As per a statistic in January 2023, the total number of social media users over all platforms is around 4.9 billion and this figure is expected to enhance to 4.41 billion in 2025. Again, you will be surprised to know that the time adults spend on social media over all platforms is the highest now, which is 144 minutes each day. The statistics are screaming about the importance of running social media marketing campaigns for your business. Yet only running campaigns won’t be enough to get desired results. We’ll discuss how to measure the success of social media marketing campaigns here.
You also need to measure the success of those campaigns but don’t you know how to do so? No worries. Lets know..
How to Measure the Effectiveness of Social Media Marketing Campaigns in Bangladesh?
If you want to measure the success of your social media marketing campaign, you need to think first, what are the goals of this campaign- what will you like to attain from it, and how will you measure or evaluate it?
Do you know what is the awesome thing regarding social media? You are able to track almost every single detail with social media metrics. The art of fruitful social media evaluation refers to knowing which metrics are most valuable to the business you are running, depending on the goals. How many metrics you will track depends on your budget size, team size, and the objectives of your business.
Here, we’ll discuss the most mentionable social media KPIs or key performance indicators or metrics in 2023 to know how to measure the success of social media advertising. They are as follows:
Read Also: How To Plan A Social Media Marketing Campaign in Bangladesh
Let’s discuss each of these social media metrics.
1. Engagement Metrics:
Engagement metrics include the following:
a) Engagement Rate
If the goal of your social media marketing campaign is to create interaction and increase your engagement rate on social media, take all the content on social media from the campaign and measure the engagement rate as follows:
When your campaign is natural or organic: Divide the total number of received interactions on your content by the number of total followers, and multiply it by 100%.
So, Average Engagement Rate Percentage= (Total number of received interactions on your content/ The number of total followers) *100
When your campaign is paid: Divide the total number of received interactions on your content by the number of total views, and multiply it by 100%. Because even the online viewers who don’t even follow you will view your advertising campaign on social media.
So, Average Engagement Rate Percentage= (Total number of received interactions on your content/ The number of total views) *100
The received interactions on your content by users are something that creates activity from the user. For example, reactions, likes, shares, comments, or saves.
The engagement rate set as a benchmark over most platforms is 1%+, but when your goal was social media engagement, you have the option to check your general engagement rate and calculate the increase your campaign achieved.
You also have the option to break down this evaluation by separate social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat to decide which platform received your campaign most well. Again, you can step further to categorize the campaign by content piece to decide which of your content piece from the campaign performed the best to generate engagement. And you can develop similar appealing content for upcoming campaigns.
b) Virality Rate:
Virality rate indicates the rate at which your content has been shared. It measures shares as an impression percentage instead of a followers’ percentage. Each time anyone shares the content, it gets a new impression through its audience. Thus, the virality rate estimates how the content is spreading rapidly.
You can calculate the virality rate by dividing the number of shares of your post by its impressions number. Then multiply it by 100.
So, Virality Rate Percentage= Number of Shares of your Post/Number of Impressions) *100
c) Amplification Rate:
Amplification rate refers to the rate at which the followers share your content among their networks. Generally, the greater the amplification rate, the more your followers are sharing your content.
So, Amplification Rate Percentage= (Total Number of Shares of Your Post/Total Number of Followers) * 100
Now, you must have understood how to measure social media engagement.
2. Website Traffic Metrics:
When your social media marketing campaign’s goal is to drive traffic to your site, you can check the number of clicks your campaign received by reviewing the metrics from your social media marketing campaign insight tools such as Google Analytics or any other third-party software your business has implemented.
Make a comparison among the traffic from every social media platform on which you ran your campaign, and check the total enhancement in site traffic since the beginning of your campaign. The main website traffic metrics are as follows:
a) Clicks:
This is simply the number of times users clicked on your social media advertising.
b) CTR or Click-Through-Rate:
CTR or click-through rate measures how frequently users click on your post’s link to get more content. CTR lets you understand the number of users who see the social content and liked to know something more. It gives a positive signal to the promotion of your offering.
Divide a post’s total number of clicks by the impression’s total number to estimate CTR. Then multiply it by 100 to have the CTR percentage rate.
So, CTR Percentage Rate= (Post’s total number of clicks/impression’s total number) * 100
c) Bounce Rate:
In case, your bounce rate has enhanced after the social media campaign, it indicates that you are driving the incorrect audience, your site is performing badly, or the social content’s quality doesn’t match with your landing page.
