There is an increasing awareness of the importance of marketing’s contribution to business. It still remains a domain that is not completely understood as it comes across as the fluffy component of business. Measuring the direct impact of sales or operations in your business is a very straightforward endeavor. The same cannot be said of marketing. The direct impact of marketing may be more difficult to measure.

TrustRadius’s report on 2015 Social Media Marketing Trends says it all: 60% of the marketers surveyed list “measuring return on investment (ROI)” as one of their top three challenging aspects in their social media marketing campaigns:

Source: https://econsultancy.com/measuring-social-media-roi-case-studies-stats-that-prove-it-s-possible/

Measuring ROI doesn’t have to complicated if you know the metrics that you need to measure. The complication arises because we are privy to so many data points that it can become confusing to determine which ones are relevant.

So if the process can get complicated, why measure ROI at all? When data is tracked, interpreted, and summarised in reports effectively, you as an event organizer will be in a better position to understand not only your marketing investment and efforts, but that of your sponsors as well. If you find yourself asking “How do I know if this campaign is working?” or “How do I know if people are converting from the website?” — then take some time to embrace the benefits of figuring out how to calculate your social media ROI effectively.

1: What is the ROI of a social media campaign?

It is proof that your campaign is working (or not!).

ROI = (return – investment)/investment 

2: Start by Choosing a goal

What is your overarching goal with your social media campaign? Is it to increase exposure to your event? To increase ticket sales? On which social media channel can you find your target audience? There’s a whole host of possibilities of choosing which goals and actions to track.  Here are a few to choose from:

• • Clicks to website

• Purchase of tickets

3: Never lose sight of long-term objectives

Pouring over a lot of details and event-by-event data can mean losing sight of the bigger picture. So set your objectives early and bring them up every time you evaluate or discuss an event report. Focused and consistent goals will take a lot of headache out of measuring ROI, because not only will you know what you’re investing from the get go, but why you’re measuring it at all. Staying focused will easily remind you why this investment will matter months to years from now and help you pick your priorities well.

4: Track your goal

Choose a conversion goal and start tracking away! Most social media channels will offer a tracking pixel you can add to your website so that you can measure conversion accurately. Remember to be highly selective about what you’re tracking! Whittle out data that isn’t making an impact or data that no one’s missing.

This is where the monetary value of the measurements comes in. One of the measurements you can use to determine the success of your campaign at converting targets to actual buyers is:

Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

If you had used the tracking pixels, your analytics will indicate how many people went on to complete the purchase. You can then calculate the CPA, and if the cost of acquiring the buyers was less than the cost of your sale, then it was a worthy investment.

5: Tools to consider

1. Master Google Analytics and Excel
   If you’re in charge of calculating ROI, these tools will be your best friends. Google Adwords Keyword Planner can even calculate the cost per click (CPC) for the main keyword or phrase per piece of content. Read how to conduct a simple analysis with these two tools here.
2. Look for apps that can meet you halfway with data analysis
   Can’t afford regular consultancy? At every step of the event process you can be guaranteed to find an array of apps that can competently generate infographics and summaries of data. This will save you some valuable time for sure! Peatix’s app and services for example comes with built-in feedback forms so you can collect and view event attendee data with ease.

Easily set up your own event page with analytics and sell tickets on Peatix. Want to know more? Write in to sg@peatix.com