Gray Dudek

Since posting my original thoughts and social measurement on the Compare the Meerkat campaign some time ago I’ve been asked a few times about the definitive results. Having been a casual observer of the campaign and measuring via a social media monitoring system only I was not aware of the hard fact around ROI.

However, I have dug around across a few sites and it seems that following are consensus results for the campaign(s) so I thought I would publish them here.

My original posts can be found here:

Compare the Meerkat – Case Study – Part 1

Compare the Meerkat – Case Study – Part 2

As mentioned above these are not numbers direct from Compare The Market, VCCP, or anyone similar who I can authenticate so please take them with the necessary pinch of salt. They are also from quite a few months back as that was all I could dig out from my searches. There was a stat in there around Facebook Fans which I have removed as that was inaccurate.

That said they do seem very impressive and gut instinct makes me think that they could well be in the right ball-park.

As usual Aleksandr Orlov is extremely endearing as a character and complains about everyone getting Meerkats confused with Markets (note: I must say I blame him for that as before his advertising campaign started I have never confused the two…)

Regardless, it’s the usual slick execution and has become more polished as the time has gone by. I think this is nice as the client is clearly seeing the results and therefore investing more but the traditional style of the Meerkat videos was to me much more compelling and ‘believable’ (if I can use that word about a stuffed puppet) than the beautifully recreated sets we see in the ad’s now.

Check out the latest video:

…and now check out an original video:

But my opinion to one side how has the interest in the whole Compare the Meerkat / Market campaign been performing from a social perspective?

Is it still in our favour? Are we still talking/blogging/tweeting/etc about it? Or has is become just part of the ‘funky’ (sometimes irritating) insurance sector advertising campaigns?

I checked it out on Social Radar and here’s what I found:

So from the above trend chart we can see a huge embrace of the Aleksandr Orlov character and his stories starting back in July 2009 and since then a slow decline in the number of mentions that either he or Compare the Meerkat and indeed Compare the Market are getting across the social sphere. The query used was pretty basic I admit so I’ve probably missed a few posts and Tweets here and there but the trend still remains representative I would suggest.

However, from a shakey beginning (where pretty everybody misunderstood WTF the ad was about and for that simple reason hated) the sentiment towards the campaign has grown over time and maintains a positive feeling towards it. However with declining volumes of conversations I wonder if the latest ad will hit the mark.

Well I suppose in one way it matters not really as it’s the final installment of Aleksandr, Sergei and all the Muskats…for now at least…

Just what I have been looking for ever since I saw Socianomics last year – a UK view versus a global view.

Clients look out, I now have the video I have been searching for so it’ll be coming to our next meeting!

KPI, or key performance indicator, is a measure of your success.

Question is, how do you measure success?

A lot of people point to stats like increased web views and time on site, or even a boost in the number of social mentions coming your way.

Guess what? More website visitors is not a sign of ROI. Neither are retweets or the number of YouTube views on your channel. But that doesn’t mean all your progress on the social nets isn’t an indicator of success. Confused? Let’s start at the beginning:

See? Your return is whatever is left over once you reconcile the cost of your investment from the gains received. The cool thing is that you can correlate social media with profits. The way we do this is by running several stats over one another. Here’s a visual of what I mean:

First we establish that the graph covers data collected after we began using social media channels, like a blog, Twitter and YouTube. Let’s assume the graphic of the man/woman symbol represents visits to your online store, and the dollar sign represents online sales. This is a very simple example, but by running the graphs over one another it appears social media activity encourages an increase in sales.

*Of course, we will rely on multiple streams of data, including Google Analytics and conversion tracking.

Now let’s add another stat into the mix: brick and mortar sales:

The arrows represent sales at physical locations — and they’re flat. By running the data onto a single graph we can notice trends, including the one in our example: Our social media efforts have influenced online sales but failed to establish any meaningful difference at retail locations.

Why Does This Matter?

Analyzing the concrete benefits of social media engagement is important, because if you’re a company — even more so if you are a sole proprietor — time spent on social requires resources, and those ain’t free.

We analyze KPI to determine what makes our business grow.

Now to be sure, this isn’t something you can verify after two weeks. Stick with your efforts and analyze them over the long term. What you should notice by comparing one stat at a time — website visits, time on site, social mentions — with increases in sales and cashflow is what specific KPI is most directly related to profit.

Do positive mentions lead to more sales? Or are growing blog views more directly related to business growth? You’ll have to find out for yourself. But even if you simply track overall web activity and sales/profits, you’re on the right track to spotting relevant trends.

Ask your social media team how to set up tests like this — it’s an up and coming best practice for socially engaged businesses.

(thanks to Social Media Commando Joe Mescher for this content)