Digital marketing has been around since the 1990s, and it remains an important piece of any marketing strategy today. If you’re new to the digital marketing game, you may be wondering how to run a successful digital marketing campaign and how long it will take to see positive results. Here’s what to expect from your new campaign.
Digital Marketing Is a Long-Term Game
On average, it takes six to nine months to see meaningful results from any new digital marketing campaign, and many digital marketers recommend waiting at least a year before reassessing campaigns and making drastic changes to your strategy. That can be hard to accept in a world where we’ve become used to the instant gratification of getting what we want within a short timeframe. While we may wish to see results within the first three months, that’s not the way digital marketing works. In fact, you will likely see an initial decline in traffic as your campaigns begin to optimize and better understand your target audience. Remember, patience is the name of the game when it comes to running a successful digital marketing campaign.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t make minor tweaks to your campaign, especially when it comes to updating stale content. To keep your ads from becoming stale, it’s best to rotate out imagery on display or in social ads at least once a quarter.
Variables Affect Results
Many variables contribute to your success when it comes to digital marketing. If you start a campaign during Q4, it’s far likelier to take longer to gain traction. The holiday season is busy for advertisers, and many companies spend the majority of their digital marketing dollars to drive results during this time.
Time of year, economic climate, or many other factors can contribute to the results of your campaign. For example, our client, Visit Bozeman, is a destination marketing organization. As is expected when advertising a destination, certain times of the year are more popular with tourists than others. For Bozeman, we often see a decrease in the months between the winter ski season and summer. We learned that in April and September, in particular, we see a sharp decline in traffic to the website just as we see a reduction in visitors to the area. With that lesson in mind, we plan accordingly to spend less time and money during those months and hit it harder in the winter and summer months.
Success Is a Journey, Not a Destination
Just as digital marketing is a long-term investment, success in your campaigns is more about the journey than the destination. It’s not likely that you’ll ever get to a place with digital marketing where your campaign is perfect and will stay that way. Your results will ebb and flow based on many factors. If you start seeing the results you’re looking for, double down on those efforts while you analyze what is working to keep improving your campaign.
An effective digital marketing strategy measures goals. Once you’ve met those goals, it’s time to set new ones to keep moving the needle. While it may feel repetitive, digital marketing strategy is cyclical like many aspects of life.
Digital marketing campaigns are long-term in nature and should be allowed the time to learn and optimize to get you the best results. It may sound daunting, and if you’re new to digital marketing, it can take time and practice to get the results you are looking for. If dedicating that time takes too much away from your business, you may prefer to outsource your digital marketing strategy to experts.
And if it’s experts you are looking for, look no further than PRIME. With over a decade of experience in the industry, our group of data nerds and digital strategists has honed its skills in creating digital marketing campaigns that will help you achieve the best results.
If you enjoyed this edition of PRIME Pulse, take a look at some of our other related articles:
- 5 Digital Marketing Goals to Set for the New Year
- The Ultimate Digital Marketing Dictionary
- 3 Questions to Ask When Courting a Marketing Agency
