It’s no secret that marketing strategies and their budgets are being steered towards all things digital. There’s good reason for this. Digital marketing allows businesses of all sizes to hyper-target their audience, track important KPI’s and prove ROI.

It doesn’t matter if your business is big or small, adding more digital than traditional to your marketing plan is a great investment. And, if you’re confused about all things digital (which many of us are), you may to look to outsource this work to folks who think about this stuff day in and day out. If you do go this route, here are five important questions to ask before hiring a digital marketing company.

1. What KPIs will you measure?

Key Performance Indicators (also known as KPI’s) are measurable elements of any marketing campaign. They allow you to see how well the marketing strategy is performing and what you should adjust to make improvements. Reputable digital marketing companies will already have an idea of what to measure based on the unique needs of your business. Here are the top five KPI’s that should be measured:

• Traffic-- the amount of people visiting your website
• Traffic Sources-- where your web traffic is coming from
• Conversions-- the amount of people that have visited your website and become a lead
• Cost per Lead-- the amount of money it costs to acquire a new lead by each marketing source
• Revenue per Lead-- the amount of money you make for each lead that generated
  
  

Learn more about marketing automation and measurement tools

2. How long have you been in business?

With technology giving anyone with a computer the ability to start a business, new digital marketing “companies” are popping up every day. It’s important to vet their business and find out if they have the experience to market your business correctly. When making this decision, the key is to look at marketing as an investment in your company, rather than money you’ll never see again.

3. Who will be your account contact?

This may seem like a silly question but it’s an incredibly important one to answer. Why? Many digital marketing companies tout their abilities to bring you more customers but don’t actually do the work. They bring in new clients and outsource all the work overseas. While outsourcing some things can be beneficial to save time and money for both the client and the marketing company, outsourcing too much can have dramatically negative effects on the marketing campaign as the emphasis is now on cost over quality.

4. How are results reported?

Measuring results is crucial to any marketing campaign, especially when it comes to digital marketing. This is because the “digital” aspect of digital marketing makes it very simple to track success (or lack thereof). Ask each potential agency how they report their results and what you can expect to receive in terms of reporting. For larger campaigns, it is recommended to have a monthly report put together that tracks KPI’s, milestones, and overall growth. For smaller campaigns, communication between the digital marketing company and client on how the campaign is running may be more feasible.

At Screaming Garlic, we like to keep things simple and flexible. While we have experience with many project management and communications tools, we have found something as universal as Google Docs/Sheets works with clients who don’t want to worry about learning new tools. The key, however, is to communicate and share the information easily.

5. What results can you expect in six months?

Good question but tricky to answer. In fact, someone who can tell you your exact results should raise some eyebrows. The truth is that it’s hard to estimate results with a brand new client. This is because it takes time to understand the industry, competitive landscape and test what works. Companies that honestly say that they can’t guarantee results are more likely, through every step of the relationship, to tell you the truth and communicate both the positive the negative outcomes when running a marketing strategy (rather than just telling you what you want to hear).