Defining success online

How do online marketers define success? With a variety of objectives that can be achieved as well as even more data and metrics available than any other medium, it is imperative that the following three processes are in place if online marketing success is to be measured effectively.

By Andrea Mitchell

28 Mar 2006

Objectives

Without clear and agreed objectives set upfront, creative and copy execution will in all likelihood not call for the response you are aiming to achieve, media planning becomes directionless and the technology is not put in place to effectively manage, enhance and measure the set objectives:

Who is the target audience?

What would you like them to do in response to your offer?

What are you doing to help them achieve this?

Technology

With objectives clearly set, the technology should be put in place to gather only the information that will be of immediate value - objective achievement.

Too much data can detract from the focus of the objective, whilst too little will not provide sufficient data to measure whether the objectives are being met.

The tech is secondary to the strategy as only the objective can dictate the requirements of the tech.

Closing the Loop

With clear objectives set, the necessary technology in place to manage and track the process, the next most important step, is interpretation of the data. This interpretation then needs to be used to fine-tune the campaign.

With clear objectives in mind and an insight into whether these objectives are being reached, results can be improved by tweaking of creative, media placement, offer or even the marketer's website, based on response throughout the course of the campaign.

With these three processes firmly in place, the definition of success becomes quantifiable: are objectives being met?

About Andrea Mitchell

Andrea Mitchell of Andrea Mitchell Online Strategist, www.onlinestrategist.co.za has been actively involved in the local and international online market since 1997 and has worked with large key global companies on both local and international online marketing strategies.