Launching campaigns is the first step in the puzzle, but to understand the whole picture, you need to explore your campaign analytics. By harnessing campaign analytics, you gain a panoramic view of your campaign’s performance, identify the high-performing channels, and empower yourself to make data-informed choices to optimize your return on investment. Thankfully, digging into the data couldn’t be easier with Bitly Analytics. Let’s dive in!
What is campaign analytics?
Campaign analytics is a compilation of data gathered from various marketing channels, including email, social media, and paid advertising. Analyzing this data provides marketers with insights into what is effective and what isn’t in their campaigns. The data allows marketers to understand their campaign performance and make data-driven decisions that ultimately lead to a higher return on investment (ROI).
Different types of campaigns
There’s a world of diverse campaigns out there, and the one you pick depends on your unique marketing goals, budget, and a host of other factors. We’ve put together a list of some common options.
Email marketing campaigns
An email campaign typically involves a series of emails sent to a specific group of people with the aim of persuading them to make a purchase or learn more about the brand.
What makes email marketing campaigns valuable is their potential for personalization. You can customize your message based on the demographic data you already have about your audience, ensuring that it resonates with the specific group you’re targeting within your email list. When you’re setting up an email campaign, keep these things in mind:
- Catchy subject line: Your email’s subject line is like a sneak peek of what’s inside. It plays a crucial role in whether your reader decides to open the email or not.
- Keep it simple and straightforward: Avoid getting lost in long, convoluted sentences in your email. Make your message clear and easy to understand. Prioritize clarity over complexity, while also injecting a touch of your creative flair into your copy.
- Relevant call to action: Readers are more likely to click on your call to action (CTA) when they perceive clear benefits, and conversely, less likely to do so when they anticipate effort. To boost click-through rates (CTR), effectively communicate the value and specific benefits readers will gain by clicking the CTA.
Social media campaigns
A social media campaign refers to a company’s strategic use of one or more social media platforms to achieve specific marketing goals. Goals may range from getting more brand awareness to getting more feedback from customers. Here are some points to consider when strategizing for a social media campaign:
- Get crystal clear on your social media campaign goals: Are you looking for more customer engagement or more brand visibility? Defining your goals before your campaign helps you gain clarity and stay on track throughout your campaign.
- Select your most active social media channels: If you’re already getting significant engagement on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, for instance, you have a good idea of where your audience is. Focus your efforts on these channels to reach your target audience.
- Implement a social media calendar: This tool will keep you on track throughout your campaign from start to finish. Automating your posts also helps you stay organized, making sure your content goes live on time.
- Leverage social media management tools: They simplify collaboration for you and your team during content planning and overall campaign management.
Product launch campaigns
A product launch campaign is a collaborative marketing initiative aimed at promoting a product or its features to the market. You have a range of channels at your disposal such as events, content marketing, microsites, and social media.
A product launch campaign plan is divided into three stages: pre-launch, launch, and post-launch. Let’s explore all three:
- Pre-Launch: This is the research and planning stage of the product launch. Although the specific pre-launch steps can vary, they typically include setting goals, conducting market research, allocating budget resources, creating a timeline, refining your messaging, and determining the most effective marketing channels to promote your product.
The main objective of this phase is to ensure thorough preparation for the upcoming launch.
- Launch: The official launch stage is when you put into action all the planning and research you conducted during the pre-launch stage. Think of it as your “lights, camera, action” moment, where your product is introduced to the public.
- Post-launch: During this stage, you’ll evaluate the outcome of your launch. This is the phase where you’ll scrutinize the data and feedback to identify areas for improvement and gain insights into how your target audience responded to your product. It’s a crucial stage for extracting valuable lessons.
Would you like to use a custom landing page to launch your product campaign? Learn how to create an impactful landing page with Bitly Pages to launch your campaign!
Steps to creating valuable marketing campaign analytics
Analyzing campaign analytics can be a daunting task. Here are some factors to consider when planning your campaign and sifting through the data.
1. Establish your campaign objective
Let’s start with a fundamental step: defining your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). One effective approach for this is to align your KPIs with SMART goals. This acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
By establishing these goals in detail, you not only clarify your objectives but also maintain focus on your marketing targets, ensuring you have a clear path to success.
