Using website tracking tools for tracking the online results of offline marketing

In today’s wired world, most companies rely on a mix of both online and offline marketing to make their businesses successful. It would be foolish to think that your offline efforts had no effect on your online efforts and that your offline marketing should not be tracked with your internet website tracking.

Most people know that their offline marketing affects their website, but they wonder how to track their efforts. Using website tracking tools to track offline efforts is not nearly as easy as it is for tracking online marketing, but it can be done. Let’s look at a few possibilities.

1. Using custom landing pages for internet website tracking of offline campaigns

When running an offline campaign, use a custom landing page for online URL tracking. Offer a special deal or unique information. For each offline campaign, such as a TV commercial or mailing, create a different URL (example: http://www.example.com/specialoffer.htm). The online URL tracking will tell you how many people visit each unique URL and how many people came to your site as a result of each kind of offline marketing.

2. Using custom domains for your offline marketing efforts

This is a variation on using online URL tracking to track custom landing pages. Instead, a whole site is created for an offline marketing campaign. An example of this kind of marketing would be the marketing efforts of Burger King. Even though they have their own domain, they have created several other specialized domains just for their offline marketing efforts. Domains like http://www.whopperfreakout.com or http://simpsonizeme.com were special domains created to support offline efforts. These efforts could have easily gone on the main site, but internet website tracking is much easier when the visitors visit a unique site.

3. Use IP matching and website tracking tools to see increases in traffic

For most companies, their website traffic is relatively consistent, which makes it easy to see sudden increases in traffic due to focused offline marketing. It is easy enough to know when commercials will be running or when mailing pieces will be arriving to customer’s homes. Keep a close eye on web traffic in the few days following the start of the offline marketing. Note traffic increases over your normal levels.

If your offline marketing efforts frequently focus on only a few geographic locations at a time, consider adding IP matching to your website tracking tools. IP matching can let you know where in the world a particular set of visitors came from and you can see if traffic from that set of visitors increased.

4. Track likely micro and macro conversions that a user who has seen offline advertising might use online.

If you advertise a special coupon or event offline, chances are your potential visitors who see it will actively seek the offer out on your website. This could be a small micro conversion like signing up for your email newsletter or could be a macro conversion such as a sale. Track increases in both the micro and macro conversions that are triggered by offline advertising

The Search Guru can help you set up internet website tracking for tracking both on and offline marketing efforts. Contact us today to get started.