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Are You Tracking the ROI of Marketing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

Post Author: Joe D365 |

If you are already tracking the ROI of marketing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM then you already know what an invaluable tool it can be if used properly. If you aren't, then here is a handy guide on what you need to do to get rolling. Why not set a goal for the New Year and just get it done?

Let's jump in and get started:

In order to make best use of the Marketing area in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we recommend doing an exercise of mapping out your marketing processes and designing the CRM forms, screens, workflows, and dashboards to support your marketing strategy. However, the out-of-the-box Marketing Campaigns can be used to track the ROI rather easily without any configuration and that makes it very easy to adopt.

  • The first step to tracking ROI on your marketing efforts is to create a Campaign for every area of investment the marketing department would like to track. Even though there are quite a few fields on the Campaign out-of-the-box, it is only necessary to fill out the Name of the Campaign and the budget for that effort.

ROI of Marketing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

  • Next you need to make sure that Source Campaign is available for selection (you could even make it required) when creating a Lead and/or an Opportunity. In the screenshot below, the general Lead Source is selected. That ties to the out-of-the-box Lead Source Effectiveness report. In addition, the specific Source Campaign is also selected, which ties back to the marketing expense through the out-of-the-box Campaign Performance report.

Marketing ROI

You can also track ROI by creating Campaign Responses related to your Campaigns. ROI is tracked when Campaign Responses from new contacts are converted to a Lead and subsequently to an Opportunity. In the example below inquiries from the web site are brought in as Campaign Responses through a custom integration.

CRM Marketing

The benefit of using Campaign Responses versus Leads in this scenario is that Campaign Responses can also be associated with an existing Lead, Contact, or Account. ROI is tracked when they are converted to an Opportunity for an existing Contact or Account.

Because they can be associated to an existing record, this makes them ideal for showing repeated inquiries from the same person or repeated attendance at events.

  • After you have been tracking Leads and Campaign Responses from various sources, ROI analysis can be done through creation of dashboard charts based on Leads or Opportunities.

In addition, you can run the Campaign Performance Report on the Campaign or from the Reports area.

The bottom of the report shows the revenue at various stages in the sales process.

And, there you have it. Tracking ROI on your marketing efforts can only help make you and your organization smarter and more efficient in the present as well as in the future. Comment and let us know what strategies you are using to track your marketing efforts.

You can also contact our CRM Experts if you ever need help with any of your Microsoft Dyanmics CRM projects.

Happy CRM'ing!

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

One comment on “Are You Tracking the ROI of Marketing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM?”

  1. Thanks for the content. This post makes it really easy to understand the effectiveness of using campaigns for tracking leads and determining ROI. A few of these items I'll start using with clients this year.
    Thanks!

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