You could analyse the results of the campaign, or measure the impact during the campaign, to tell if you're going in the right direction. Be careful about choosing the tools to do this, though, as not all the metrics can be equally useful in your case.
Testing
It is good to test your content, tactics, and strategy to see if they're working well. Testing is all about data provided by your audience. You can either:
ask for it and collect information through action forms/surveys, or:
use built-in analytics tools offered by social media platforms or paid, external publishing tools, such as Hootsuite.
Before you choose your tool, think about:
the tactical goal you're to achieve,
the questions you're hoping to get the answers to,
your hypothesis (the "hunch") - a statement that you can answer with: "true" or "false",
what specifically you will need to measure (the metrics).
Selecting the right metrics can be hard. Whether you decide to run your experiment using the vanity or impact metrics, you may get different answers for the success of your camping.
Vanity metrics
There are special tools that will test the content for you, e.g. Facebook Ads Manager for social media channels such as Facebook or Instagram, Mailchimp for emails and newsletters, and Optimizely for websites. Be careful with the vanity metrics, though. They may seem like a simple instrument to track statistics, but they don't give you a deep insight into the matter.
Examples of vanity metrics are as follows:
mailing list size
social media likes & followers
number of petition signatures
open rates
website traffic
These organizational statistics may look impressive, but don't yield real insights on the success of the campaign goals. For example, you may get lost in vanity metrics if you start thinking that donations are the real goal of your campaign. While in fact, donations are just an instrument for achieving your goal.
Impact metrics
Impact metrics are organizational statistics that yield real insight on the success of the campaign goals. They show you how well your movement is going, how deeply your supporters are engaged, and whether you're making progress towards your goal. Examples of impact metrics can be:
conversions (actions)
supporters returning for action
new supporters
winning your campaign
Impact metrics are in particular about movement building:
How many new leaders emerged in your movement?
How happy and engaged your volunteers and supporters are?
Impact metrics focus on continuous learning and improvement of the key outcomes.
➡️ To learn more about how to test your campaign wisely and go deeper into the subject, register for our free, online, self-paced course: “Digital Campaigning Basics”:
