Offline touchpoints, such as billboards, radio ads, or direct mail, can influence your online conversions, but how do you measure their impact? In this article, you will learn some methods and tools to track and attribute offline touchpoints to your online performance marketing campaigns.
One of the simplest ways to measure the impact of offline touchpoints is to use tracking codes that link them to your online channels. For example, you can create a unique URL, QR code, or coupon code for each offline touchpoint and display it on your offline materials. Then, you can track how many people visit your website, scan your QR code, or redeem your coupon code from each offline source. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Bitly, or UTM parameters to create and track your tracking codes.
From what I've observed in malls and shops, the most effective method is to place a QR code in front of your store. Once scanned, you become an offline touchpoint. You know what? Just create an audience list and start promoting. Bet on this—these are the perfect examples of engaged shoppers. Few are the best QR code generator tools - QRStuff,QR Code Monkey,Kaywa,Visualead
I never post a link without using a UTM parameters because for me, any extra support I can get to prove that social is driving engagement I will. UTMs are vital to be able to link back. Granted not everything in social needs a UTM but key places that is often overlooked is static links such as your website link in your about section or bio. Changing that to a UTM will allow you to track back (with the right tools), who is visiting your website from social. Every marketer needs to track their links.
Regarding offline tracking, I have not seen great results with unique URLs to the main domain. Users tend to google the brand name, which limits the ability to track it. Incentive-based codes have worked for me, but they need a significant value to be useful in tracking offline campaigns.
It always depends on which offline channels are used. For print, OOH, i.e. static ads, QR codes could be helpful, but also voucher codes with an incentive. Possibly specific landing pages, but the URLs should be as simple as possible. For video ads, e.g. TV and DOOH, QR and voucher codes are only partially helpful. A very short/concise URL (ideally the brand URL) should also be used here. And in the end, only a reasonable setup for data analysis really helps, e.g. Uplift modeling. Since these channels also have a strong impact on brand building, tracking should not only be carried out in the short term, but also be considered in the medium and long term.
We carefully use tracking codes to determine how offline touchpoints affect online conversions. We assign unique codes to offline interactions, such as events or print ads, with consideration for the journeys of our audience. We can optimize our strategies by gaining insights into the relationship between offline efforts and online conversions by analyzing data from these codes.
Another way to measure the impact of offline touchpoints is to ask your online visitors or customers how they heard about you or what influenced their decision. You can use surveys and feedback forms on your website, landing pages, or thank you pages to collect this information. You can also use tools like Google Ads or Facebook Ads to ask people who clicked on your online ads if they saw or heard any of your offline ads before. This way, you can get some insights into the customer journey and the role of offline touchpoints.
This methodology is considered to be quite inaccurate because people are usually not good at remembering all the touchpoints with the brand. It could be used for a "directional" read, but it's not advisable to use this methodology for taking bigger investment decision.
In my previous company, I executed a Facebook lead generation campaign and provided a 10% discount coupon to individuals who completed the form. The primary objective was to assess the effectiveness of our offline store promotion efforts. The question posed was straightforward: "How did you hear about us? Newsletter, Ads, offline, etc." The majority of respondents mentioned that they came through online advertisements. Consequently, we gained valuable insights into where our marketing budget should be allocated.
Surveys such as “How did you hear about” can be very helpful tools. Here, too, it always depends on what you actually want to find out, what kind of product it is about, where and how exactly the survey is used. In my experience, surveys have always worked very well to evaluate the medium of TV, but also radio and podcasts (if they reach large audiences), i.e. the so-called mass media. Because there you can also achieve significant swings that can be evaluated accordingly. For media with smaller reach or a large number of channels, e.g. In digital marketing, it becomes much more difficult because, in case of doubt, customers cannot tell the different channels apart or the reach is so small that no significant (visible) changes are achieved.
Asking your customers 'How did you hear about us?' will get your qualitative data that is vital to understanding your customer journey fully. It shows you what had the most impression on them in order for you to recognise memorable content or maybe obscure channels that you didn't realise are driving leads.
It's important to keep feedback surveys user friendly. High abandon rates or lack of engagement should be noted and actioned - are your surveys too long? Are they unclear? Keep it simple and purposeful so you can turn qualitative feedback into useable data.
If you use phone calls as part of your online or offline marketing strategy, you can use call tracking to measure the impact of offline touchpoints. Call tracking allows you to assign a unique phone number to each offline touchpoint and track how many calls you receive from each source. You can also record and analyze the calls to understand the caller's intent and behavior. You can use tools like CallRail, Invoca, or DialogTech to set up and manage your call tracking.