If you want to increase website clicks after running the campaign, consider running a retargeting social media marketing campaign. It will drive the visitors back to your site, and also let your prospects know about your brand.
3. Growth Rate of Audience:
The growth rate of the audience measures the number of new followers your business receives on social media within a specific time. It calculates your fresh followers as your total audience percentage. That’s why if you are beginning your business, still, get 10 to 100 fresh followers in one month, it will indicate a good growth rate. But after you have a mentionable audience, you require more fresh followers for maintaining that good rate.
Check your net fresh followers on every platform over a specific time period. Now, divide this number by the total audience on every platform. Then multiply it by 100 to have your growth rate of audience percentage.
So, Growth Rate of Audience= (Net New or Fresh Followers/Total Audience) * 100
4. Brand Awareness Metrics:
These metrics show the number of people who view your content and the amount of attention the brand receives on social media. These are as follows:
a) Reach:
Reach means how many people view your content. You need to check your individual post, video, or story’s reach and also the average reach. This metric lets you compare how much percentage of the reach is contributed by followers and how much percentage is contributed by non-followers. In case, it indicates that a huge number of non-followers are viewing the content, it means that your content is being shared or performing well according to the algorithm’s requirement, or both.
Read also: What is User-Generated Content in Social Media?
Three types of reaches are available on Facebook:
- Natural– It represents the number of unique users who viewed your posts in their news feed for free.
- Paid- It represents the number of unique users who viewed your ad or paid content.
- Viral- It indicates the number of unique users who viewed the post as someone generated a story regarding it. It happens when your page’s fan likes, shares or comments on your post.
b) Impressions:
Impressions mean how many times users viewed your content. This metric can be greater than reach as the same user can view your content multiple times. An exceptionally high percentage of impressions than reach indicates people are viewing a post many times. Investigate deeply to find out the reason.
Three types of impressions are available on Facebook:
- Natural- It refers to how many times your post was shown in your audience’s feed, or on the page for free.
- Paid- It represents how many times your ad or paid content was shown.
- Viral- It indicates how many times your post was shown as someone generated a story regarding it. It happens when your page’s fan comments, shares, or likes your post.
c) Views of Videos:
In case, you are developing a video, you will like to have an idea about how many viewers are watching it. Every social platform considers a “view” a bit differently, but generally, even only some seconds of watch is considered a “view.” So, views of videos are a short-term indicator of how many viewers have viewed at least your video’s start, but not as crucial as the following one.
d) Completion Rate of Videos:
If a good number of people are viewing your whole video, it’s surely a good sign that you are making high-quality content that relates to your target audience. The completion rate of videos is a good indicator to algorithms of several social media. So, you can focus to improve your social media campaign.
5. Response Time and Rate
The response rate estimates how frequently your company replies or responds to customers and enhances interaction. When users expect a response from your account, they are more prone to ask questions or comment on your content or posts.
Make sure that your employees respond promptly and also in a friendly way.
6. ROI Metrics:
ROI means the return on investment. So, ROI from social media marketing means the return you get from your social media functions and expenses. In general, social media ROI means the measure of each social media function that generates value or worth, divided by your investment to attain those functions.
So, the formula stands as follows:
Social media ROI= (Achieved value- your investment)/your investment * 100
The ROI metrics are as follows:
a) Conversion Rate:
Conversion rate estimates how frequently your content on social media begins the conversion process such as a download, subscription, or sale. This metric holds great significance because it expresses your social content’s value in terms of filling your funnel.
You can measure conversions through:
Bookings
Downloads
Emails/direct messages
Installs
Phone calls
Enquiries
Registrations
Subscriptions
Sales
Donations
UTM or Urchin Tracking Module parameters help you measure leads and track social conversions. After you have included your UTMs, estimate the conversion rate in the following way:
Conversion rate percentage= Number of conversions/Number of clicks
Compare the conversion results from the campaign with the previous conversion data to understand your campaign’s success.
b) CPC or Cost-Per-Click:
CPC or cost-per-click refers to the amount you spend per click on your social ad. You can utilize this metric if you know your customer’s lifetime value for the business or the average value of an order. A greater customer’s lifetime value related to a great conversion rate indicates you can spend more for each click to have visitors to your site in the initial place.
You don’t have to estimate CPC because you will get it in the social network’s analytics where you are running the ad.
Generally, CPC= (Total Ad expenditure/ Total estimated clicks)* 1000
c) CPM or Cost per Thousand Impressions:
CPM is your paid cost for every thousand impressions of the social media advertisement. It is related to views, not to actions.
