Optimizing Your Interactive Initiatives

Many people are aware of the Internet’s measurement capabilities and cost-effective marketing tools. However, many people are not aware of how to capitalize on the ability to optimize online marketing efforts. The Internet provides the most cost-effective way to manipulate your online campaigns through testing and analytics.

Years before the Internet, direct marketers would test and optimize a direct mail campaign by designing, printing and sending different direct mail pieces. This amounted to a costly effort due to material, postage and labor costs. Direct email has made this process much more cost effective and impactful. Two different emails for a campaign can be designed and delivered for a fraction of the cost of a direct mail campaign. The results are compiled automatically and in immediate real-time. For example, let’s say you perform an A/B test on two emails for a new product release. The only difference between the two emails is the call-to-action contained within the body of the email. Let’s assume you have a customer database of 100,000 names. You create two random sample segments of 1000 names each. You send email A to list A and email B to list B. List B shows a 10% increase in click-through rates after delivering the email. Of course you are able to see these results the same day that you delivered your tests. So, you decide to use email B and deliver that to the remaining 98,000 emails in your database. All in the same day.

Let’s take this a step further. You decide to run an online campaign utilizing email, paid-placement and rich media banners. All tools direct users to your website where they can purchase a new product. You have already performed your initial tests for each tool. Now, you perform another test by allocating a specific budget cap for each tool. You monitor the performance metrics from each tool and increase the budget on the tool that is generating the conversion rates.

Let’s take this even one step further. Let’s assume you have developed your most impactful online tools through split testing and have determined which tool to place the most emphasis on for optimal results. What about your website? You can split test that as well. Let’s direct half of the traffic from each tool to one version of a webpage and half of the traffic to a separate version. Again, you monitor the results and determine which page is converting the most users to sales. You have now completed the holy trinity of online campaign optimization. From individual tool, to multiple tools, to your website.

All you need to do this is knowledge of the proper interactive marketing tools and a website statistics tool. You can perform in days or weeks what would take traditional marketers months to complete. And you can even do it with more accurate results. The technology provided by the Internet offers this superior competitive advantage. If you are confused about the world of interactive marketing then contract an interactive agency to guide you in the process. You can derive amazing results from an optimized interactive campaign, far surpassing your competitors’ expensive traditional campaigns. What are you waiting for?

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