Measuring media spend…the million dollar question with a multitude of answers.

Buying Sandals. A thrilling subject of course – but on recent experience, a valuable insight into behavioral media targeting. It also highlighted the still impossible task of defining exactly what media spend drives a purchase online or in a shop.

Media agencies and media owners now draw their handbags at dawn to put their best case forward on who should have the biggest media spend from the clients budget. As a social media agency, we know that more than most.

And measurement is still vital – after all, measuring and proving the effectiveness of a campaign will affect how your next set of spending is distributed.

The journey

Back to the sandals. It started out with a very basic need: summer shoes. Being a tall lass with size 9 feet my choices are limited, so I had already omitted the decision to buy shoes online after previous disastrous experiences. Oiling ones calves to get into riding boots is not a good look. They remain in my cupboard.

Office, a shoe shop based in Brighton, is generally packed at lunch time and I will avoid Saturday shopping at all costs. So a couple of weeks ago, I prepared myself by looking online at their shoes, prompted by the first touch point email.

Ooooh! 50% off, click through, have a look around. Yes these are the ones that I want. Something for every occasion and a size 9. Hooray.

Since first visiting that page on the Office site I experienced a few PPC ads on various sites including The Guardian. All good, I am impressed with their PPC efforts and I love it when media works well.  But I have been to the site already, so I don’t click through.

Pay day arrives, I see an update from Office on Facebook telling me that there is now 60% off shoes. This is even better. Armed with the knowledge of what I want this should be a quick and easy process.

Kerching. The purchase was made and the shoes are on my feet.

So what made me do this?

Did I already know what I wanted and would have bought them anyway or was this due to advertising/social media?

The answer is a blend of it all, which leaves the million dollar question answered but highlights the fact that a tipping point to make a purchase comes from all directions. In an ideal world, the chap in the shop that took my money would have asked me “How did you hear about us and what made you buy those shoes?” which would have warranted a lengthy response from me. “Well, I saw your email, I know that you do size 9, then I saw a Facebook update and an advert on The Guardian…. Does that help?”

What is important is that Office were with me every step of the way, I had both concise offers directed at me on Facebook and email as well as unavoidable PPC advertising on mainstream news sites that I visit every day. The opportunity to see, I would guestimate at 15 times per day.

How this can work:

If I had bought my sandals online, Analytics would have tracked my journey to the check out, insight may have shown that I was on Facebook then clicked to Office to buy shoes. But as online browsing habits are frequently erratic (I generally have at least 12 tabs on the go at the same time) there is no certainty that it happened this way. But, it’s a good indicator.

Where it failed:

I purchased my sandals in the shop: for the few days following this I have still been shown adverts for said sandals repeatedly on sites from PPC.  I have them now; I don’t need any more thank you! So what was at first a great example of some Paid Search is now frustrating and a waste of their money.

This is not the Paid Search managers fault- how are they to know I have already bought them? Do I need to take a picture and update that I have them? Would that be picked up? In an ideal world perhaps but as we know you can not manipulate the masses to behave how you want them to.

What we can learn from this:

All departments need to work together, set KPI’s that are relevant to each other and share benchmark data at the start of a campaign. This needs to be a process that constantly evolves (and is shared) to get better with not only each campaign but each DAY of a campaign to make the marketing budgets really work for the client.

(This is where PPC and Social Media work brilliantly together- daily analysis and changes reflecting behaviour.)

Only when the bigger picture is considered will we be able to better understand the overall paths taken to make a purchase and get closer to answering the question: “What half of my marketing budget works?”.

Qube recently ran a benchmarking survey into Social Media use, attitudes and budget in the travel industry.

With nearly 100 key players in the industry taking part from travel organisations large and small, Qube has gathered key insights into how this sector views and engages with the challenges and benefits of Social Media.

Social Media Benchmarking

81% of marketeers and directors in the travel industry say they use Social Media due to pressure from customers. And despite the fact almost two thirds of respondents felt Social Media was important for the future of their business, nearly 50% still use non-expert staff to deliver Social Media marketing.

Platforms

Bebo and MySpace, perhaps unsurprisingly, were the least popular social networks for marketing activity within the travel industry, while Twitter is by far the most popular tool in use for this sector.

Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Whilst there are many ways to measure Social Media activity and quantify ROI, difficulty in measuring direct impact of sales was far and away the greatest reason cited for not engaging with Social Media marketing.

Interesting, a large proportion of respondents don’t actually set any Key Performance Indicators for any of their current digital marketing activity.

Round table event

Qube will be releasing and discussing the full benchmarking report at the Social Media for the travel industry round table we’re holding on the 17^th February.

This is a chance for people in the travel industry to discuss the findings of the report and talk to each other about the particular challenges travel companies face in this ever-evolving digital era.

If you work in the industry and would like to attend, you can find more details here.

We’ve written a new White Paper in our Social Media in Action series.

Download the Online Thought Leadership leads to Sales White Paper (pdf).

Read more information about the Social Media White Paper in the Social Media Reports section of our website.

I was reading a blog by Sandrine Plasseraud from we are social last week about Clients needing to be able to prove ROI in order to buy in to a Social Media idea. It was a really interesting blog post that centred on the fact that not all things need return on investment to be worthwhile, quoting the Scott Monty line “What’s the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning?”

I think a big point the article didn’t touch on, and one that a lot of people are failing to recognise right now is that not all returns need to be preceded by a £ sign. I understand that clients have accountability to their superiors and shareholders, and that they need to prove they are not throwing their money down the drain, but it is not the be all and end all.

Without customer feedback we never would have moved on from a sales led economy, where production was dictated by a higher force and the consumer just had to deal with what they got. We now, thank god, have customer support and feedback centres. They cost money to set up and to maintain, but can every piece of budget put into them be directly attributed to a sale?

I doubt it, but we now realise that it costs much more money to win a new customer than to keep an old one, so we know that by investing in a customer complaints procedure and process to deal with their problems, we are actually saving money in the long run.

The same goes for Social Media. You get so much out of it and even though not all of it counts towards sales, this doesn’t mean it isn’t having a positive effect on the success of your business. It is important to stop thinking in terms of cost, and instead start thinking about investment.

Buzz, sentiment, consumer engagement, awareness, and feedback can all be measured using Social Media. Do you not think that any of these count as returns on your investment?

The point I’m trying to make is that not everything can always have a monetary value placed on it that reflects what it is truly worth.  So before worrying about what Social Media can’t give you, have a little think about what it can.

I drew this diagram for a client today when we were discussing how building a community through social media could be a more cost effective approach than their existing event / campaign led approach to communications.

The basic premise being that a community (if managed properly) provides continuous access to a continually growing group of people who are interested in, and engaged with, your brand.  This effectively reduces the peak in investment that goes along with a traditional campaign approach, meaning you don’t have to start from scratch  to build an audience.   Not only that, but seeking out and encouraging advocates within these communities further boosts the investment made as they begin to spread your message and do your job for you!

This diagram then reminded me of one of the first things i learnt many years ago as a grad in a media agency – cumulative reach and frequency. The upshot of this theory for planners in advertising and media alike, was the importance of aligning and timing brand messages so you continually build your brand story.

I wonder how social media and branded communities fit into this traditional theory? Is it just another string to our communication bow to work in harmony with everything else? Or does social media, and more specifically branded communities, offer the ultimate remedy for the cumulative media planning challenge?

Interesting to hear what others think.    Aside from that theoretical side point, I think the diagram simply demonstrates that building communities is a more cost effective approach to communications.   The investment may be hard to justify up front but the ROI over a longer period of time is worth it.