You also don’t have to calculate it- simply get the information from the analytics of social networks.
Typically, CPM= (Total Ad expenditure/ Total ad impressions)* 1000
Now, you must have understood what are the relevant metrics for tracking ROI on social media marketing.
7. Consumer Experience and Service Metrics:
These metrics include the following:
a) NPS or Net Promoter Score:
NPS is the metric that estimates customer loyalty. It is helpful to understand upcoming customer relationships. This prediction is based on only one certainly phrased question: “How likely is it that you will recommend our (product/service/company) to a relative/friend?
Consumers are asked to reply to this question on a scale of 0 to 10. Each consumer is segmented into any of the three groups:
- Promoters: 9-10 score range
- Passives: 7-8 score range
- Detractors: 0-6 score range
NPS measures consumer satisfaction and potential for upcoming sales, and an applicable metric for all-size businesses. Subtract the promoters’ number from the detractors’ number, and then divide the outcome by the respondents’ total number and multiply it by 100 to have your NPS.
So, NPS= (Number of Promoters-Number of Detractors)/Respondents’ Total number
b) CSAT or Customer Satisfaction Score:
CSAT or Customer Satisfaction Score doesn’t only consider response rate and response time. This metric estimates how satisfied customers are with your service or product.
Generally, this score is based on a simple question: How will you rate your total satisfaction level? Here, it is used to determine the satisfaction level with your social consumer service.
Generate a single-question survey and ask your clients to rate the experience with your customer service, then send that through the same social platform that you use for service communication.
Sum up all of the scores and divide that by the responses’ number, then multiply it by 100 to have your CSAT score percentage.
So, CSAT score percentage= (Sum of the score/Respondents’ number) *100
c) Retention Rate:
Retention rate calculates your customer percentage who keeps using your services or products or continues their subscription for a specific timeframe.
8. Revenue Per Customer:
It’s a simple KPI to trace. You can get the annual revenue per customer by dividing the total revenue each year by the customers’ number enrolled. You get a rough idea of it that how many customers contribute to your annual revenue and you can estimate how much you need to spend on CAC or customer acquisition costs.
So, Revenue per customer=Total revenue of the year/Number of customers enrolled
You can calculate it after running a social media campaign and then compare the figure with the last year before running the campaign.
9. Sentiment and Share of Voice Metrics:
These metrics include the following:
a) Social Sentiment:
Social sentiment finds out the attitude and feelings behind the conversations of your customers on social media. You need to check out when they are speaking about your business or product/services online, and whether are they using positive or negative words. If you want to estimate social sentiment you will need to use some analytics tools to categorize and process context and language such as Digimind, Crowd Analyzer, Metionlytics, TalkWalker, and the like.
b) SSoV or Social Share of Voice:
SSoV measures the number of users who are having conversations about your brand on social media in comparison to your competition. It determines how much of your industry’s social conversation is all about your business. Users can mention your brand directly or indirectly on social media. Generally, SSoV is a competitive analysis that expresses how relevant and visible is your brand in the industry.
Sum up your brand’s each mention on social media across all networks, and do the same thing for your industry competition. Then add both of these figures to have the total mentions number for your industry. Now, divide your brand mentions by this industry total and multiply it by 100 to get the SSoV percentage.
So, SSoV percentage= (Brand Mentions/Industry Total) * 100
10. Profit Margin:
The profit margin of your business during a campaign is generally a quite crucial metric. You can get it by summing up the total revenue resulting from the campaign and then subtracting the total creation and promotion costs of the campaign. If you divide this figure by total revenue, you will get a net profit margin.
So, Net Profit Margin percentage = [(Total Revenue from the Campaign-Total Costs of the Campaign)/ Total Revenue from the Campaign] * 100
5 Steps to Social Media Marketing Success
If you want to evaluate the success of your social media marketing campaign, you need to follow these steps:
1. Set Campaign Goals:
At first, you need to be totally specific about what you want to achieve from your social media campaign. The goals need to be smart i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Then use this concept to decide which social platforms you are going to use to attain your goals. For instance, your campaign’s goal is to spread data regarding a new product. Again, it can also be to improve your customer service. Or, you want to enhance your engagement with your potential clients.
Each goal mentioned in the above examples needs to be measured differently. So, it’s necessary to realize what is the goal of your campaign before attempting to measure its success.
