Multi-channel advertising campaigns are critical in today’s fast-paced digital landscape. According to a survey by Zoominfo, 86% of consumers regularly “channel hop” across at least two channels. Yet only 14% of organizations say they run coordinated multi-channel ad campaigns. If you’re not using a multi-channel approach, you’re missing out.

However, planning and executing a multi-channel advertising campaign is only the first step. It’s not enough to hit “publish” and move on. Once your campaign is live, you need to continually assess its performance and optimize for growth. But how do you measure the success of a multi-channel advertising campaign?

In this article, we’re diving into the metrics you should follow to understand your multi-channel campaign performance. Keep reading to discover actionable strategies to track your success.

What Is Multi-Channel Advertising?

Marketing is often inundated with niche vocabulary, so let’s start by clarifying what we mean by multi-channel advertising. Multi-channel advertising is a method of engaging with potential customers across different media platforms using a cohesive, comprehensive strategy. It distills your core campaign message across multiple content channels while driving your audience toward a singular conversion goal.

In other words, consumers might find your brand in different contexts – including digital media and legacy media like TV and radio, print ads, or out-of-home (OOH) ads. But whether it’s a TikTok video or a billboard, they’ll still recognize your campaign. Some of the best multi-channel ad campaigns rely on familiar brand slogans, characters or spokespeople, or distinct branding elements like using the same fonts and colors across different assets.

For example, Apple’s multi-channel marketing approach relies on a consistent, easily identifiable aesthetic. While the brand’s iconic “Shot on iPhone” billboards are very different from their broadcast or streaming ads, customers recognize the company’s compelling stories, striking images, and clean, minimalist fonts.

But no matter where your ads live, they share a clearly-defined goal.

Setting Goals for Multi-Channel Campaigns

Before you can measure the success of your multi-channel advertising campaign, you need to set goals. Without clear objectives, it’s difficult to understand which metrics to track and how to interpret your data.

Are you looking to…

• Increase brand awareness?
• Drive traffic to your website?
• Boost social media engagement?
• Drive conversions in a new audience segment?
• Boost average order volume (AOV)?
• Generate leads?
• Improve customer retention?

Narrowing your goals helps you evaluate your campaign’s effectiveness. For example, if your primary objective is increasing visitors to your website, you’ll want to focus on metrics like unique visitors and page views to measure the success of your campaign. However, if your goal is revenue growth, your key indicators should be conversion rates, AOV, or customer retention (or a combination of these metrics).

Key Performance Indicators for Multi-Channel Campaigns

In advertising and marketing, the metrics you track are known as Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs. KPIs represent specific data points that help you and your team assess the success of your campaign. When interpreted with your goals in mind, KPIs are a powerful tool for understanding how well your assets are performing.

Important KPIs for a multi-channel advertising campaign include:

Reach

Reach is a measurement of the total number of unique individuals who have seen your content. A high reach indicates that your campaign is exposed to a large audience of potential customers.

Engagement

Engagement covers metrics that involve interaction with your content. For a website, this means clicks. For social media, it covers likes, shares, and comments. High engagement indicates that your campaign assets resonate with your target audience.

Conversion Rate

When users complete a desired action – such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter – this is known as a conversion rate. Conversion rates are among the most useful KPIs to track for a multi-channel advertising campaign, as they directly reflect the efficacy of your marketing strategy.

Return on Investment

Return on investment, or ROI, calculates the profitability of your campaign. It compares the cost of the campaign to the revenue it generates. In other words, ROI tells you whether your advertising is paying off, or whether your strategy needs adjustments to be more cost-effective.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) measures the average expense of acquiring a new customer. For multi-channel campaigns focused on revenue and growth, this metric provides valuable information about your progress. Keeping CAC low, while generating quality leads, is critical for your campaign’s success.

Understanding Impact Via Attribution Modeling

In addition to tracking KPIs, marketers should also pay attention to attribution modeling. Attribution modeling helps you understand the impact of each different channel in your multi-channel advertising campaign. Because customers may interact with your brand through several different touchpoints before converting, attribution models provide context for each action.

Some of the most common attribution models for measuring the impact of your campaign include:

• First-Touch Attribution: This model credits the first interaction a customer has with your brand as the most influential touchpoint.

• Last-Touch Attribution: Attributes the conversion to the final touchpoint before the action.

• Multi-Touch Attribution: In this type of attribution modeling, credit is distributed across all touchpoints; multi-touch attribution recognizes the impact of all media involved in the conversion funnel.

Choosing the right attribution model is vital for assessing the efficacy of different channels in your campaign. It’s also a useful tool for optimizing your marketing assets. 

Best Practices for Measuring Multi-Channel KPIs

Setting campaign goals around KPIs and attribution models is the first step in measuring the success of your multi-channel campaign. Once you have established what success looks like and how you’ll measure it, engage in these best practices:

1. Use Advanced Analytics Tools

Use Google Analytics as well as native CMS for your campaign’s creative assets, such as social media dashboards, and internal tracking for sales. Your team may also consider investing in robust analytics tools – such as a custom-coded CMS – that can integrate data from multiple channels.

2. Regularly Monitor and Adjust

We can’t stress the importance of this step enough. Once your campaign goes live, you’ll need to continuously review it and analyze your data points. Be prepared to make adjustments based on the insights from your analytics CMS.

3. Maintain Data Accuracy and Quality

Additionally, always verify the source of the data you’re collecting. Do your best to double-check for accuracy and quality. Make sure it’s as recent as possible, too. If your information is out-of-date, you won’t be able to make well-informed decisions.

Use Data to Influence Strategies for Success

Remember, KPIs and data alone aren’t enough to execute a successful multi-channel marketing campaign. It’s what you do with this information that makes an impact. Always consider your insights in the context of your long-term goals and don’t be afraid to re-optimize your campaign or pivot to different channels.

When you measure the success of your multi-channel campaigns, you’ll be well-equipped to achieve your marketing objectives and grow.