How to brief digital marketing agencies efficiently?
The territory of online marketing – especially PPC advertising, where we only pay for the clicks or website conversions – is generally known as highly measurable and – under given circumstances – a very cost-effective marketing channel. It is a good choice for small and medium-sized enterprises with limited advertising budgets, but it can also work well as a new performance-based advertising channel for big multinational companies.
As any other marketing activity, the digital marketing channel can deliver results only if we are aware of our main business goal and define main KPI-sp roperly. We should also provide all the relevant and essential information to our digital marketing agency in order to create and execute fruitable marketing activities that bring good return-on-investment.
Step 1.: To determine our situation in the market and the main campaign goal
In order to get the best complex online marketing campaign, we need to provide the marketing agency with the most relevant and accurate information. We have to answer the following questions:
- What is our current market situation? Are we a start-up, in a growth phase or maybe a market leader, a well-known company?
- What kind of market are we operating in? What are the main characteristics and specifications of this market?
- Who are our main competitors? What do we offer better, and what sets us apart from our competitors?
- Who is the target group of our product/service?
- Which are the main features of our product/service? Is it a low-category, medium-priced or premium product? How do we position ourselves on the market in terms of price, quality and value for money?
- What are the main campaign goals, are we seeking quantity or quality results?
- What will be the landing page of our campaign, does it exist already or will we develop it now and can we rely on the agency’s help?
- What are we looking for in the agency’s offer, exactly? What tasks will we be doing internally or with an existing partner and what tasks do we expect from the agency to do? (Webmasters tasks: adding metrics, creating or modifying landing pages; design tasks: creating graphic banners and youtube video; setting up the Google Analytics measurement and managing the advertising campaigns.)
Step 2.: To define the main campaign KPI-s
As a second step we need to determine exactly how we will measure the results of our campaign and based on what we will decide if the campaign was successful or not.
- How will we measure the results? (online analytics system, e.g.: Google Analytics)
- What will be the key performance indicator for the campaign success? (e.g.: number of purchases, number of requests for quotes, quality of leads.)
- In what case will we consider the campaign successful, if at least what results we achieve? (e.g.: number of leads, number of product purchases)
- What value does represent one unit of conversion (lead/purchase) for us, what is the average conversion value?
- At what maximum cost per unit is it worth for us to achieve one unit of result, maximum CPA -cost per action- (e.g.: lead / quote, purchase).
- What is the optimal return on investment of our campaign (ROAS – Advertising Revenue/Advertising Cost)
Step 3.: To appoint the appropriate campaign landing page and the main messages
If we are aware of our market position, our main campaign goals and the main key business indicators and we defined the right metrics, then as Step 3 we have to think about the landing page and the key message of our campaign. Let ask ourselves the following questions:
- If we will use the existing landing page, is it really suitable for the campaign (in terms of usability, conversion efficiency)?
- If there will be a new landing page, do we need advice or help from the marketing agency to create that? ( e.g.: landing page structure, landing page design, landing page development)
- What will we measure?
- What will be the main message of our campaign, the main arguments to reach the target audience?
To sum up
In this article we described in detail that – as an advertiser – what questions we need to ask ourselves in order to provide our online marketing agency with the right information during the planning phase of an online marketing campaign. We can only rely on the agency if we have a clear view of our market position, our USP-s, a clear and realistic campaign goal and how we will measure the success of our campaign.
In the case of digital marketing campaigns and also generally in the business world it is true that we have to work not along pink dreams but realities, facts and data. Without a clear and realistic view of our goals, weaknesses and strengths, no external consultant can help us to reach our business goals.
(As a customer we need to do our homework ourselves in order to enable our agency specializing in online marketing to effectively help us achieve our goals.)
Remember that the landing page and the digital ads work together to achieve our campaign goals. If our landing page is not effective, even the most professional campaign can not deliver the results that we expect.
The online marketing campaign is not a silver bullet! Our other shortcomings (such as the lack of market knowledge, realistic expectations, and lack of a down-to-earth campaign target) cannot be remedied solely with the right and realistic funds will a well-measurable, effective and cost-effective advertising channel.