If your marketing efforts are running into trouble, then it’s important to find out now so that your organization can take action. Here are the signs that deserve immediate attention so you can make sure your campaign results in success!

Web Traffic Has Dropped Since the Campaign Began

This is one of the clearest danger signs a brand can get after starting a new marketing push. If web traffic is falling instead of rising, then something has been severely miscalculated. Ads may have been poorly designed or placed/targeted in the wrong ways, so no one is seeing them. Technical difficulties may have crept in and disabled marketing efforts in digital spaces or brands new to SEO may have made severe mistakes in where and how to use SEO content. Whatever the cause, it’s important to take a close look and find out what’s going wrong.

Sidenote: As 2020 has shown us recently, sometimes markets change so suddenly and severely that a drop in sales or leads really isn’t the fault of a marketing campaign. However, online traffic is a bit more reliable in this regard, since it’s simply based on people following your content to visit your website.

Conversion Rates Are Lower Than in the Past

Your conversion shows how many of your leads are being converted to sales. External factors aside, conversion rates that have fallen dramatically indicate something is happening in the sales funnel to discourage potential buyers.

If leads are making it to your website but not to a sale, this suggests that your marketing push isn’t aligned well with the actual content on your site, which may need to be updated with more explanations or easier navigation. This is also a good time to examine your ad targeting and if it’s reaching the right audiences this time around.

Social Signals are Non-Existent

Social signals include all reactions to social posts, including comments, shares, and likes. If your current marketing isn’t getting these signals, something is wrong. Blue Atlas Marketing can take a detailed look to find out what’s happening here, but one common reason is that social content just isn’t matching up with your target audience.

We see this when brands don’t adapt their tone to social media and speak like an advertisement, instead of a social presence. It can also happen when brands only pick top “popular” trends to show that aren’t well-connected to their core competencies and get diluted by the vast number of other posts that are – well, the same thing.

Competitor Websites are Doing Better in Comparison

There are many ways to analyze competitor website performance, with tools that allow you to plug in keywords, analyze web traffic performance, and more. If proper analysis shows that competitor websites are still doing much better than your site, it’s time to rethink your approach. Gaining on competitors doesn’t happen quickly, but it can happen with the right strategy aimed at the right audiences. Problems here indicate a need to focus more on product differentiation and new methods of outreach. You may also want to think about branching into alternative methods of sale that your competitors don’t have much presence in.

Your Website Has High Bounce Rates

High bounce rates indicate a significant amount of traffic is visiting your webpages and then immediately leaving. That obviously affects conversion rates and is bad news for increasing sales. This is frequently a targeting issue – it can happen when ads and content are showing up in the wrong places or misrepresenting your brand, thus confusing website visitors. It may be time for a rework!

You are Not Getting Any Account or Email Sign-Ups

Followers, new accounts, and email sign-ups are troves of valuable information for customer service, and more reliable eyeballs on your content. But if your current efforts aren’t producing these sign-ups, then something needs work. This can be a sign that you aren’t offering sign-ups in the right places, or that your web forms are too confusing or need to be easier for visitors to complete.

There’s No Follow-Up Plan After Content is Released

A business can’t just drop marketing content and then sit back to wait for results. If the marketing campaign isn’t active a few weeks after deployment, that’s a sign that trouble awaits. Marketing is a consistent push to show new deals, new ideas, and new reasons to buy. Without that consistent push, it quickly becomes like a vehicle without gas, overtaken by other, more thorough campaigns.

Customers are Reporting Confusion

If your customer reps and social media managers are reporting a lot of confused customers, that’s a troubling sign. It usually means that marketing content has created a serious misunderstanding about deals, services, or how sales are supposed to work. That calls for a study of customer complaints to narrow down root causes and address the issue. Do this sooner rather than later, as clarification will benefit all future efforts, too.

Conclusion

One final note about marketing campaigns: Don’t forget to look at the overall business strategy when it comes to road bumps. Alignment between sales and marketing remains a key aspect of any marketing campaign, along with broad budget decisions that may be affecting marketing choices. As usual, the whole picture matters! Contact Blue Atlas if you would like to explore options for improving any particular part of your strategy.