Are you not seeing the results you want from your digital marketing strategy? If you are looking for a sign that your digital marketing strategy needs an overhaul. You should check out our list.

One of the biggest signs that your digital marketing strategy is falling flat is if you aren’t seeing the results you want or expect from your campaigns. Determining whether your marketing strategy needs an overhaul is not always simple though. As there can be many holes in your current strategy.

The truth is, sometimes you will not know whether your marketing is effective if you don’t know what metrics to track and how to track them. You may also see some revenue coming in, but how do you know if you are generating the best results possible?

If you want to find out whether your digital marketing strategy needs a revamp, keep reading.

1. You are not maximising your ROI

Seeing the best results possible from your marketing campaigns is always the goal, but are you getting the best possible return on investment (ROI)?

This all comes down to determining your cost per acquisition (CPA). This is how much it costs for you to acquire new customers. When tracking the success of your marketing campaigns, you are likely to discover that some of the channels that you market on are better and more effective than others.

The goal for your business should be to acquire the maximum number of customers or potential clients for the lowest possible price. You are only able to determine the true results of your ROI by comparing the results across different campaigns and channels. Finding out which method brings in the best results.

If you are not confident that your marketing campaigns are not maximising your campaign. It could be time for you to give your strategy an overhaul.

2. Social campaigns are falling flat

A selection of social media apps displayed on an iPhone.

One of the biggest mistakes made by businesses when attempting to capitalise on social media marketing is taking a ‘post and pray’ approach. This consists of posting the content and praying that it works and generates the engagement that they want and need.

In reality, brands should be posting content that they know will generate the results and engagement that they need. Because they know it resonates with their target audience based on existing data that they have available to them.

Every social media platform, from Facebook to Twitter, has its own version of analytics. Or at the very least, performance metrics. Likes, comments, shares, and clicks can all be indicators of follower engagement too.

If you are posting social media content and receiving little to no engagement, change is necessary. Whether you have hired an agency to post on your behalf or you’re investing your own time. That’s an investment that should be yielding results that can make you money.

If your social posts are not performing well, this is a big indicator you need to revamp for marketing.

3. Traffic with no conversion

A person on a laptop searching on Google.

Traffic generation is only one sector of the equation when it comes to successful marketing campaigns and techniques. Without conversion, traffic is little help at all.

Your marketing campaigns could be attracting hundreds upon thousands of visitors to your website weekly. But if these clicks aren’t converting into purchases or paying clients, you will not receive the ROI you want and deserve. So, whether you’re running your own marketing campaigns or you are working with an agency. You need to be sure that your marketing is translating into conversions. And not just website views. For example, many businesses invest in SEO techniques to drive organic traffic to their website. But this is rarely the end goal. To calculate the ROI of each of your campaigns, you can use analytics tools like Google Analytics to track conversions on your website and attribute them to each channel.

You will want the traffic that you acquire to be highly targeted to ensure that your website visitors are interested in your offers. Subscribe to your newsletters or emails, purchase your products or services. Or to get in contact to work with you.

Castle are experts at conversion optimisation. We have helped our clients generate hundreds of thousands of pounds in extra revenue thanks to efficient marketing strategies. These focus on increasing conversions and better cross-selling tactics on websites. To increase the average order value of each converted customer. For just one of our clients, we have achieved a 592% increase in sales in the first six months of 2020. In part down to increase their conversion rate from 2.1% to 2.5%.

4. Little or no traffic

If you are seeing very little traffic to no traffic at all, this is an extremely bad sign. No traffic to your website means that your marketing efforts are not working at all to drive users to your website or social media platforms.

Most marketing platforms have their own unique algorithm. Which helps to determine the type of content that is shown to a user. For example, when using Facebook, brands bank on organic reach to get noticed by potential customers. When it comes to Google, this means you have to optimise your website so that it gets displayed to users on the organic search results pages.

If you are seeing increasingly low traffic from your primary marketing networks, this is a sure sign that you need to change or fix your marketing techniques.

Using the correct marketing strategies will allow you to take advantage of these complex algorithms and drive increased traffic to your business through the appropriate platforms.

5. Awful returns on paid advertisements

A selection of scrabble letters on a wooden table spelling the word Adwords.

PPC adverts can be incredible ways to generate an increased amount of leads quickly, but if done incorrectly, they can be extremely expensive.

A lot of brands can see poor results from their PPC marketing as their targeting is off, users are not converting, or the cost per click is way too high. Whether you are running Google, Facebook, or Instagram Ads, you need your focus to be targeted on the correct audience and display content that is relevant to them.

While the cost per click can vary, you need to be sure that you are getting the best results for your money. This means testing ad groups, keywords, ad copy, targeting, and more to get the lowest cost per click possible and maximise your ROI.

6. Campaigns are usually thrown together at the last minute

We are all guilty of casually throwing together a marketing campaign together at the last minute, even if it was only a couple of times, but if this is your main, go-to strategy then this can be a problem and it may be the time to take a new approach.

