Measuring the success of a guerrilla marketing campaign

7 min read

Although they're not traditional, guerrilla marketing tactics are highly effective. After all, they create cheap, unique, and memorable events that can help your company go viral when executed correctly.

But what exactly is a guerrilla marketing campaign, and how can it help your business? Let's take a look.

What is a guerrilla marketing campaign?

Guerrilla marketing is a strategy for generating publicity and enhancing brand awareness. It involves the use of unconventional marketing methods that evoke feelings of surprise, wonder, or shock.

The term itself has been used since the 1980s when it was first coined by business writer Jay Conrad Levinson. Of course, the world of marketing has been transformed since the 1980s, and marketing activities today look radically different than they did 40 years ago. However, today, guerrilla marketing activities are just as popular as ever.

Why can guerrilla marketing tactics be so successful?

Guerrilla marketing ideas often work because they cut through the noise of traditional advertising by being unexpected and memorable. The unconventional tactics surprise and engage the target audience, often sparking curiosity and sharing across multiple social media platforms, leading to organic reach.

A single guerrilla marketing campaign opts for creativity over large budgets to make a significant impact. The novelty and often interactive nature of these campaigns create stronger emotional connections with consumers, fostering brand awareness and loyalty in a cost-effective way. This disruptive approach generates buzz and can lead to viral success.

How to track the ROI of guerrilla marketing tactics

It's not always easy to measure the success of buzz marketing or guerrilla marketing strategies. They work because they are unconventional methods of marketing, yet their unconventional nature means measuring your ROI becomes tricky.

The first thing is to set clear goals for any guerrilla marketing idea. Define specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives, such as a percentage increase in sales or website conversions within a set timeframe. This ensures that all guerrilla tactics and their value are tracked from the beginning.

Once you have clearly defined objectives, you can begin to plan your campaign with a goal in mind. As well as helping ensure that your campaign remains focused, planning your goals at such an early stage will also make it much easier for you to quantify the success of the campaign when it concludes.

How to measure the success of guerrilla marketing tactics

Knowing which of your marketing activities is succeeding and providing the best ROI is incredibly important. Thankfully, although guerrilla marketing is unconventional, the metrics to measure its success remain conventional.

Online metrics

• Direct and organic website traffic: Monitor spikes in direct visits and search engine traffic for your brand name.
• Conversion rates: Track how many people who engaged with the campaign completed a desired action (e.g., purchase, sign-up) using specific URLs or QR codes.
• Social media mentions and engagement: Track brand mentions, hashtags, likes, shares, comments, and follower growth across platforms.
• Reach and impressions: Measure the number of unique individuals exposed to the campaign and the total number of times it was seen online.
• Website engagement metrics: Analyse dwell time, bounce rate, and pages per session for traffic generated by the campaign.
• User-generated content (UGC): Monitor and analyse content created by users related to your campaign (photos, videos, posts).
• Sentiment analysis: Gauge the overall positive, negative, or neutral sentiment surrounding your brand and the campaign online.

Offline metrics

• Foot traffic: If the campaign is near a physical store, monitor increases in visitor numbers.
• Sales uplift: Compare sales figures before, during, and after the campaign.
• Sign-ups/leads: Track the number of new sign-ups or leads generated, potentially using specific codes or calls to action.
• Media coverage: Monitor press mentions, blog posts, and influencer coverage gained due to the campaign. Calculate the earned media value.
• Response rates: If the campaign involves a direct call to action (e.g., attending an event), track the response rate.
• Recall rate: Conduct surveys to determine how many people remember the campaign and the brand.

Financial metrics

• Cost per impression (CPI): Calculate the cost-effectiveness of the campaign in terms of views or interactions.
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): Determine the cost of acquiring a new customer through the guerrilla marketing effort.
• Return on investment (ROI): Compare the campaign's costs to the revenue or value generated (including estimated value of brand awareness and engagement).

