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Insights: Marketing Influence

Updated this week

The Marketing Influence dashboard helps you monitor and optimize your marketing campaign performance across all channels. By combining first-party tracking from your Sona pixel, CRM data, and ad platform cost data, Sona provides a unified view of your marketing performance that goes beyond what any single platform typically provides. Track and analyze comprehensive, real-time data on your key performance indicators to strategically channel your marketing investments where they'll have the greatest impact. Compare performance across all channels and optimize channel performance at a granular level to maximize your marketing ROI.

When to Use This / Prerequisites

When to Use the Marketing Influence dashboard:

  • To monitor daily marketing campaign performance and ROI

  • When analyzing cross-channel marketing effectiveness

  • For tracking progress on customer acquisition cost goals

  • To optimize marketing budget allocation across channels

  • To optimize individual marketing channels

Prerequisites:

  • Ad platform connectors must be configured

  • Marketing campaigns must be active and properly tracked

  • Access to the Marketing Influence dashboard in your Sona plan

  • Sona pixel added to your website

  • UTM parameter setup in your campaign URLs and in Workspace Settings > Contact Journey

Step-by-Step Instructions

A. Accessing and Understanding the Dashboard

Step 1: Navigate to Marketing Influence

  1. Log into your Sona dashboard

  2. In the left sidebar, locate the Insights section

  3. Click on Marketing Influence

  4. You'll see the main Marketing Influence dashboard with performance metrics and channel analysis

Step 2: Set Your Date Range and Comparison

  1. Use the date picker in the top right (showing the last month by default)

  2. Select your desired time period using the dropdown menu

  3. Check the Compare box to compare current performance with a previous period

  4. The dashboard will update to reflect your selected timeframe and show period-over-period changes

B. Interpreting Key Marketing Metrics

Step 3: Review Core Performance Metrics Examine the five main metric cards at the top:

  • Total Marketing Spend: Shows your total advertising investment across all channels

  • Paid Media CAC: Displays your Customer Acquisition Cost for paid marketing efforts

  • Total Impressions: Tracks how many times your ads were displayed to potential customers

  • Total Clicks: Measures the number of clicks generated by your marketing campaigns

  • Avg CPC: Shows your average Cost-Per-Click across all paid marketing channels

Step 4: Analyze Marketing Efficiency

  1. Calculate your Click-Through Rate (CTR) by comparing Total Clicks to Total Impressions

  2. Review your Cost Per Acquisition trends to understand campaign efficiency

  3. Monitor CPC trends to identify opportunities for bid optimization

  4. Use spend-to-results ratios to evaluate overall marketing ROI

C. Using Marketing Channel Analysis

Step 5: Explore Channel Performance Navigate to the Marketing Channel Metrics section:

  1. Toggle between available channel views:

    • Marketing Channels: View performance across all your active marketing channels

    • Paid: Focus specifically on paid advertising performance

  2. The section will show detailed breakdowns when data is available

  3. Use this analysis to identify your most cost-effective marketing channels

Step 6: Channel Optimization Strategy

  1. Compare performance metrics across different channels

  2. Identify channels with the lowest CAC and highest conversion rates

  3. Look for channels with high impressions but low clicks (indicating creative optimization opportunities)

  4. Use CPC data to identify bidding optimization opportunities

D. Performance Monitoring and Optimization

Step 7: Use Time Period Comparisons

  1. Enable the Compare checkbox to see period-over-period changes

  2. Look for percentage increases or decreases in key metrics

  3. Identify seasonal patterns and campaign performance trends

  4. Use comparison data to measure the impact of marketing optimizations

Step 8: Data Export and Reporting

  1. Use the Download Table Data button to export detailed metrics

  2. Switch to Table View and Card View using the view toggle

  3. Create custom reports by combining Marketing Influence data with other Sona insights

Key Concepts / Best Practices

Understanding Sona's Unified Data Approach

Sona's Marketing Influence dashboard uniquely combines three critical data sources:

  • First-party tracking: Direct website behavior and conversion data from your Sona pixel

  • CRM data: Customer lifecycle information, revenue attribution, and contact journey details

  • Ad platform cost data: Spend, impressions, clicks, and campaign performance from your connected advertising platforms

Channel Optimization Strategy

Use Marketing Influence data to:

  • Budget Allocation: Shift spend toward channels with the lowest CAC

  • Creative Testing: Improve CTR by testing new ad creative on high-impression, low conversion channels

  • Bid Optimization: Adjust CPC bids based on conversion performance

  • Campaign Timing: Identify optimal campaign scheduling based on performance patterns

Performance Monitoring Best Practices

  • Daily Monitoring: Keep a daily pulse on marketing channels and campaigns to spot changes in performance

  • Comparative Analysis: Use comparison periods to measure true performance improvements

  • Cross-Channel Integration: Make regular budget and strategy adjustments, and see how different channels work together

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