2. Identify relevant metrics
The metrics you should analyze for your campaign are determined by the type of campaign you’re running and the specific goals you want to achieve. For instance, when launching an SMS campaign, you’ll focus on different metrics compared to running an event-based campaign.
Common examples of campaign metrics include conversion rate, engagement, brand awareness, click-through rate, return on investment, traffic sources, and revenue. These metrics serve as indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign and ensure you’re tracking relevant data for your intended goals.
3. Get an aerial view of your campaign channels
Navigating a sea of data across various marketing channels can be challenging. But with Bitly, you can empower your campaign management and performance tracking effortlessly. The Bitly Connections Platform allows you to include up to 100 links, which are automatically shortened and can be spread amongst as many channels as you would like.
But there’s more to it: Bitly also provides you with the ability to track the total engagement for each individual channel and the overall campaign performance.
4. Start A/B testing
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method where you compare two versions of a campaign to find out which one performs better. This approach helps you fine-tune your campaign by understanding precisely what your target audience prefers.
For instance, you can experiment with different CTAs to see which one generates more clicks. Analyzing the results gives you valuable insights, boosting your confidence in what will drive conversions.
5. Track in real-time
Monitoring campaign analytics in the middle of your campaign can be a game-changer. It allows you to observe a campaign’s performance as it happens and catch any mistakes or opportunities for improvement that might have been missed otherwise.
When you delve into real-time data, it becomes easier to identify areas where tweaks are needed. For instance, tracking your campaign analytics in real-time during a product launch can provide insights into how your target audience perceives your product’s usefulness.
This data can then be used to improve your marketing campaigns, as well as your product’s features and design. And guess what? You can monitor your campaign anytime, anywhere with Bitly Analytics.
Discover how to unlock insightful data in our platform and how to prove your marketing ROI with Bitly Analytics.
6. Analyze campaign results
The success of your campaign hinges on the data it generates. After your campaign ends, it’s time to dive into that data, evaluate it, and report back to your team and stakeholders. This is your opportunity to reflect and gather insights from the entire campaign. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when digging into the data:
- Look at your goals: Did you meet your campaign goals? If not, what obstacles did you encounter? Assess the effectiveness of your campaign strategy—and remember to celebrate your successes too!
- Uncover key insights: Real learning happens when you uncover lessons from the challenges and triumphs of your campaign. Identify which marketing channels performed the best and which content resonated most with your audience.
- Share recommendations: Use your insights to formulate recommendations for future campaigns. Develop an action plan for improving performance and reaching your future targets, and present this plan to your team and stakeholders.
This is the stage where data becomes the foundation for informed action, paving the way for even greater successes!
How to track campaign analytics with Bitly
In this section, we’ll walk you through how to set up a campaign as well as how to track campaign analytics within the Bitly Connections Platform.
- Log in to Bitly or sign up for an account.
- Go to Campaigns and then select Create campaign.
- The Create Campaign box will appear on the right-hand side of the screen. Add the title and optionally add a description for your campaign.
- Select the relevant channels for your campaign. If you want to create a new channel, select Manage Channels. Select Add Links once you’re done.
One note: Your ability to create channels depends on your admin permissions. - Then add your links for your campaign. Bitly automatically shortens your links for each channel.
- Select Auto-add UTM Parameters for your campaign with the toggle button.
A note about UTM parameters: UTM parameters are tags you add to the end of a web link to help identify your website visitors. They’re particularly useful in marketing campaigns to track which sources are responsible for driving traffic to your site.
Want to have an in-depth understanding of how UTM parameters work on our platform? Learn more about the Bitly UTM builder and UTM codes.
7. Select the channels for your campaign and then Create.
8. To view and track campaign analytics select Campaigns once again on the Dashboard.
9. Select the campaign you want to view. This page allows you to view all campaign data along with their respective channel data. Then, select View channel details to access the campaign analytics for that particular channel.
10. To discover more about your link, select View link details.
11. On this page, you can view your total engagements, technology, and location data. You also have the
option to export that data by selecting Export CSV.
Stay on top of your campaign analytics with Bitly
At Bitly, we’ve simplified the process of creating, managing, and tracking campaign analytics. Our user-friendly Dashboard makes navigation a breeze, and our campaign analytics are designed for effortless comprehension!
Ready to track your campaign analytics like a pro? Sign up today!