minimizing your achievements.
- You want your brand to succeed. Finance and the C-suite want your brand to succeed. Reporting the right metrics gets everyone on the same page and working toward the same goals.
Better Reporting Starts Now
Tired of feeling like your campaign retrospectives are wasting everyone’s time? We can help. With GroundTruth, you get easy access to the metrics you need to do a better job driving results and proving it. If you’ve ever felt like your reports aren’t conveying your wins or giving Finance the answers they’re looking for, there’s no better time to get started.
Create your GroundTruth Ads Manager account today, and start exploring our platform (no minimum spend required). And, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.
