Prove Your Ad Campaigns Are Driving Meaningful Impact

The age-old advertising conundrum: How do I know if my campaigns are actually generating revenue for my organization?

In a previous blog, we discuss the importance of building an advertising strategy on the foundation of clearly defined goals and a deep understanding of the demographics, habits and behaviors of your target audience. Campaign success can be measured by KPIs, such as number of impressions, clicks to your website and effective cost-per-click rates. For example, a high number of impressions is valuable in increasing brand awareness among your audiences and an increase in website traffic indicates success in creating engaging ads with a clear call-to-action to encourage high click-throughs. But, in order to take these metrics a step further to determine how your advertising efforts might be affecting your bottom line, consider implementing attribution parameters and conversion tracking tools into your tactical mix.

Attribution

• Vanity URLs – a unique and branded alternative web address meant to be simple and easy to remember. When used right, you can track website traffic from offline channels, such as direct mail, radio, TV or even outdoor. When someone searches the vanity URL, they will be automatically redirected to the desired landing page and you can track this behavior in Google Analytics, attributing it to the specific offline channel.
• UTM codes – essential in any digital ad campaign, UTM codes can be assigned to each individual ad to track clicks and website behavior. UTM codes are comprised of several fields added to the end of a URL, such as source, medium, campaign name, term and content. So, for example, you could create a UTM code for a Facebook ad that might look like this: https://transcend-strategy.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=reframe-connect-grow&utm_content=carousel.

When drilling down into Google Analytics, you can discern which website users came directly from this Facebook carousel ad with the title “Reframe Connect Grow.”

Conversion

• Call tracking – useful for both online and offline channels, call tracking tools allow you to create a unique phone number to include on a print ad, a paid search text ad or any other format. You could even configure your website to dynamically change the phone number displayed based on where the traffic is coming from. Establish unique phone numbers for each of your campaigns to determine which tactics are generating calls. Calls of a certain length – for example, 60 seconds or more – can be counted as a conversion.
• Conversion IDs – install scripts or pixels on your website for specific campaigns to count a conversion when someone clicks on an ad, visits the website and fills out a contact form. Google, Facebook and other platforms have unique, specific pixels you can simply pick up and install on your site to differentiate Google search conversions from Facebook ads conversions.

Calculating ROI

Download the data from both call tracking and website forms to cross reference with your admissions data to determine if those contacts resulted in a patient admission. If so, you can calculate how many days said patient was on your service, multiply it by the Medicare daily reimbursement rate, giving you a direct return on your advertising investment. Voila!

Analyze and gather insights

Setting up attribution parameters and conversion tracking for your campaigns will only be useful if you can monitor and analyze the data. Consider utilizing Google’s suite of free tools, including Google Analytics, where the data is stored, and Google Data Studio, where you can customize different views and reports for easier insights gathering.

If you want to prove your advertising campaigns are making an impact, contributing to calls, and ultimately, admissions, we are here to help! Email us at erin@transcend-strategy.com.