5

Assess Impact

Evaluating the impact of your outreach on a regular basis is vital for measuring its success, identifying areas for improvement, and pacing towards the achievement of the goals set in Step 1.

By looking closely at the performance of each form of outreach, from platform to messaging theme, stakeholders can use emerging trends to hone a formula and identify subsets of ranchers who are most interested in conservation practice adoption.

What We Did

By using tracking codes, user engagement software, Google Analytics, email client data, and other Farm Journal data sources, we monitored and measured outreach methods to understand how our campaign strategy played out in real life. We compared each tactic’s performance with readily available industry benchmarks to better understand what worked well and what did not.

Overall, we found that 96 individual ranchers managing 272,374 acres downloaded templates for written grazing management plans. Out of that group, 86 ranchers managing 271,295 acres expressed intent to complete their plans within one year.

In terms of creative performance, we deployed 8 different advertisements with visuals of a cattle herd or truck dashboard and handwritten style note graphics. These creative styles were grouped into two sets, one featuring a “direct” style that affirms the viewer’s knowledge of their grazing management plan, and the other a “question” style that asks the viewer what their grazing management plan is.

We found that the direct style outperformed the question style in most ad placements on and off Farm Journal owned and operated sites. However, the question style performed better in e-newsletter modules, across social media platforms, and in text outreach—all sources where audiences are more likely to be seeking information and education.

Make it Happen

Download this worksheet to assess the performance of your outreach. Track your progress, monitor trends, and decide next steps.

Campaign Analysis Model

An important part of shaping your goals is planning and communicating your methods of measurement. Attaching numbers to your goals helps track how far you’ve gone and how far you need to go.

The direct creative style performed best overall for paid ads outside of Farm Journal platforms. Out of all direct variations, the starred image was the standout. This variation consistently maintained higher click through rates than other variations.

This question creative performed best in e-newsletter modules.

The question creative received the most impressions and clicks via Facebook and text message. While we saw good awareness from these tactics, engagement was lower than our benchmark averages.