Marketing tracking platforms aggregate data and provide analytics that help you evaluate your marketing results and make better decisions about where to focus your time and budget. There are a few essential, easy to deploy, basic tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console that most everyone should be using to get started.
However, once using these basic tools, next steps aren’t obvious. Some tools, like Google Data Studio, are free, but take a significant amount of time and effort to learn and use. Most paid marketing tracking platforms offer you more benefits than free tools, but it takes time to find and evaluate tools that are within your budget, not to mention configure and learn how to use them.
Here are some questions you should ask when evaluating an investment in particular marketing tracking platforms. You should be able to say yes to the following questions, and if you can’t, then you should probably pass on the investment.
Will it save me time, does it give me actionable advice, and does it provide insights to help me improve advertising ROI?
While marketing tracking platforms ideally provide all of these benefits, a strong value proposition in just one of these areas makes the decision to move ahead easy. For example, an analytics platform that allows you to see all of your marketing in one place will save you the time you would spend logging into different systems. Even if you only save 5 minutes per week, all but the most cash-strapped or budget conscious companies can easily justify spending a small amount on a tool to consolidate marketing performance and make it accessible with one login.
Will I actually use the platform?
Every platform requires time to configure and learn. If you can’t see yourself using the platform on a regular basis, you are better off saving your money. Even Google Analytics isn’t worth using if you are never going to look at the data.
Will it pay for itself?
Ultimately, any marketing software tool you buy should save or make money in excess of what it costs to purchase and use the platform. Marketing automation platforms and CRMs that cost thousands of dollars can easily pay for themselves in larger company settings by personalizing and automating follow up, which accelerates sales and improves closing ratios. That said, they are complete marketing systems designed to accelerate lead and sales generation, and if you aren’t committed to spend significant time leveraging them or haven’t figured out product/market fit yet, they probably aren’t for you.
In What Use Cases Does Jess Pay For Itself?
When we developed the Jess platform, we had these three questions in mind.
Jess was designed to help you figure out which of your marketing is working, but like any marketing platform, Jess isn’t for everyone. For example, if you are doing all of your marketing activity in house, and you don’t foresee making any changes to your marketing mix, then Jess isn’t a good fit for you.
However, if you are spending more than $500 in staff time or on agency fees for help with SEO or paid search or social media marketing, it’s hard not to argue you’ll see a solid return with Jess. Jess helps you quantify your marketing results and measure if you are getting a return on your marketing spending. It lets you see which marketing campaigns result in particular people getting in touch with you, and track that contact all the way to the sale. If you are spending money on more than one marketing campaign, you’ll also be able to analyze each campaign individually and see which ones are working better, which allows you to adjust your budget accordingly. In fact, it’s not uncommon for Jess customers to find campaigns that aren’t working at all, and in these cases, Jess lets you feel confident about cutting back that spending.
Jess was designed to provide useful data with no work on your part, but a small amount of input from you provides the foundation for more nuanced reporting. You get what you put into Jess, but even with no effort, you will be able to see insights that aren’t available on any other affordably priced marketing tracking platforms, including the total number of leads you are getting from each marketing campaign and the cost per lead, in an easy to understand, side-by-side format.
Want our opinion about the marketing tracking platform you are considering? Contact us and we will be happy to let you know what we think. Or, start a free trial of Jess today and see if it’s right for your business!
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