Okay, so we agree that it’s healthy to have a marketing budget. Now, where’s the best place to spend it? PPC? Instagram? Facebook ads? A copywriter? Ugh. So many choices.
John Locke of lockedownseo.com joins us this week to discuss how to use Google Analytics to make good marketing decisions.
Be sure to subscribe to his YouTube Channel.
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7 Steps to Spend Your Marketing Budget Wisely
- Get Familiar with Acquisition Tab in G/A
- Set Up Goals
- Determine Marketing Budget
- Find Out Where Your Customers Are
- Give Honest Effort (a Month) to Top 3 Channels
- Measure Where Your Customers Come From
- Determine Lead Score
Don’t Dilute Your Marketing Efforts
The only way to really know if your marketing efforts are working is to pick two or three things. Then measure. Test. Measure. Test. Rinse & Repeat.
“I wouldn’t focus on too many things all at once, because you’re not going to be able to measure as effectively, and you’re going to dilute your efforts.” John Locke
No Type of Marketing Is Instant
It’s important to remember that there are no first-click leads in marketing. All of your efforts combine to make the lead generation engine work.
“The marketing that you do today will produce results six months from now.” John Locke
Make sure you’re on YouTube and Yelp. These are highly-favored in Google’s SERPs. When it comes to advertising, Facebook Ads are less expensive than Google Ads. Most of the time LinkedIn ads are more expensive than Twitter. Test. Give it a month. See what works. Test another platform.
Marketing Leads by Source
In order to determine the best source of your leads (and where to spend your marketing budget), it is important to measure. You can’t analyze data you don’t collect. Be sure to ask clients where they heard about you. John recommends providing 4-5 sources tops.
Hot Tip: Gravity Forms has a hidden field that will show what page the user was on when they filled out the contact form.
Things like time on page, UTM codes, and coupon or affiliate codes also give an indication of where the best leads came from.
In order to get an accurate picture, however, you may want to create a spreadsheet aggregating data from all sources. What is the lifetime value for any given customer? Where did they come from?
You may get the most leads from Twitter but where do you get the best leads?
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John recommends reading this article “How Much Should You Budget to Spend on Marketing in 2020?” You should spend 6-7% of revenue on marketing.
Jason recommends Google Campaign URL Builder.
Bridget recommends the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.” It’s about prioritizing your priorities, not about being apathetic.
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