How to Figure Out If Your Marketing Is Actually Working Without Guessing

Do you ever find yourself wondering if your marketing is working? Have you ever questioned if what you’re doing is working or wondered if you could stop doing something, but then worried it might hurt your business? If so, you’re not alone. I was talking with a client recently, and she was really frustrated by her marketing. She was spending hours every week on social media, but didn’t know if it was working. She wasn’t sure how to find out if it was paying off or not and asked me for help. I told her we’d figure it out, and we did, and I thought this might help you too.

Is your marketing working?

You know your business is making money, but where’s that money coming from? Which marketing channels are working for you and which ones are just wasting your time? If you can answer that question, you can likely save yourself hours of wasted time and energy each week and start making more money by focusing more on the things that are working.

It’s something you definitely want to understand, but I know it can be hard to figure out on your own, so I want to walk you through what to look at to figure out if your marketing is working.

What do you do first to determine if your marketing is working? 

The first thing I have my clients do when we’re trying to figure out what’s working and what’s wasting time when it comes to their marketing is to do a couple of audits. The first audit is a time audit: how much time are they spending on each marketing channel each week? Understanding how much time they’re spending helps them see if it’s worth it once we start looking at results. You can do this by keeping a time tracking notepad by your computer for a week or two and noting down how much time you’re spending on any marketing-related tasks. Be sure to note which channel you’re working on and how much time you’re spending.

For example, if you’re posting on Instagram and then replying to DMs or engaging on content somewhere else, be sure to write down Instagram and the total amount of time spent. This isn’t for judgment, so don’t worry if you got sidetracked watching funny cat videos or viral recipes for a few minutes; it happens to the best of us. Just write down the total amount of time you spend on Instagram each day for the week. You’ll also want to record time for Instagram if you’re working in Canva to create images, editing reels, working with your designer on images, etc. It’s not only the time spent in the app itself that counts when we look at this. You want to track the total time for the week so you know how much time you’re really spending on each marketing channel.

Do this for each channel that you’re using to market your business. Track the total amount of time you’re spending on marketing each week. If you have a week that’s unusually high or lower than average, note that too, so you’ll know when you look back at the notes in the future to make decisions.

Analyze your marketing performance

Now, go back through your leads, if you keep track of them and note where they’re coming from. If you work one-on-one with clients, you can always ask them how they found you. If you have analytics set up on your website and have conversions, goals, or key events set up in your system, you can find out via your site analytics.

What you want to look at is how much time you are spending on each channel and how many leads that channel is generating.

You also want to see if you can figure out how long it takes for leads to convert to paying customers on each channel.

If you’re not sure how to figure this all out or you don’t yet have analytics set up on your website, it’s OK, don’t panic, just work on setting up the tracking so you can review this data in the future.

Deciding what to do about your marketing performance

You’ll want to make decisions based on what you find out in your audit. If you’re able to determine that you’re spending 20 hours a week on Instagram and you got four leads from it last month, you can determine if 80 hours of your time was worth four leads. If all four leads closed and they’re $10,000 each in revenue for your business, then it’s probably worth spending those 20 hours a week to earn $10,000 each week. But if you’re spending 20 hours a week on Instagram and only getting four sales at $10 each over the course of the month from that work, then it’s probably not worth spending 80 hours to make $40; that’s only .50 per hour, and your time is worth a lot more than that.

Once you’ve reviewed the sales data and your audit data, you’ll have a better understanding of where you make the highest ROI (return on investment) for your time. You want to focus on marketing your business in the places where you make the most money. Once you know which channels perform the best for your business, you can double down on them to grow. And, you can let go of those channels that take up your time and energy but don’t pay off.

Which marketing channels do I focus on?

I focus my time and effort on content-driven channels that bring me organic visibility because I’ve found that my organic funnels convert much higher than paid funnels. It’s the same for most people. My personal focus is on content on my website, blog, and podcast that’s optimized for the different search engines to be more visible. I’m able to bring more new people into my world every day through the content I create because it’s helpful to you and is optimized for the search engines, so they understand it and know to show it to you when you’re searching for help.

I’ve done ads in the past, and I can run them, and I’ve used them to generate leads, but what I’ve personally found is that people who come into my world via organic channels, meaning they’re searching and find me as a possible solution to their problem, tend to be better leads and customers. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that paid ad traffic people tend to unsubscribe from emails quicker, are less likely to download my opt-ins, and engage with content. It doesn’t mean ads don’t work because they do, but for me, organic works better. I do a mix of both because it’s safest to diversify your marketing efforts and not focus on just one channel.

I also don’t focus heavily on social media for the same reason. I don’t love it for business, and honestly, I don’t subscribe to the belief that you have to be on social to be in business today. I have enough of a presence on social so that if someone checks my business out, they find me and can tell that I’m a legitimate person, but I don’t prioritize regular content or updates for social channels because they don’t make me money. I will always respond to DMs because money can be made in the DMs, but at least for me, my leads and sales seldom come from someone finding me on social initially. My leads come from blog posts, podcasts, and word of mouth (other people telling their friends about me).

What does all of this mean for you?

Once you run a quick audit and understand how many hours you’re spending on each marketing channel in a week, you can compare that to your leads and sales data to understand which channels work and which ones are a waste of your time. If you have one that’s taking up a lot of time and not generating leads or sales, it’s OK to stop it completely. Stopping working on marketing channels that don’t make money is how we free up time to focus on the areas that do make money.

If you’re ready to review this for your business, request a copy of my Marketing Checkup, and it will walk you through how to determine if your marketing is working or not. Then, if you’re ready, join me in the group marketing program or work with me 1:1 to review, analyze, and optimize your marketing program so you can drop the things that aren’t working without having to worry that you’re making a mistake.