Marketing data

Marketing data is the information a business gathers about its customers, its competitors and the results of its own promotions. It helps a business understand what customers need and what rivals are offering, so it can make better decisions about product development and how to market products.

Campaign data

Campaign data records the revenue each advertising campaign brings in, together with its conversion rate. A business uses it to judge how efficient each marketing channel is: a channel that brings in more revenue than the campaign cost is worth using again, while one that brings in very little may be dropped.

A conversion rate measures the actual sales that result from advertising, as a percentage of the people who responded. If 500 people respond to an advert and 25 of them buy, the conversion rate is 5%.

Advertising spend

Advertising spend is the amount a business spends on advertising. It varies between years and between industries, since some markets need far more promotion than others to reach customers. Successful advertising can increase market share, but spending more does not automatically mean a campaign will work.

Click-through rate

Click-through rate compares the number of clicks a link receives with the number of times a page, email or advert is seen, so it measures the success of an online campaign. A high click-through rate shows that users are interested, but it does not guarantee that a sale will follow.

For example, an online plant shop spends £1,500 on a video advert. It is viewed 30,000 times and clicked 600 times, giving a click-through rate of 2%. Those clicks lead to 36 orders worth £2,160, a conversion rate of 6%. The revenue is higher than the spend, so the business judges this channel to be efficient.