Personally, I believe that this is the era when people prefer seeing more rather than making phone calls. After the advent of Truecaller, the rate of answered phone calls has decreased. I find it a good idea to run some lead generation campaigns where I can obtain their phone numbers and subsequently contact them. At the very least, this way, they will become aware of my product and website. We utilize Aircall, a platform that enables me to listen to all the calls made by our team.
Call tracking is a game-changer for offline marketing. It helps you to establish and link together journeys offline and online. For example, in particular industries, it may be more common for phone calls rather than a form fill so being able to link your calls to potential touches further down the line such as links clicked is key to seeing what's working and what's not.
Call tracking is an invaluable tool for gauging the influence of offline touchpoints on your online conversions. However, it provides a single data point within a larger customer journey. Here's how call tracking works: 1- Unique Phone Numbers: Assign distinct phone numbers to specific offline campaigns. 2- Call tracking software meticulously records calls generated by these unique numbers. 3- Analyze the call data to identify how many calls resulted in conversions (sales, inquiries, etc.). This helps you pinpoint which offline campaigns are driving valuable phone leads.
If you want to measure the impact of offline touchpoints that are specific to a geographic area, such as billboards, flyers, or events, you can use geo-fencing and location-based ads. Geo-fencing is a technique that creates a virtual boundary around a physical location and triggers an online action when someone enters or exits that area. For example, you can create a geo-fence around your billboard location and send a push notification, an email, or an online ad to people who pass by. You can then track how many people engage with your online action and convert. You can use tools like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or Foursquare to create and track your geo-fencing and location-based ads.
Oh, this is an exciting one to answer. We ran an ad for a B2B event happening in Brazil. My task was to exclusively target individuals attending that event. The targeting was extremely precise - I set a radius of 2 miles, ensuring that people staying in hotels nearby could also view my ads. I asked them a few questions and followed up with a phone call. The conversion rate was tremendous. So, my recommendation is to go with radius-based targeting. In my experience, Facebook Ads Manager is incredibly powerful for this purpose.
Want to ace location-based ads? Here's how: 1. Know your audience: Understand who your customers are and what they like. This will help you tailor your ads to their interests. 2. Choose the right area: Your geofence should be the right size to reach your target audience. Consider factors like population density and how long people stay in the area. 3. Craft an irresistible ad: Make sure your ad has a clear message and a tempting offer. Instead of vague promises, offer something specific like "Buy one, get one free!" 4. Keep an eye on your campaign: Regularly check how your ads perform and adjust as needed. 5. Combine with other tactics: Use geofencing alongside targeting people based on their online searches or interests.
Finally, to measure the impact of offline touchpoints on your online conversions, you need to use attribution models. Attribution models are methods that assign credit to different marketing touchpoints based on their contribution to the conversion. There are different types of attribution models, such as last-click, first-click, linear, time-decay, or data-driven. Depending on your goals and data availability, you can choose the attribution model that best reflects your customer journey and offline touchpoint impact. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, or Mixpanel to apply and compare different attribution models.
This point doesn't really directly influence offline conversions. Unless you mention which attribution model to use. That could be an article of it's own as it depends on industry and conversion time. Say for example you have a grocery store and want to search ads contribute entirely to those offline visit store conversion, you'd probably want to stick first with the last click model.
No no, if you are using, for example, 'Last click,' don't change it solely for the sake of offline conversions. It will disrupt the campaign's learning phase. Instead, consider utilizing audience targeting and feedback forms. While it may require a bit more time, this approach can be highly beneficial. Keep in mind that your campaign budget will guide your decision-making process. Avoid disrupting the plan by altering the attribution model unnecessarily.
It is difficult to see how you would attribute offline touchpoints by using online attribution models unless the user has activated a conversion point such as call tracking, and even then, you will have to collect prior history on the user to stitch together the user journey. If the user is coming in via a landing page/URL from a campaign, then you will have the issue that this is a relatively small sample that needs to be weighted to create a like-for-like measurement.
Attribution models can help you discover what's working and what's not. By utilising a mix model approach you can truly see your data clearly. There's no one attribution model fits all, but there are some that might work best for your business model. I especially think marketing mix modelling is great too for measurement. Use different models to be able to get a full view of what is really driving leads and revenue.