Effective marketing campaigns always take some time to put together, especially since it is important to analyse existing data, separate your audience into segments, A/B test your ad, etc.

If you want your digital marketing campaigns to be cohesive, then it is vital to plan all of your campaigns in advance. This means taking the necessary time and steps to set up and plan your campaign, like conducting keyword research, hiring copywriters, setting your ad targets, and more.

The relief of having your campaigns laid out in advance, without having the panic and stress of throwing them together at the last minute will be immense. It is important to ask yourself, how much more effective will your campaigns be if you had a clear plan of action right from the start?

7. Your website is being buried in search results

The google Chrome logo displayed on an iPhone.

People use Google and other search engines every single day to find brands, businesses, shops, and services, so if your website’s ranking isn’t high enough when potential consumers are trying to find a brand like yours, you are likely going to miss out on tons of potential customers.

Some websites may rank naturally for one reason or another, but others won’t. This is because the competition is likely investing in their SEO to rise to the top of search engine search results. Here is another instance where you shouldn’t follow the ‘publish and pray’ method if you want to be a competitive website on Google.

To try and dig yourself up from the bottom of the search results, you need to have an effective SEO strategy. This can involve optimising your website for search, publishing high-quality content only, attracting valuable backlinks to your website, and targeting the correct keywords.

It is important not to leave your Google rankings up to chance, so you should make sure you have a strong SEO strategy that will actively work to improve your website and its ranking.

8. Knowing how to analyse your performance in campaigns

A screenshot of Google Analytics statistics.

Many of the signs that we have highlighted above involve analysing whether your marketing efforts are yielding results. But if you have no idea how to measure results, then your marketing approach may need to be looked at too.

It is not enough to just run a campaign and have a vague idea of how many leads or customers that campaign is generating, and if you are inexperienced in measuring your results, you will not have the information available to you that you need to determine the cost per acquisition or the potential revenue that you are going to generate as a result.

For every marketing platform that you use, it’s vital to ensure that you have the analytics set up to track Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) for each of your campaigns. These KPI’s should be based on which metrics you need to look at to measure your success:

  • SEO. You should use page views, conversions, or bounce rate.
  • Social. Use comments, likes, shares, and clicks.
  • Ads. Try to use the click-through rate, clicks, or cost per click.

Setting these KPI’s will not only help you to measure the results that you are getting from your marketing campaign, but it will potentially help you to read and understand more advanced KPI’s in the future.

9. You do not have a multi-platform marketing strategy

If you are only relying on a single platform digital marketing strategy, you are putting all of your eggs in one basket. If the channel that you are using starts to dry up, you risk losing current customers and limit the ability to attract new consumers.

But, if your marketing campaign is also disjointed and you do not understand how each campaign fits into the bigger picture. You might experience gaps in your market. This could result in you missing out on more potential customers, suffering from consistent drop-offs in sales, or producing an incohesive brand identity.

The goal for your marketing strategies should be to build a cohesive, multi-channel digital marketing strategy. That reaches potential customers across multiple touchpoints. This way your brand values are communicated effectively across a range of platforms and channels. Resulting in you having multiple opportunities to attract customers.

This also allows you to be more confident that your marketing campaigns are all working together. Attracting your target audience.

10. You are not hitting your expected revenue numbers

The final and possibly the most important sign that your marketing needs an overhaul. Is that you are not hitting your expected revenue target.

If you are putting in a lot of time and effort into your marketing campaigns. You should be reeling in real results in terms of your revenue.

Assuming your marketing ticks all of the boxes in terms of driving leads and traffic. You will need to find a way to interpret the defining factors that are driving your revenue numbers. This can involve finding out which channel generates the best results for you. And whether everything that you are putting into your marketing is paying off.

If the results that are being generated by your marketing are not worth the costs that you’re putting into it. It may be time to go back to the drawing board.

Channelling money into your marketing blindly without the ability to measure your results is extremely risky. As it is likely that this will dry up your budget, or even potentially put your whole business in danger.

So, whether you are running your marketing or working with an agency. You must take a step back from your strategy. And take a good look at whether your campaigns are yielding the results that you want and need.

If you are not seeing traffic, leads, and money rolling in. It is probably time that you took a different approach.

How can Castle help?

Not sure where to start with marketing your business, or are your current methods not getting the results you expected? If you need help developing or revamping your digital marketing strategy, Castle can help. We are marketing experts in all aspects. And have a proven track record of success. Helping businesses with a wide range of industries generate revenue and grow their business.

Castle create bespoke marketing strategies, unique to your business, and tailored to your requirements to deliver the best results. We work on the premise of delivering a strong return on investment for each client. And have generated millions of pounds for our clients by listening to them and creating innovative marketing campaigns that work. To find out more about how Castle can help you overhaul your digital marketing strategy, visit our website or contact us on 0330 107 5344 or info@castle.co.uk.