Social media ROI shifts – 66% of CMOs now measure conversion
Site traffic remains the chief metric for social media measurement – but only just – as new research shows that conversion is now almost as important for CMOs.
The survey – CMO’s on Social Marketing Plans for 2011 – from Bazaarvoice and The CMO Club reveals that twice as many US companies now plan to pay attention to conversions than they did last year.
Significantly, this will mean marketers will be measuring social media success according to the number conversions ahead of the number of fans/followers or positive buzz.
The figures also underline the importance of the ROI of social media – eMarketer estimates “four out of five US businesses with at least 100 employees will be marketing on social media this year” with ad spending on social media networks in the region of $3billion.
The figures suggest that in future years CMO’s will be expected to know the ROI on marketing spend. For 2010 though, the report says that respondents when asked about social media activities with the highest ROI based on older metrics, were most likely to be unaware of the return from any channel other than their company’s online community.
At last, the message has finally got through to the bespectacled geeks that conversions are more important than a million creatives and assorted luvies browsing a company’s site, tweets or Facebook.
Thousands are spent putting up slick sites, clever dick tweets and creative Facebook entries and only now does someone think, hey, we’re not in the entertainment business, we’re in a life and death struggle to make money! Direct Marketing has always been about measuring results and results are the only things that matter.