Data can be king when it comes to digital marketing, but what data can bring the best results? These five simple stats will not only get you from strategy to wrap up, but they are also scalable for all levels of investment and relevant to both virtual and live events.

Before starting your campaign, look at the data you already have: registration stats, website search results, and document downloads.

Tina Warren, director, trade show marketing, for PMMI, the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, uses data from the organization’s tradeshow registration partner. “You can do a lot with your data purely with demographics,” she said. “You can also look at your registration system for behavioral data—when do they typically register, and how do they register?”

Figure out how users engage with your organization across the board. For example, PMMI looks at search results through its events management software interface, report downloads, social media engagement, and website activity. With all this data, you can build an informed narrative to create your strategy.

Pacing Goals

This is where you take a closer look at your conversions so you can benchmark your progress and spending in real time. There are two types of pacing goals:

Overall registration. This shows where you want to be at varying points of your registration cycle. Your virtual pacing will be different because you can push registration right up until go-live. In 2019 Warren said PMMI’s overall registration pacing goal for PACK EXPO Las Vegas tradeshow was “25 percent by nine weeks out,” which was achieved a week early. 

Digital campaign. Set these benchmarks specifically for your digital campaign based on historical data (if applicable), overall registration goal (above), timing, and messaging. Similar to the overall registration pacing goals, we set goals based on investment, strategy and historical data for total registrations that the digital campaign should bring in, and then set pacing metrics to track to that total. For example, we may reach 25 percent of total registration at 10 weeks out but won’t likely hit 25 percent of total digital conversions until later in the campaign. We like to keep an eye on both pacing lines since they often spike at different times in the campaign.

Follow performance against your pacing goals to understand attendee behavior: when your customers take action during the campaign cycle, what calls to action they respond to, and how to make changes to capitalize on that information. As your campaign unfolds, you may also shift what channels you use and the investment you make.

“We set it up early, knowing we’re going to have to take a look back and make alterations as time goes on,” Warren said. “It’s not one and done.”

Once you’re pacing goals are set, here are three specific metrics to monitor:

Click-through rate. CTR tells you who was interested enough to click on your ad and potentially take an action. But this stat is not black and white: It can tell you more about engagement than conversions, plus a whole lot more.

CTR standards vary by channel and how you set up the campaigns, including what lists you use and when you change copy and artwork. Find out what you want to test (e.g., keywords, images, copy, artwork, video) and let the stat guide you. For example, we may use the same artwork for a period of time for a client because it’s working, or we’ll switch things up if the ad isn’t performing or if a keyword is falling flat.

Cost per click. CPC tells you how much you’re paying every time someone clicks on your ad. Just like CTR, you can look at overall CPC, or you can drill down into specific ad groups or keywords to see where your spend is making the most impact.

The more you learn, the better decisions you can make. If you have a high CPC that’s driving conversions, keep it. On the other hand, you might have a keyword driving impressions with a low CPC, but no registrations. Time to change the keyword or the ad altogether.

There are other factors that play into CPC. For Google Ads, keywords are assigned a quality score based on their relevancy, the ad, and the landing page. The more relevant the keywords, the higher the quality score; the higher the quality score, the less you pay per click, and the higher rank you’ll have in search results. Similarly, Facebook will look at ad relevance. Watching your CPC activity regularly can help you optimize your return on ad spend.

Conversion rate. This is really what you’re in it for: the conversions. Did you meet your predetermined pacing goals and final digital conversion counts? The answer most likely lies within some combination of your budget, spend, timing, calls to action, and the attribution model you’re using. An attribution model is basically a rule that determines how credit for a conversion—in this case, a registration—is assigned to touchpoints in the conversion path. For example, a last click attribution model will assign the conversion to the very last interaction before the conversion in contradiction to a first click attribution model which will assign credit to the very first interaction or touchpoint that leads to a conversion.

For PMMI, 56 percent of total registration came from the digital campaign, which was 300 percent over the previous show in 2017. But the digital campaign didn’t stand alone; it was buoyed by a strong cross-platform strategy and smart investment.

Remember, you don’t need to spend more to gain more. Test your strategy, examine results, and shift your investment accordingly.