May 2021 Newsletter

Measuring Return on Advertising Investment

**** The 4specs Perspective

Marketing and advertising people in the "specified construction product" arena recognize that the results of their marketing and sales efforts may not be realized for 2-3 years or more. Tracking the results from individual actions and decisions is very difficult and may be hidden by larger scale events such as changes in code requirements, competitive products and recessions.

Newer marketing people coming from the Internet marketing arena expect to measure short-term return on investment in advertising. It is reasonable to evaluate spending on a Google AdWords campaign where your products are purchased the same day or even the same week. You can measure your sales from those clicks verses the cost of the advertising. Some of the tracking systems permit tracking across multiple websites, multiple computers and even your smart phone.

Think about a classic Internet click tracking to a sale:

• Person takes an action and the Internet starts tracking. That person could have clicked on a golf club ad or visited a golf-related website or opened a golf related email or visited a golf course with active geofencing.
• Over the next few days he will see many ads for golf clubs.
• He clicks on one he likes and purchases a new club from that advertiser

When advertising a specified construction product, it is difficult to track a sale to a specific click or email. The final sale may be 3 or 4 years away to an existing distributor who is 5 states away. It is virtually impossible to track a click to a specific specifier or firm much less a specific project and a specific sale 3 years in the future. Here is a typical specified product process:.

• Project architect is wowed at an AIA convention because the product is green or something else he wants.
• A CAD operator or junior staff member searches for the product using Google
• Several months later the specifier goes to 4specs and visits several manufacturers in that CSI section and may or may not include the manufacturer the project architect was wowed about.
• 6 months later a distributor 5 states away knows the website address of his preferred suppliers and uses the Internet to visit his preferred vendor to double check the product data sheet to be sure it complies with the specification. He contacts his local rep for special pricing for this large project. Or, the distributor and sub-contractor may propose a substitution.
• Three months later when the sub-contractor gets his contract, the distributor issues a purchase order for the materials to be delivered 3 years later.
• 3 years later the manufacturer ships the products to the distributor.

We addressed this in an earlier newsletter - Idealized "Getting Specified" Process - October 2016

Questions, comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

Colin

--------------------------------------

Colin Gilboy
Publisher - 4specs
Contact us