How to measure cross-channel performance

Tracking your marketing performance is the key to knowing what’s working (or not) by finding out how visitors are interacting with different channels and touch points. From there, you can determine how to better allocate marketing resources to priority channels, as well as optimize campaigns.

In this blog, we discuss why cross-channel reporting is important to your business, how to measure your performance across different channels and a step-by-step guide on how to do this effectively.

Cross-channel reporting refers to the process of tracking and analysing performance data across multiple marketing channels, such as email, social media, SEO and PPC.

The goal of cross-channel reporting is to gain a holistic understanding of how these different channels interact with each other and contribute to overall business performance. This can include metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, and revenue generated. Cross-channel reporting can help businesses optimize their marketing strategy and allocate resources more effectively.

As marketers, we’re all striving to make our marketing efforts more efficient and successful and cross-channel reporting can support this in a number of ways. Here’s five reasons why it’s important to a business:

By tracking performance data across multiple channels, businesses can gain a more complete understanding of how their marketing efforts are impacting their overall performance. This can help identify which channels are driving the most conversions and revenue, and where to focus future efforts.

Understanding which channels are working and which aren’t can help you optimize future campaigns for better performance. For example, if social media is driving a lot of website traffic but not many conversions, businesses can adjust their social media strategy to focus on driving more qualified leads.

Once you’ve identified which channels are driving the most conversions and revenue, businesses can make more informed decisions about where to allocate resources. This can lead to more efficient use of marketing budgets and better overall ROI.

Having a holistic view of performance can help businesses identify attribution problems, which is when a conversion is attributed to the wrong channel. This can happen when a customer clicks on a paid search ad and then converts on a different channel, like social media. By identifying these problems, businesses can adjust their attribution models to ensure that conversions are attributed to the correct channel.

Personalization is a key element of modern marketing, part cross-channel reporting allows businesses to personalize their marketing efforts by understanding the customer’s preferences, behaviour, and engagement across multiple channels.

Measuring cross-channel performance can be accomplished by tracking and analysing data from multiple sources, such as:

Use web analytics tools like Google Analytics to track website traffic, bounce rates, and conversion rates. These tools can also track referral sources, which can help identify which channels are driving the most traffic to a website.

Use marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot, SendinBlue and Marketo to track email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.

Use social media analytics tools such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Buffer to track engagement, reach, and conversion rates on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Use tools like Google Ads and Bing Ads to track performance data for paid search campaigns.

Once you have collected and analysed data from these different sources, you can use it to gain a holistic understanding of how theses different channels are impacting overall performance. This can help you identify which channels are driving the most conversions and revenue, and where to focus future efforts.

With multiple channels at play, it can be challenging to track and analyze the impact each one has on your overall strategy. However, by taking a structured approach and utilizing the right tools, you can gain valuable insights into your cross-channel performance and make informed decisions to drive better results. This step-by-step guide will walk you through the process of measuring your cross-channel performance, including setting goals, tracking metrics, and analyzing data.

Determine which metrics are most important for measuring performance across different channels. Common KPIs include website traffic, conversion rates, and revenue generated.

Use the tools listed above such as web analytics, marketing automation, social media analytics, paid search and CRM to track performance data for each channel. Make sure to set up tracking for all relevant channels and ensure that data is being collected and stored correctly.

Begin collecting data for each channel. This will typically involve setting up tracking codes and tags, connecting to API’s and setting up integrations.

Use the collected data to analyze performance across different channels. Look for patterns and trends in the data, such as which channels are driving the most conversions and revenue.

Use business intelligence tools to create reports that visualize the data and make it easy to understand. Use these reports to identify which channels are performing well and which are not.

If possible, use cross-channel attribution models to identify any attribution problems. This can happen when a conversion is attributed to the wrong channel.

Based on the data and insights gained from the analysis, optimize your campaigns for better performance. This may involve adjusting targeting, messaging, or budget allocation for different channels.

Repeat the process on regular basis, it will allow you to track performance over time and make data-driven decisions that will help you optimize your marketing strategy.

By following these tips, you can effectively track your cross-channel marketing performance which will help you optimize future campaigns and allocate more resources. For access to further reporting tips or if you’d like to save tonnes of reporting time, better predict how your ad spend will perform and have a clear view of your ad performance, book a 15-minute demo with one of the BOSCO™ Team.