Measure Your ROI on Social Media Leads

On Tuesday Genius.com announced the Genius URL Shortener (GURL), which makes it easier to measure the results of social media campaigns. At first I thought: “what’s new about that?”, and Marketo wrote a post on an alternative way to create tracking links. But when I read Ardath Albee’s post about the Genius URL Shortener I really got it: GURLs are cool!

Lead Source Measurement Needs Improvement

Tracking where a visitor comes from is not a new technique. I first used it inside AdWords, in which they offered cross-media conversion tracking. You could create a tracking URL, which you would include in non-AdWords advertisements, email blasts, and so on. This allowed you to see how many people registered (= converted) for each source.

After that, Google Analytics provided similar tracking features by appending variables to the existing URL (see the Google URL Builder tool). There are two big limitations for using this in B2B marketing:

  • You can only see conversions, not opportunities or revenue (because that information is in the CRM system)
  • You can’t see data on individual users

Marketing Automation to Measure End-to-End ROI

The Google tracking is from before Twitter, so the URLs were long and ugly. Twitter made the URL shorteners popular, like tinyURL and bit.ly. So in my opinion Genius now provides similar conversion tracking, with four improvements:

  • It has short and clean URLs
  • The URLs are easy to create, and anyone in the company can create them
  • It provides end-to-end tracking to see associated opportunities and revenue (pulled from Salesforce.com)
  • It ties into existing identified visitor tracking functionality (so clicks on GURLs and the entire web session are added to the lead record as metadata)

Of course, Social Media is all the rage, but I would also use the Genius URL Shortener for online advertisements, list rentals, and so on. The only place where you wouldn’t need it is in your own email blasts, because those are already tracked automatically.

The one feature I would like to add is the ability to associate links to specific campaigns, so you can see which lead sources were most effective for a particular campaign (Marketo’s approach covers this, but is not so easy to use).

So in my opinion this is a very interesting new  tool that is makes it easier to track campaign ROI for Social Media and beyond.

How would you use this lead source tracking tool? Let me know your suggestions.

Disclosure: I am a guest blogger on the MarketingGenius blog

Please consider sharing this post via the buttons on the left. Or subscribe via RSS or subscribe via email.

13 thoughts on “Measure Your ROI on Social Media Leads

  1. Rebekah Donaldson

    This is a great piece.
    To your point re the value of brevity: I tried to use the Hubspot module Marketing Link Manager but the link is so long that we could not use it with our LinkedIn ads campaign — they won’t accept it.
    I wish that the folks running Affiliate programs would generate traffic tagging links using the Genius URL shortener.

    Reply
  2. Pingback: How to measure the ROI of online and offline media channels with analytics. | NuSpark Marketing

  3. http://svejo.net

    AMATUZIO had ample opportunity to witness synthetic lubricants in action. A motor oils pour point tells you how well it handles cold temperatures without gelling (solidifying).
    Most of the Major Brands of “Synthetic Oil” are really “Synthetic Blends”.

    Reply
  4. Check This Out

    I got աhat you mean , regards for ƿosting .Woh I am delighted to find this website through gߋogle.
    “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” by Seneca.

    Reply
  5. eXtreme Ladyboys

    This situation is referred to as gender dysphoria. Music was at the heart of it all, from the folk movement
    led by the likes of Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Dave Van Ronk to the release of
    “Revolution 1” on the Beatles. Take some time out of
    your day and look at the fashion magazines and find out what colors are currently in style.

    Reply
  6. medical transcription outsourcing

    Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as
    though you relied on the video to make your point. You clearly know what youre talking about,
    why throw away your intelligence on just posting videos to your blog when you could be giving us something enlightening to read?

    Reply
  7. http://cooperativeutil77.exteen.com/

    Kdo by netoužil po dobrodružství se sexuálními kontakty bez nepríjemných závazku а následku.
    U nás jiste najdete protejšek, odpovídající ѵašim představám, pro divoký sex v
    Ostravě. Jiste budete spokojeni а nikdcy nebudete litovat rozhodnutí, pripojit se Ԁo
    naší službʏ.

    Reply
  8. Fleshlight Vs Tenga

    The looks from the vibrator is realistic, you may feel a similar sensation such as the male part.
    While the spy cameras are undeniably impressive, truth be told these are rather passé, therefore you’ll
    need to explore a lot more top wireless
    spy gadgets. Flesh light Fleshlight Vs Tenga pocket pussy A
    lot continues to be said about some from the material
    being harmful or dangerous.

    You may even make extra cash for your party to pay for bills or have a free toy of the.
    If that you are unsure on the infection you’ve got contracted, you’ll be able
    to use this test to test for all known infections.

    Reply
  9. Roshan

    Very interesting article and also informative about social media leads… i love this type of post..please keep it up..thanks a lot for sharing with us..

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *