Advertisers love clicks. They’re easy to measure and report on. It’s easy to sell executive teams on, too, because the inherent belief that “clicks” still has is that they are positive engagement. From there, it’s an easy hop, skip and jump to believing that the clicks meant the content resonated and that the person who clicked is more likely than ever to convert, and so on.
If you asked a marketer to describe a perfect click in a qualitative way, they might say that the click created a memory. If you dug more into what they mean by memory, they would explain that the clicker felt empathy, a connection, and saw something worth remembering.
Not to say that ads don’t do this. Some do to some people who click, but not all people who click. (Chances are they won’t be able to describe the ad, but they can detail things that happened after clicking it.)
The unwelcomed reality then is to deploy other methods to verify if a click actually created a memory.
One way to do that? Call a customer who clicked and made a purchase (or in some way shared their contact information with you) from a few months ago and ask if they remember the ad they clicked. Ask them to describe it.
Bear with me as I reveal my point.
Doing what I just said to do is quite ludicrous because it’s not the ad itself that made a brand experience memorable, it’s that plus everything that happens after the click.
Which means that measurement reports that only tell you about clicks do a terrible job at telling a story of how well marketing works. That would require you to follow up with measurements of site experience after a click, and then the emotional reaction of opening/receiving the thing that was purchased, and then hearing from the purchaser what they loved about the thing and then finishing the story with metrics around purchases made from referrals.
All of those experiences is marketing.
Anything less can still be helpful, but not as helpful as an honest look at the journey…which requires a lot of effort and a lot of 1-1 interaction with customers or clients.
The question begs itself: which kind of marketer do you want to be? which kind of marketing team? which kind of organization? Are you an advertiser or a marketer?
Stay Positive & No Wrong Answers, But Some Are Better Than Others (If You’re Willing To Put In The Work)
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