Today’s digital advertising landscape offers franchise brands plenty of platforms where they can analyze, monitor and optimize their marketing campaigns. With so many options, it can become difficult to choose the best one. Although customer relationship management tools (CRMs) are used primarily as sales tools and to store customer data, CRMs are often overlooked as a place to host media-buying campaigns.
CRMs, however, are among the best tools to maximize media-buying campaigns. CRM software can monitor spending and KPIs and help to optimize campaign performance, providing real-time insights on how marketing strategies are truly performing with a brand’s target audience.
In this blog, we will explore how franchise brands can track their media-buying campaigns using a CRM platform and leverage the capabilities of a CRM to enhance advertising strategies.
To track media campaigns in a CRM, follow these steps:
- Choose the right CRM.
- Integrate media-buying campaigns within the CRM.
- Automate campaigns.
- Publish and modify campaigns and manage spending.
- Gain insights and optimize campaigns.
Choose the Right CRM
Not all CRM systems are created equal. While some CRMs are efficient in hosting contact information, others are more robust, allowing you to integrate multiple media-buying platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Other CRMs let you choose one, two or none.
If you want to use your CRM to track marketing campaigns in real time, being selective will be key. Researching CRMs provides a great opportunity to identify other platforms such as call tracking and analytics tools. It’s important to choose a CRM that allows you to monitor campaign performance based on the platforms that matter most to your franchise business.
Integrate Media-Buying Campaigns Within the CRM
The integration step is fundamental to getting started. Most CRMs offer free, how-to guides to help you set up everything properly. This step determines what data is being shared from marketing channels to the CRM. You will need collaboration and buy-in from your IT department, marketing and any other stakeholders prior to the integration taking place to ensure alignment and access to the required account information. When all platforms have been integrated into the CRM, that’s the perfect time to get everything organized and set KPIs within the CRM to enable campaign measurement.
Automate Campaigns
One of the best features CRMs offer marketers is the ability to automate campaigns. This can include workflows that start with ads, lead to landing pages and end with lead nurturing via personalized email marketing campaigns.
These marketing automations can include emails that support other campaigns or sales teams by providing prospects with the appropriate information they need at the right time. Automation of emails and other sales tools can be leveraged by sales teams to communicate with their leads in an easy, personalized format. This allows sales teams to spend time on higher quality leads rather than those who aren’t ready to convert, making the relationship management process more efficient.
The data collected by the CRM tracks customers so you can make more data-driven decisions based on customer interactions. Campaign data can be shared with other platforms to optimize tactics and acquire new customers who are similar to high-quality prospects.
Publish and Modify Campaigns and Manage Spending
A great tool within more robust CRMs is the ability to publish and modify campaigns and manage campaign spending. They can also publish additional content like social media posts.
This feature is helpful for organizations of all sizes. Whether a team has a small or large budget, it’s important to track where funds are being spent and if they are resulting in conversions. This feature can also support collaboration among teams to track those campaigns and optimize as needed to reach KPIs.
Gain Insights and Optimize Campaigns
One key benefit of a CRM is providing access to insights and being able to optimize campaigns accordingly. CRMs make it easy to track marketing attribution of campaigns. Calls, ads, in-person events and more can be tracked within a CRM after the CRM is set up correctly.
For example, if a Google campaign is performing better than one on Meta, that can be viewed and monitored via the CRM. This allows marketers to shift budgets, if needed, to get a higher return on investment. Tracking campaign performance is crucial to make data-driven and cost-effective decisions.
The CRM technology available to franchise businesses makes it easier to track media-buying campaigns. You do need a skilled team to set up your CRM, but after setup is completed, a CRM can provide value to various teams, the bottom line and the business.
