So an ad salesperson came and spoke to you. They promised the world. They said you would get calls and clients and money.
You purchased the advertisement. And the ad ran. And you say “my ad worked.” But in the back of your head you think ‘I think it did.’ You seem to have more calls.
But was it really from the ad? Or was it from you networking, or your past appointments, or another program you did?
Tracking and monitoring is tedious, it’s time consuming, and it’s no fun. And that’s why business owners don’t do it. BUT THAT’S A HUGE MISTAKE!
If you don’t track it, how do you really know what is working and what’s not? How do you know what to stop doing, what to optimize/modify, and what to keep doing (and do more of)?
Here are 3 things you should do before placing the ad:
- Determine what the goal is of the ad. And PLEASE don’t say exposure. Exposure won’t pay your bills. Is it to get leads? Is it to get sales?
- Use a different phone number (for each different campaign). You can get a free phone number at Google Voice (www.google.com/voice). You can only get 1 (per email/real phone). There are several other virtual phone services you can use.
You can forward the phone to any number (and change it at any time). Or you can use it as a virtual voicemail.
Google Voice, like the other services, shows you who called, how many calls/texts, and provides voicemail services. This is a great way to track! - Use a different web address and track it. If you have a main page, just add a sub page (example: your main company page is www.XYZ.com just use www.XYZ.com/C1).
And use some type of analytics to track THAT SPECIFIC PAGE.
On a daily or weekly basis, track your results. Track the number of calls you received, the number of sales from calls, the number of hits on your website, the number of conversions, and the number of sales from your website.
To interpret the results, check out our article Ok I Have My Analytics, Now What?