Tracking ROI of Traditional Offline Media. How Do You Handle OOH, Print, SMS, Events, Radio, Discount Coupons.

Executive Summary

We have discussed online conversions and offline conversions, both predicated by an online lead acquisition in our blogs previously. But you may ask, that even today, a large number of leads are generated offline- Print, OOH, Events, Seminars, etc. Is there a way in which we could bring track these leads also? The short answer is maybe.
In this article we briefly look at how important Traditional Marketing continues to be, the pressures and challenges faced by Marketing Teams trying to prove Marketing ROI for Traditional Marketing before going on to explore possible solutions (not foolproof) to tracking lead conversion for leads acquired from Print, TV, Radio, Out of Home (OOH), Events, SMS etc.
We conclude with a suggested cheat sheet guide for Marketing Teams trying to track conversion for leads acquired offline.

Why We Cannot Ignore Traditional Marketing:

Traditional Marketing is still going strong. After years of Digital Advertising Spends outstripping Traditional Marketing Media (Television, Print, OOH, Radio, Cinema, etc) spends post-Pandemic, Digital Ad Spend growth is slowing down. If we cut through the clutter, we will see that globally Digital Ad Spends (~58%) are definitely bigger than spend on Traditional Media (for those interested in a deep dive into the trends- Media Outlook May2023 by Dentsu) and will increase in share of wallet, albeit slowly, but it still leaves about 40% of Global Advertising budgets being spent on Television, Print, Radio, OOH, Cinema, etc.
Quiet, a sizable chunk. What is more, different Demographics, consume media differently. As long as Boomers and Gen X continue to matter economically, firms will still have to spend more money on Traditional Media to target them. Readers are referred to our blog- Trends in Global Marketing Spends for insight into media consumption habits for different age cohorts.
And there is the dilemma for Marketing Teams globally.

Challenge of Tracking ROI for Traditional Media:

Attribution, or tracking efficacy of Marketing spends on traditional marketing is notoriously difficult to quantify. If you are broadcasting the channel is literally one way. How then do you measure.
Particularly difficult to track is Brand Communication. You broadcast messages, work on Customer Experience but with so many touchpoints, measuring which message created a subjective difference in the consumer’s perception of the brand is difficult. Over time, Marketing Teams have developed tools like Customer Interviews, Brand Surveys, and even Customer Experience toolkits like the very effective NPS. All in all, while not perfect, these tools suffice.
The bigger problem comes when it comes to measuring efficacy of Lead Generation. The uncertain economic environment over the past few years has put tremendous pressure on C-Suite to cut costs and show revenue generation. As this Harvard Business Review article (How Brand Building and Performance Marketing Can Work Together- May/ June 2023) indicates that this pressure has been increasing over the last 20 years.
Pressure which is transmitted down to the Marketing Team who are under even more scrutiny to justify and show ROI of spending for generating leads and revenue. Imagine the moral dilemma of a Chief Marketing Officer, who knows that his target group needs to be communicated to on Traditional Media yet is not able to attribute revenue to his spending, is increasing. Should he do the right thing and face an uncomfortable Board Review, or, should he go with the flow, and invest in something that is not the best ROI for his firm?
What if there was a way out?
Maybe.
Why maybe? Because to transform information easily from the digital world to an online world in scale, you would need the User to make an interaction somewhere- It maybe a form fill or even a WhatsApp message. If you can do that, then the answer is “Yes”.
Before we go into details of mechanisms, let’s do a quick review of the different scenarios possible in Lead Acquisition and Lead Conversion.

1. Tracking Online Lead Acquisition- Online Conversion Paths:

   Easiest scenario to deal with. Think ecommerce, online white paper downloads, sign-ups. A properly configured analytics backend on your ecommerce store or configuring your Google Analytics and you are set.



2. Tracking Online Lead Acquisition- Offline Conversion Paths:

   Slightly more difficult. Imagine the scenario of a Real Estate firm, Enterprise Software, Heavy Engineering, a professional service (Legal firms, Accounting, Business Consultants), personal services (Hospitality, Spa’s, Healthcare, Automotive, etc). All of them generate leads online but final conversion needs a human intervention and so moves offline. The biggest problem is that you can’t setup tools like Google Analytics, Mix Panel, etc to easily track these conversions. Especially, when you are selling a non-uniform product or service. The better way is to use a CRM like Pronnel to track your whole Lead Funnel. You can refer to the FAQ section at the end of this blog to see references to our documentation on how this can be achieved.



3. Tracking Offline Lead Acquisition- Online Revenue Conversion Paths:

   Slightly more difficult than the previous scenario. Not atypical, but still quite possible. Imagine you are an exhibitor at an event. You don’t have time to speak to everyone passing by. Yet you want to entice people to try your product online for free, or want them to watch your video from YouTube, or, even give them a place to sign up easily for further Sales outreach/ Demo’s. An alternative scenario would be you are running Ads in print or doing a door-to-door Activation campaign to canvas your product. These activities are expensive. How would you be able to justify to your management that the Activation Campaign, or the expense of attending a Trade Show was justified. You can track attribution either through a tool like Google Analytics or using a CRM.



