Evaluating Marketing Success

One of the most important yet equally frustrating aspects of marketing is evaluating the success of a marketing campaign. Millions of dollars are often spent developing and launching such campaigns, analysis and evaluation measures the success of the campaign, and gives the firm an idea of what future campaigns should look like. Should they change their messaging strategy? Should the firm magnify their efforts if the campaign is working? According to Kokkinaki, and Ambler, Given that a firm’s survival depends on its capacity to create value, and value is defined by customers (Day, 1990 and Porter, 1998), marketing makes a fundamental contribution to long-term business success. Therefore evaluating marketing performance is a key task for management, (2002)¹. An example of a successful marketing campaign is Afflac, the duck campaign was launched in 2000, the company had a brand recognition of 12%,  As a result of the long-running campaign, Aflac’s brand recognition jumped from 12% to 90%, and increased sales catapulted Aflac into a leadership position in the supplemental insurance market, (marketing mo, n.d.)². Through, analysis and obvious success of the marketing campaign Aflac could understand just how much success the “duck” brought to the company.

There are many ways that a company like Aflac can analyze their marketing campaigns. The best way in my opinion is through online evaluation, companies like Real Media Inc. will tailor the company’s ads and place those ads strategically to a specific demographic. Other companies will track how many times the ad was clicked, how long the consumer stayed on the page and what else the consumer may have searched. Even though I feel that this is a fantastic way for companies to get real time feedback, there are moral implications… “How much tracking of a consumer is ok?” Eventually this could become a problem as more consumers are becoming aware of how much personal data is being tracked. Another form of marketing campaign analysis is, behavior. Tracking in-store behavior, such as coupons used, or bundled items, for example: how many consumers who bought graham crackers also bought chocolate and marshmallows to make s’mores? A company can analyze this and offer future promotions for bundled purchases. The downside to behavioral analysis is the lack of consistent information. The data can be very sporadic and inaccurate making it a less reliable evaluation source.

Footnotes:

1.      Ambler, T., & Kokkinaki, F. (2002). Measures of marketing success. Journal of Marketing Management, 20(4), 665-678.

Marketing Campaigns | Marketing MO. (2014, January 8). Retrieved June 30, 2015, from http://www.marketingmo.com/strategic-planning/marketing-campaigns/