“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I know it sounds like a Walt Disney quote, a cliche sometimes overused, or even something that appears to be obvious. The truth of the matter is that when it comes to marketing and campaigns, all too often the goal isn’t the focus of the campaign.

Let’s set the scene. You are set to run a Facebook campaign for your new business. Your website is all polished and ready for visitors. But … What is the goal of this campaign? Is it brand awareness? Website Visits? Conversions? The answer to this determines HOW the campaign should and will be approached altogether by the campaign manager.

A goal of brand awareness means training your customers that your brand is the one that they want to use if not now but in the future. Impressions, social follows and engagement will establish success for this campaign.

A goal of website visits means driving as much traffic as possible to your website. Focusing on clicks in the campaign will drive visitors to your website.

A goal of conversions means something a little bit trickier. What exactly is the conversion that you are looking for? A purchase? An email sign up? While trickier, this is the goal where determining a successful campaign is most obvious. The ROI is much easier to track with this regard, as opposed to brand awareness or even website clicks where a number of questions are still up in the air. Do they like my brand? What was the user’s take away from the website? Again, a little bit tougher to track in the short term.

Utilizing the bidding options properly during the set up will help this. Over the years, Facebook has created an optimized suggested bidding option focused on the goal. Facebook campaign managers can also take advantage of the Facebook pixels which help to track the desired conversions by placing the pixel on the result page of their website.

Imagine going into the campaign without the goal in mind first. Are you picturing a political ad for what would and could happen in the event that the opponent won? Fires, mayhem and chaos? No, it won’t be that bad but you likely would be spending unnecessary money marketing that you wouldn’t need to.

Don’t just wish for a good campaign, start with the goal and work backwards. Even better, have Meteor Affinity help work through it with and for you!