4. Tracking Offline Lead Acquisition- Offline Revenue Conversion Paths:

   The trickiest attribution scenario- Enough to make most Marketing Teams throw up their hands in despair. The client most probably saw your message on TV, a Billboard, received a SMS or a Print Campaign, and then either walked into a store, called on the phone to move ahead in the Sales Cycle. The tracking can be if there is only contact at payment time- directly in ERP, or, if there is a sales cycle, through an intermediate CRM/ Lead Management System like Pronnel, which tracks not only origin and final conversion amounts but also, the Sales Cycle steps in between.

Using Vanity URL’s for Tracking Marketing ROI for Offline Lead Acquisition:

Using a Vanity URL (creating a unique URL that is branded for marketing purposes) that redirects to a dedicated landing page, or a microsite is a great way to get consumers to reach out across to you from an offline campaign, and, yet provide powerful tracking in place.
Ok, that’s quite a mouthful. Let’s see how this works.
Vanity URL’s as the definition suggests, are short, relevant, catchy and easy to remember. If consumers remember the URL, then it is likely that they will enter it and reach out. Studies have shown proper use of vanity URL’s can increase engagement by as much as 35%. Suppose, Pronnel, tomorrow decides to exhibit at a Trade Show to promote it’s WhatsApp Based CRM and wants consumers to guide consumers to read the blog and sign up. The URL for the blog is https://pronnel.com/blogs/Finding-the-perfect-WhatsApp-Based-CRM-to-Serve-Your-Customer.html
No way, a consumer would remember, or even care to remember this long URL. What happens if instead we handed out brochures/ flyers with a Vanity URL like below, which would be easier for people to remember and make them curious to try it out.

Using UTM Parameters to track offline Lead Acquisitions

UTM’s, provide a powerful way of capturing tracking data of the Source, Medium and Campaign that is bringing a visitor to your page or App. While UTMs have their own drawbacks, they do not infringe on privacy and can give you intelligence on where your visitors came from. Another advantage is that UTM tracking is readily available on all common analytics platforms like GA4, Microsoft Clarity, MixPanel, Kissmetrics, Adobe Analytics, Amplitude et al.
So, were we to create a link encouraging registration for demo’s that would solely, be put on a hoarding in Dubai’s Sheikh Zayed Road, we would actually have done the following:

• Original URL:

  https://pronnel.com/contact-sales.html

• UTM appended URL for putting on Hoarding:

  https://pronnel.com/contact-sales.html?utm_source=ooh&utm_medium=billboard-dubai-sheikh-zayed&utm_campaign=whatsapp-crm-demo

Understanding QR Codes for Tracking Marketing ROI for Offline Lead Acquisition

The drawback of using links, in any media format, no one remembers them. How many memorable vanity links will a Marketing Team create for a set of brands? Enter the QR Code. Launched in 1994 by DENSO Corporation in Japan who were trying to experiment with encoding more information in bar codes. QR (Quick Read) Codes, really took off around 2002 in Japan with the proliferation of mobile phones with a QR Code Reader. With the rise of smart phones today almost all phone families (Android, iOS, Harmony, Windows Phone, BharOS) have QR reading features incorporated with the camera.
Now, imagine we want to replace the 124-character UTM appended link in the above example (https://pronnel.com/contact-sales.html?utm_source=ooh&utm_medium=billboard-dubai-sheikh-zayed&utm_campaign=whatsapp-crm-demo). All we must do is enter the long URL in a QR Code generator, generate a QR Code and place it on the billboard.

1. Send WhatsApp or Telegram using a QR Code

   Will open the App on the Users phone to the correct number. Can also incorporate a pre-coded message. Refer FAQ section for How To- Offline Acquisition Tracking with QR Codes for a WhatsApp CTA.

2. Send Email using a QR Code

   Can incorporate a pre-coded Subject and Mail Body

3. Call a Phone using a QR Code

   When scanned by a smartphone a QR Code will open the calling panel.

4. Send an SMS using a QR Code

   Can incorporate a short pre-coded text

5. Send a payment link with for a Product using a QR Code

   Can incorporate SKU Code, Product Name, Quantity, Price, Currency, Shipping and Taxes

6. Do Event Registrations using a QR Code

   Communicate Event location, timing, etc.

7. App Download through QR Code

   Opens up Play Store or Apple Store depending on the OS of the phone.

8. Share a YouTube link using a QR Code

   Can incorporate the UTM for tracking.

9. Share Social Profiles like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat using a QR Code




10. Share a Google Map location using a QR Code

    When scanned by a smartphone, the QR code will open your navigation.

11. Open a PDF/ PPTX/ Text File using a QR Code

    When scanned by a smartphone the document downloads to the persons phone and opens.

How to Use Coupon Codes/ PROMO Codes for Tracking Marketing ROI for Offline Lead Acquisition.

PROMO Codes/ Promotional Codes/ Coupon Codes have been around for ages. Initially associated with printed coupons distributed through newspapers and other Print media to entice consumers with a discount or offer, they came back into vogue with the rise of the internet in the early 2000’s.
By giving consumers a short alphanumeric code that they could redeem at the Point of Sale (POS) for a short discount, Marketing Teams found a way to track the efficacy of their communications. For an offline transaction, the salesperson could enter this data directly into the ERP or CRM at time of purchase, associating the sale directly to the offer. If, for example, a grocery store ran a promotion-“EGGS50%”, and a consumer came in and purchased not only the eggs at 50% off, but also bread, milk, cereal, orange juice, then the Marketing Team could very well claim, that their offer, not only moved eggs off the shelf but also sold the other items in the basket. With this promotion, they were able to claim a larger share of the consumers wallet, which could easily have gone to competition.
As a rule of thumb, a PROMO Code needs to be short and easily memoizable. You could use Promo Codes not only on offline Print Media, OOH, Radio, TV, Cinema Advertising but also online on your blogs/ website or even assign specific Promo Codes to Influencers. Whether redemption is online or offline, you can use your CRM to track usage. Those interested in examples of CRM usage to track can refer our blog on “Influencer Marketing | Tracking ROI”.
PROMO codes are generally very useful for instant/ impulsive purchases like groceries, apparel, auto servicing etc. They are also useful for attracting consumers to try out new products and services. Spa’s, aesthetic clinics, personal development courses, new SaaS products, etc are all examples of categories using them successfully.

Using Redeemable Vouchers for Offline Conversion Tracking.

Tracking leads generated from online Marketing communication that do not go through any intermediate online interaction and are redeemed only at POS is the trickiest path. One-way firms have been tackling this is through using Redeemable vouchers mostly as newspaper inserts, which shoppers present physically when making a purchase.

Cheat Sheet: How to Track Marketing ROI for Offline Lead Acquisition.

Once you determine your Marketing Mix, and your final objectives, you need to determine what CTA’s are your target group most comfortable to work on. Based on that you can use the Cheat Sheet given below to determine what device/ tracking method you should use to capture your consumer journeys. You may choose one, or a combination of tools like a Vanity Link, QR Code, Dedicated Number/ Call Tracking, PROMO Code, Redemption Voucher to launch your campaign. One final check before embarking on the campaign- Make sure your ERP/ Google Analytics/ CRM is setup and can handle the information.

Best Practices for Tracking Marketing ROI for Offline Lead Acquisition.

1. Does It Need Fixing?

   Just because there are tools available to track, does not mean that we must track every activity. While evaluating whether you want to granularly track a specific activity weigh the scope of impact and insights vs the efforts needed to roll it out, check for accuracy and whether or not it will cause an overload of unnecessary information in your Customer Data Platform (CDP).

2. Implement An Appropriate Tracking Mechanism

   Using the cheat sheet above determine a course of action and roll it out.

3. Test It Out Before Rolling It Out

   Make sure you run enough tests covering different scenario’s before rolling it out to the world. Your CDP (Customer Data Platform) needs to be protected against data poisoning.

4. Experiment, Evaluate, Iterate.

   It is likely that despite intensive testing, your initial results will throw up surprises. You need to forewarn your teams about this with the caveat that any new tracking program needs at least a quarter of data before you can draw solid conclusions. Use the initial time to experiment and iterate your models.

FAQ’s

Q2: How Do You Track Offline Lead Acquisition QR Codes opening to a Webpage?

Let’s use a standard QR generator like https://qr.io/. Using the above example let’s set up a QR code for a billboard which carries an offer for “End Of Season Sale” which is featured on a billboard on Times Square. The sample URL can be- https://pronnel.com/contact-sales.html?utm_source=OOH&utm_medium=Paid&utm_campaign=End+Of+Season+Sale&utm_content=Times+Square%2C+New+York

The next thing to do would be to convert this into a QR code by plonking this URL into a QR Code generator.

Q3: How Do You Track- Offline Lead Acquisition with QR Codes with a WhatsApp CTA?

With the rise of WhatsApp, consumers world over prefers reaching out through it. Rather than asking people to memorize numbers, why not give them a QR Code that they can scan and send an instantaneous message which can be captured in your CRM and tracked (Pronnel already captures leads from WhatsApp. To know more about how to use Pronnel’s WhatsApp CRM read our earlier blog-WhatsApp-Based CRM | Blogs (pronnel.com)
Same steps as before to generate a new URL with UTM Codes embedded- https://pronnel.com/contact-sales.html?utm_source=WhatsApp&utm_medium=Keynote+Speech&utm_content=Annual+Conference
Generate a QR code which when scanned will open up WhatsApp on an users phone to the contact number provided and show a message ready to be sent.

Whenever the user scans the QR Code, WhatsApp will open to a screen like this. As long as the user hits send, the data will get captured.

Pro-Tip Many users may feel uncomfortable hitting send on a message which has a large URL string attached to it. We recommend instead of using all the parameters to either use a URL Shortener or utm_id.