The specific metrics you prioritise will depend on the campaign's objectives set out in your SMART goals (brand awareness, sales, engagement, etc.) and its nature (online, offline, or a mix). However, combining quantitative and qualitative data provides the most comprehensive understanding of a guerrilla marketing campaign's effectiveness. You can then compare the ROI of your guerrilla marketing campaign against your other efforts, such as your email marketing campaign or your pay-per-click (PPC) strategy.

How Apteco's software can help you measure the impact of a guerrilla marketing campaign

To track the ROI of guerrilla campaigns, meticulously monitor campaign costs and the resulting revenue or value generated, you need an end-to-end marketing tool like Apteco Orbit™. This powerful software provides actionable insights and allows you to target your audience and manage campaigns all in one easy-to-use platform.

If you're running campaigns on various social media platforms, for example, our software allows you to attribute outcomes to specific marketing activities and channels. You can regularly compare actual results against your initial goals, making adjustments as needed and connect real people with marketing channels, allowing you to tailor future campaigns.

This data-driven approach allows you to optimise campaigns for different sections of your audience, demonstrate marketing's impact, and make informed decisions about future investments. Guerrilla marketing often works because of shock and surprise, yet our software takes the guesswork out of what these campaigns do for your business.

The different types of guerrilla marketing tactics

Over the years, several sub-categories of guerrilla marketing have emerged. These include:

Outdoor guerrilla marketing

Outdoor guerrilla marketing campaigns add something to a pre-existing urban environment. For example, as part of an outdoor guerrilla marketing campaign, something removable may be added to a statue, or temporary artwork may be added to a building or a footpath.

One great example of this was provided by the cleaning company Bounty, which installed life-sized messes throughout New York. The installations included a giant knocked-over coffee cup and a huge melting ice cream.

Indoor guerrilla marketing

This is similar to outdoor guerrilla marketing. Except, as the name suggests, indoor guerrilla marketing activities take place inside office buildings, shops, and university campus buildings.

A guerrilla marketing campaign like this was recently carried out by Frontline as an advert for the company's flea and tick spray. The company filled the floors of large, public spaces with a photo of a dog scratching itself. When people on the upper floors looked down, the people on the ground looked like fleas.

Event ambush guerrilla marketing

These marketing campaigns leverage the audience at an event (like a concert or a football match) to promote a product or service in a noticeable way. This is usually done without the permission of the event sponsors.

One of the best examples of an event ambush guerrilla marketing campaign was the Fiji Water Girl at the Golden Globes in 2019. Stood strategically behind stars on the red carpet holding the brand's water, it's estimated that the Fiji Water Girl saved the company $18 million in advertising costs through the exposure generated. She also set social media ablaze, with the hashtag trending for days. 

Experimental guerrilla marketing

Experimental guerrilla marketing campaigns can take any of the above forms. However, they force participants to interact with the brand in some capacity.

Examples of experimental guerrilla marketing campaigns include Deadpool's Tinder profile and UNICEF's vending machines that sold dirty bottled water.

Other forms of guerrilla marketing

These are the main forms of guerrilla marketing. However, other forms are also commonly used. These include:

• Viral marketing
• Stealth marketing
• Ambush marketing
• Pop-up retail
• Ambient marketing

These guerrilla marketing examples prove that these marketing ideas can be extremely valuable to a business and don't need a huge budget to execute perfectly.

Starting a guerrilla marketing campaign? You need Apteco

If you're running a new guerrilla marketing campaign or using a more conventional marketing strategy, you need access to a variety of data points in order to accurately measure the effectiveness of your advertising strategy.

Thankfully, our omnichannel solutions help you design and deliver successful campaigns that take advantage of every possible touchpoint during the customer journey. Of course, modern marketing involves being smart, creative, and present. Our tools do the hard work for you, helping you understand your customers and communicate with them in exactly the right way at the right time.

So, whether you're running street marketing campaigns, experiential marketing campaigns, or want insights into how your traditional marketing campaigns are performing, work with Apteco, understand your customers and guarantee that your future campaigns speak to your customers perfectly.

Learn more about how our products can help you measure the impact of your guerrilla marketing campaigns. Book a demo with our team today. Alternatively, test-drive our software and discover the power of our intuitive platform for yourself.