Read also: Identifying Target Audiences For Social Media Marketing Campaign
2. Develop Metrics to Measure Goals:
After you have set your specific goals, now you need to match these goals with reality and create the exact metrics to measure these goals. As we have discussed above, you need different metrics to measure different goals such as to measure engagement, you need to measure engagement rate, virality rate, and amplification rate. Then to measure website traffic, you need to measure clicks, CTR, and bounce rates. You must have gotten this idea from the above discussion that you need to decide which metrics will be the most suitable ones to measure your campaign’s success.
3. Measure the Success:
When you have determined the exact metrics, now it’s time to get the suitable tools to find these metrics. Many social media platforms offer their analytics. You also have the option to use any third-party software such as Google Analytics, Klout, Hootsuite, and the like to calculate metrics. Again, you can apply your APIs or application programming interfaces to develop your measuring tools.
If you think that you don’t have that knowledge, either study online or consult a professional social media agency or an expert to get the idea. If you are planning to run a social media campaign, it will be better to set up these tracking tools before to get all the required data when you need it in the future.
Recommended Reading: How to Measure the Success of a Digital Marketing Campaign
4. Observe and Report:
This fourth step is quite crucial. Because even if you have set all the things mentioned above accordingly, but you don’t monitor the metrics regularly, everything becomes futile. So, monitor the metrics and you will get the benchmarks from the primary figures to go further with those for upcoming campaigns.
Prepare exact reports of the metrics, and try to answer the following questions:
- How do your metrics compare to your expectations?
- How do the metrics compare to related products or competitors’ campaigns?
Keep this reporting schedule regular whether daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, whichever suits your campaign. Try to highlight crucial figures and follow these tips:
- Add benchmarks and also other crucial contextual information.
- Try adding visualization of the data such as graphs.
- Keep the graphs clean and simple.
This observation and regular reporting will help you in the following step.
Read also: A Definitive Guide on Social Media Content Calendar
5. Take Corrective Actions and Repeat:
This is the last and most crucial step because it will help you keep going in the long run. With the data that you have got from the above step, try to take corrective actions if you haven’t got your desired results. For example, find out what’s missing. Or what you can change? Or what is unnecessary? Or What you can improve? And the like.
Check the goals you have set initially, and ensure that your set metrics can help to achieve them exactly. Test the content you are using for the campaign on different social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, and the like. You need to take corrective measures in each sector of the campaign if needed.
If you think that the total process needs a change, you need to repeat, which means you need to start by setting goals and then take every step again carefully to get the outcome you desire.
What are the Challenges in Measuring the Effectiveness of Social Marketing Campaigns?
You will face many challenges while measuring your social marketing campaign’s success, but we will discuss the most mentionable among them here:
1. Lack of Communication Across Departments:
Companies have different departments such as human resources, accounts, product, corporate, research and development, customer service, and others. Social media was a neglected area before, and only one employee used to take care of this sector. But with the passage of time, the social media is becoming more and more popular and companies are also looking for more employees to take care of this sector. The challenge here is the lack of communication between the several departments and also lack of proper talent for managing the social media department.
2. Recognizing the Right Platform:
This is yet another challenge because there are several social media platforms nowadays, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Snapchat, and the like. If you don’t research your target markets deeply to find out the platform where your target audience remains active, you will miss out on great opportunities. Statistics suggest that around 51 percent of consumers discover brands using YouTube, but only 35 percent of marketers use it for their marketing efforts.
Learn more: Ultimate Guide to Social Media Platform Selection in Bangladesh
3. Knowing the Target Audience:
If you don’t know your target audience, it will be difficult for you to get success. Many marketers have this concept that you can attract your audience with great content, but they don’t know that no matter how great your content is if it’s not well-customized for your exact audience, it will fail for sure.
Read also: How to Take Advantage of Strategic PPC Audience Targeting in Bangladesh
4. Decreasing Natural Engagement:
The online environment is rapidly changing every day. People are changing their ways of watching, reading, and even talking to others. If you don’t keep up with this ever-changing situation, you will fail to organically or naturally engage your audience.
5. Meeting Customer Expectations:
As we are heading towards the metaverse, the internet’s third iteration, people are becoming more technology lovers, and more interested in virtual reality, virtual spaces, and the like. So, their expectations are also changing as well. In this situation, if you can’t meet their expectations, you will lag behind for sure.
Final Words:
Now, after reading this in-depth article you must be confident about how to measure the success of social media marketing campaigns. If you have further queries, ask in the comment section. In case, you need further assistance digiSocial is the best social media marketing company to help you.
After reading this article, If you think that you need to know about social media marketing mistakes to avoid, you can take a trip there.