Measuring the immeasurable: indicators for tools that are hard to count

Despite the large number of jokes about humanities, industries such as marketing, advertising, analytics, PR, SMM, and others are tied to numerical indicators. Weekly reports, KPI compliance, and results analysis are a constant job for any marketer.

And yet, among the wide variety of advertising tools, there are those in which numerical indicators are extremely difficult to find and KPIs are not as obvious as those of SMM or mailing lists. Let's figure out how to find out the effectiveness of such advertising tools.

PR promotion

We are talking about classic, long-term PR work. If your promotion is tied to a specific event and the ultimate goal is clear (for example, a press release in 10 publishing houses or two TV project releases), the metrics are obvious. If you work with the PR direction on a monthly basis, then reprints in the media alone will not be enough, and the following metrics will come to the rescue:

• Index of media. This is a special indicator, the methodology of which was developed by Medialogy. Three indicators are used in the calculation: tonality, citation index, and visibility of the message. It can range between —1000 and +1000 points. The higher the indicator, the more effective your PR promotion will be.

• Total coverage of publications. Your monthly coverage will reach several tens of millions of people with the competent work of PR specialists; with this indicator, you will be able to compare months and track which media publications this metric was higher in.

• Brand mentions. A fairly universal metric, which is also ideal for PR. You can view the number of mentions through Brand Visor by setting the period yourself.

Bloggers and influencers

Despite the popularity of collaborations with bloggers and the variety of formats, many bloggers still cannot give clear KPIs for their placement, and publication is done on the principle of "counting on word of mouth." In order to see more specific figures, you can use the following techniques:

• Provide a one-of-a-kind promotional code. If your collaboration is designed for commercial (and not brand) purposes, then a unique promo code linked to the blogger will show how many customers came through it.

• Set the average coverage of the post as a KPI and check it through independent analytics. The value of a blogger lies in the correlation between the number of subscribers and the average coverage of a post.

• Work through an intermediary or an agency that will offer a metric that is convenient for both parties and will guarantee its implementation.

Events

Another good, delicious, and interesting tool is events. At the same time, in addition to the number of guests and their involvement in the event, it is difficult to count something at the time of the holiday. To begin, it is critical to understand that event direction metrics are calculated before (before planning) or after (after factual activity). 

And which indicators are countable? 

• ROI. The most suitable metric for this direction is the payback of the event. During the activity, you can distribute promo codes, but it is even easier to register participants in order to track their purchases and behavioral characteristics later.

• Loyalty in the form of NPS. The satisfaction metric is a fairly popular tool that is studied both massively and point-by-point, for example, during an event. It is critical to calculate the NPS both before and after the activity in order to compare the indicator.

• Social network tag/hashtag coverage. Although not the most objective, it is a useful indicator. To accomplish this, create a tag or hashtag and remind guests about it, after which you can calculate the hashtag's coverage in social networks (within 24 hours).