Order Fulfillment Software Measures Ad Performance

With skyrocketing advertising costs in both traditional media like TV and print and new media such as pay per click and pay per performance, marketers need to quickly determine if a particular ad or marketing campaign is profitable.  Waiting for results can be very costly and can mean the difference between success and failure.

There are many tools available online to measure the performance of online marketing campaigns.  Tools such as Google Analytics give you quick overview of your campaign separating ads that work from ones that don’t.  Marketers expect the same quick analytics from their TV, radio and print advertising.  However, for traditional marketing campaigns such tools are very hard to come by, especially since most marketers use traditional order fulfillment systems for reporting.

Direct response TV advertising usually relies on measuring performance based on the number of phone calls received for a particular ad.  They assign a unique toll-free number to each TV spot and measure how many phone calls were received on that phone number and how much total revenue was generated.  With this data, they can determine whether a particular TV or radio spot was profitable.  A marketer may test two versions of an ad and air them on two different TV stations and compare results to determine the winning version.  They usually repeat this “A/B split” until they have tested all the possible variants of an ad or an offer. 

Another common A/B split is usually conducted to determine the best price point. Two versions of the same ad are aired.  For instance, one ad offers the item at a price of $19.95 plus $8.95 shipping and handling, and another ad offers the same item for$29.95 with free shipping and handling.  Once the results are in, the marketer can determine which ad worked best.  This is how they usually decide on price points, free gifts, shipping costs, etc.

This type of testing can go on for weeks or even months before the final winning offer and ad is selected and “rolled out” to all TV and stations.   This kind of scientific approach to marketing reduces risks and maximizes success rate for marketers.  In fact, when Google was creating their pay per click advertising (Adwords) performance tracking and their popular Google Analytics program, they modeled it after direct response advertising methodology.

Although marketers have been doing A/B splits for decades, tracking media performance using conventional order fulfillment software has not been easy or even possible with most order processing programs.  Marketers usually resort to using spreadsheets or have to rely on specialized tools for tracking their ad performance.  Order fulfillment software did not collect ad performance data and lacked the necessary tools to generate meaningful performance reports.  Order fulfillment programs are designed to ship boxes and not to help marketers do testing of offers.  Even more specialized direct response fulfillment programs that are designed specifically for “direct to consumer” order processing do not adequately handle ad performance tracking.

Without solid decision support systems, ultimately it becomes so hard marketers to test, that they forego in-depth testing simply because it is too much work.  Instead they may rely on their instincts or past experiences to make crucial marketing decisions.

What marketers need today arereal-timeanalytical reportsthat allows them to fine-tune their offerings and ads based on real-time analytics.  They need reports that incorporate enough details to help them determine what works and what does not. A detailed analytical report can help marketers determine the following:

• Find out reactions of customers to company offerings.
• Evaluate offers and pricingand adjust if necessary.
• Study current marketing problems and opportunities for suitable follow up.
• Suggest introduction of new products, modification of existing products.
• Study marketing competition, channel of distribution and pricing for necessary changes.

The good news is that there is new software in the market that has recently built a great reputation amongst the direct response industry. It’s called Direct Results Fulfillmentand it was developed by a company headed by marketers whose aim was to develop profit-driven software that sets out to help marketers quickly pick winning offers and drive profits.

Direct Results Fulfillment helps marketers gain unique insight into campaign performance in real-time.  It helps identify best performing offers to maximize their marketing potential and receive early warning of failing and non-performing offers.It was developed using industry standard scalable technology like Microsoft SQL database, Crystal Reports for easy reporting, and Microsoft .net technology ensure continued development and support.  Direct Results Fulfillment comes complete with all modules included, so there are no extra modules to purchase.

Here are some of the unique benefits of using Direct Results Fulfillment:

• Test and roll out marketing ideas quickly and efficiently.
• Compare multiple variable price points, length of campaign, components, upsells and down-sells with different offers for the same offer.
• Gain real-time insight into campaign performance.
• Maximize marketing potential by identifying best performing offers.
• Increase chances for success with proven, customized software written specifically for direct marketers.

The whole software was built to facilitate decision support for marketers.It is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information to develop winning marketing campaigns.

This is how it works: you begin by describing your marketing campaign structure.  You enter the main offer, variations of the offer plus all the upsell offers, down sell offers, cross-sales, etc.  Once the campaign has been created, orders are imported into the system and data is populated into the offers and campaign.  Usually the day after the ad has aired; enough order data has been collected to generate meaningful reports. 

Direct Response Fulfillment has many campaign and offer performance reports that help marketers quickly pinpoint winning and losing offers. The marketer can now test multiple offers at the same time and get instant reports based on performance. With this data in hand, the marketer can quickly revise offers and ads, and repeat the test until he arrives at that perfectly tuned ad that performs. This is critical for any scale business that wants to find the winning combination of ads quickly to generate revenue as soon as possible.If you are a savvy business owner or an entrepreneur, then you want fast results and Direct Results Fulfillment software is worth considering. Take a look at their website at http://www.directresultsfulfillment.com/