Using the internet to measure your print campaigns (PURLS vs. GURLS)
Using the internet to measure your print campaigns (PURLS vs. GURLS)
How do you track ROI from your offline campaigns?Did you not hear about the latest trend to measure your offline printed campaigns? It's called directing people to your website using "personalized URL's" (PURL's). It's easy to track an ad campaign when you can identify which traffic is coming to your website because of which ad you are running. Albeit you can always directly ask each customer how they heard about you over the phone or email… but that's tedious task and a bit unprofessional. What can you do instead? Bring on Personalized URL's.
First, tell me what is a GURL?
It's a "general url" (GURL). This is basically every website address you see out there. It's a general access point for everyone to use to visit your site. An example of a GURL is www.apple.com and www.modulusmedia.com. With GURL's you can track the number of visits to your website, but you can't track who and you can't track which campaign or direct mail piece was most effective. That's where you need a PURL.
Now tell me… what is a PURL?
It's a "personalized url" (PURL). The concept is easy to understand. Basically you are personalizing the URL (otherwise known as the website address) by adding some unique identifier. By adding something like the person's name to the URL you personalize it and now have a way to track when that person visits your website.
Some examples of using PURL's:
Direct mail campaigns:
- o Adding the person's name to the beginning or end of your website will help you track the individual success of your direct mail campaigns
- To add their name before your website, you just replace their name with the "www" part of the website address. For example: sarahconner.modulusmedia.com
- Another example is to add their name after the website like this: www.modulusmedia.com/sarahconner
Billboards:
- Just imagine, by adding a name or a code to your website, and you can finally track how many people visited your site as a direct result of the billboard!!
All of these tips are made possible by our unique personalize url module that will help to manage tracking your offline campaigns.
This has been a crash course in using PURL's (or personalized URL's) to track the effectiveness of your printed ad campaigns.
Modulus Media
Website Development and Marketing Company