Successful marketing requires proper campaign setup. You need to have all of the pieces in line before you attempt any new strategy.
Divining Point is a veteran-owned business. As such, we view campaign setup the same way you’d approach a military mission. We know the importance of preparing for success well before the campaign begins. Proper campaign setup for any marketing effort is about more than flipping a switch and hoping for the best. You have to lay the groundwork with a precision that maximizes your investment and sets you up for victory.
You’d be surprised how many business owners push back on the campaign setup portion of any scope. It comes from a vast misunderstanding about how campaigns work. From our experience, this pushback comes from companies who cavil over costs but expect immediate sales from their agency partners.
Think about it like this: you’re spending money on marketing, don’t you want the greatest ROI possible?
We’d bet dollars to donuts the answer is Yes.
If so, then why wouldn’t you spend money on a thorough campaign setup that yields the best results and the most actionable data possible?
Using a military analogy, here’s how each phase of a strong campaign setup mirrors the steps of a successful mission – and how you make money in the long run.
Defining the Objective: Clarifying Success Metrics
In the field, every mission has a clear objective. In marketing, this translates to defining success metrics before you launch. Do you want more leads? Higher online sales? Better engagement? When you define your goals from the start, you can build a campaign tailored to those outcomes.
A clear objective helps you make informed decisions, track performance, and evaluate results, so you’re not just measuring clicks or impressions but real impact.
As marketing partners, we do our best to not only understand your objectives, but why they’re important. For example, higher sales is a fine goal. But what will the increased revenue mean for your company’s long term success?
There may be ways to not only increase your sales in one segment, we may also help you increase the total purchase size for each sale. We may even help you discover entirely new revenue streams you could generate without very much investment or change in operations.
Intelligence Gathering: Researching the Terrain
Before you start any mission, you need intel. In marketing, this means gathering data. This information shapes your entire campaign, guiding you toward where to focus your resources and how to differentiate your brand. Skip the research, and you’re shooting in the dark.
Research takes time. Plain and simple.
Many agencies claim to know everything about your industry vertical. They’ll boldly rush in armed with assumptions and expect a predetermined outcome. They fail to survey the landscape to identify threats and opportunities. It should come as no surprise when they don’t deliver results.
At Divining Point, we take a different approach. We are a strategic marketing partner, emphasis on “strategic” and “partner”.
We use best practices from beginning to end backed by a strategy to accomplish your objectives. When you win, we win, because when your business is growing you’ll continue to work with us. That’s why we take time to do a deep dive into the data BEFORE we ever launch a campaign.
Here are the important data points you should fully understand as you set up a campaign.
Target Audience
Who are you trying to reach? The demographics, behaviors, and interests will define how you tailor ad copy, creative elements, and targeting options.
Targeting
Similar to Target Audience, this is the “where” and “when” that defines how you distribute your messaging or advertising to your Target Audience.
Competitor Analysis
This can provide insight into effective strategies, gaps in the market, and potential pitfalls, helping you position your campaign more strategically.
Keyword Research
For Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), this is paramount. You need to know the keywords your audience uses when they search for your goods and services.
Establishing a Strong Base: Setting Up Your Website for Success
Imagine launching a mission with no base of operations. Your website is the ultimate marketing tool in your strategy. Even if your objective is to make the phone ring, your website acts as an online storefront that helps buyers understand more about your company and your products and services.
You should ensure that your website is set up for success with strong landing pages, optimized load times, mobile responsiveness, and clear calls-to-action. Your website is the headquarters of your campaign; without a solid foundation, even the best campaign will struggle to convert visitors into leads or customers.
All too often we find websites with poor User Experience (UX) and no clear funnels to drive conversions. Furthermore, the messaging and design do not adequately convey your Unique Value Proposition nor make the argument for why someone should buy from you.
A thorough campaign setup process allows us to help you help yourself. We identify weaknesses with your website and make changes before investing in any additional marketing tactics.
Monitoring Movements: Setting Up Conversion Tracking
In a tactical operation, real-time intel is crucial. Conversion tracking is your campaign’s real-time feedback loop, showing exactly how users interact with your site and when they take desired actions.
By setting up tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or CRM integrations, you know which parts of the campaign are working and where adjustments are needed. Conversion tracking helps you capture those moments of success, letting you pivot as needed.
We take this a step further. Each conversion signifies an important piece of data that can be used to make informed decisions for the future. It can even be automatically fed into other marketing services to optimize campaigns in real time.
By setting up conversion tracking, you can learn which acquisition source and which campaigns are actually generating the sales you want. That can help you make improvements to under performing marketing campaigns and double down on successful ones.
Deploying Surveillance: Setting Up Data Tools for Continuous Insight
A successful campaign requires ongoing data analysis, just as a mission needs surveillance. Data tools are your eyes in the field – keeping watch on key performance indicators, demographics, session times, and more.
Setting up these tools from the start allows you to optimize in real time, make adjustments, and ensure you’re always one step ahead of your objectives. Neglect this step, and you risk losing valuable insights that could steer the campaign to victory.
At Divining Point, we set up custom data tracking tools that allow us to measure success in real time at a glance. This allows us to see campaign performance in one place instead of having to open up multiple tools and cross analyze data in various places. This gives us the ability to respond quickly to changes as they happen.
Final Orders: Why It Pays to Invest in Proper Campaign Setup
Launching a campaign without proper setup is like going into the field without a plan. Every dollar you spend on setup is an investment in long-term success, helping you avoid costly missteps, monitor progress effectively, and capitalize on every opportunity.
With the right preparation, your campaign won’t just survive – it will thrive.
At Divining Point, we treat campaign setup as a crucial part of every marketing mission, and we’re here to ensure you start with everything in place for a clear path to success. Want to learn more about campaign setup and marketing? Get in touch. We’re here to help.