With changing technology and countless digital channels to choose from, there can come a point when you need to reassess your strategy. Using too many channels can be just as problematic as using too few. LinkedIn says that it takes a minimum of 7 marketing touches before a customer purchases from a business. We’re going to discuss some key signals that indicate you need to refresh your marketing channel strategy to achieve those touchpoints.
4 Key Signals It’s Time to Change Your Strategy
1. Click-Through Rates
The easiest, most noticeable indicator of issues with your current strategy is decreased click-through rates or CTR. In digital marketing, CTR is a metric that measures the number of clicks advertisers receive on their ads per the number of impressions (views). In simpler terms, it’s the number of people that click on an ad after viewing it.
(Total Clicks on Ad) / (Total Impressions) = Click-Through Rate
Achieving a high click-through rate indicates that not only are your ads being shown to the right people, but they are also engaging the users who do see them! CTR is one of the best indicators to track and notice when decreases occur. To assess whether your CTR is high or low, you must consider your industry, market saturation, and your competitors’ performance.
2. Ad Fatigue
Have you ever seen a commercial on TV repeatedly? Eventually, it makes you want to change the channel. This repetitive use of the same advertisement causes what’s called ad fatigue, when your audience becomes overly familiar with an ad and, therefore, bored. Ad fatigue can make an entire marketing channel ineffective because your audience no longer pays attention to your content. Like with TV, ad fatigue can happen in any channel, from email marketing to social media.
Some common signs of ad fatigue include:
- Less engagement, typically on social media.
- High ad frequency.
- Fewer impressions over time (amount of views an ad/post gets).
3. Privacy Changes
In recent years, companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple have made more significant changes to their privacy policies than ever before. Apple’s iOS 14 and 15 updates have rocked the boat for digital marketing, causing new challenges for advertisers to target certain audiences.
Apple update changes include:
- Hindering data sharing and tracking
- Disallowing tracking how many people open an email you send
- Hiding or disabling user location
- Allowing email addresses to be masked
So how does this affect your marketing channel strategy? With less access to your target audience’s information, you’re faced with less visibility. For instance, it is far more difficult to choose who to send marketing emails to and look at their effectiveness.
Apple’s changes are just one indication of the many companies taking steps that may drastically alter your ability to implement and measure your marketing strategy’s success.
4. Shifting Services
If you don’t see any obvious indicators, it’s good to step back and see where your audience is looking for you. Many businesses changed their sales and services when the pandemic began, such as offering pickup or delivery options. Offering new or altered services can mean that certain marketing channels are more or less effective. A law firm may want to increase its utilization of LinkedIn to showcase employee experience since building client trust over Zoom meetings is more difficult than it is in person. In contrast, a restaurant can enter a new channel rather than solely Facebook and Instagram, such as running ads about curbside pickup on Snapchat to appeal to a younger, on-the-go audience.
Finding Your Key Channels
When you’ve put time, energy, and resources into a channel, it can be a challenge to accept that it’s not working. Recognizing these indicators can be the key to unlocking the channels your business needs to prioritize and those that aren’t worth your resources.
If you’re starting to notice these signals, it’s important to take action. Our marketing team is here to guide you through this analysis and take initiative. Get in touch with us, and we’ll help you reach your business goals.