Some of the features described in this article might be available only for Tracked Campaigns. Learn more.
Set Campaign Objectives
When you decide you want to start tracking and delivering a campaign, you can set a forecast scenario as the SEO objective and track the actual performance against the estimated one on a daily basis. This helps you quickly identify and act on those campaigns which may fall behind, and report on their performance to your clients.
Choose which scenario you will start tracking as agreed with your client by clicking on "Set as an objective":
Read more on setting up multiple scenarios in this article.
Once an objective is set, you'll be able to view the Objective status updated daily based on the campaign's progression toward the SEO goal.
Objective tracking
Objective status
The Campaign Objective status is calculated as the actual non-brand sessions divided by the forecasted ones for the selected timeframe: either the last 30 days or from the start date until the present date.
When an objective is initially set, it will have an 'On Track' status at 100% value.
The status will stay 'On Track' if the calculated value is equal to/more than 100%.
If the value is between 50-99%, it changes to 'Behind'.
If it's below 50%, it will be 'At Risk'.
Because the last 30 days usually fall across two months, when computing the Objective status for the past 30 days, we take into account the corresponding fraction to what was estimated for the previous month and the fraction for the current month:
[(daysRemaining(previousMonth)/30 * estimatedTraffic(previousMonth)) + (daysPassed(currentMonth)/30 * estimatedTraffic (currentMonth)]
Once you start tracking performance against an objective, in the "Monthly Forecast" section you'll see the estimated improved traffic versus the actual traffic updated every month, so you can check when any discrepancies may have occurred and the main force(s) that impacted performance.
Keyword-level status
In the Detailed view, you can analyze the actual traffic and the estimated one at a keyword level.
In the Target Rank column, keywords are marked with a color-coded status on their actual rank versus the estimated rank, so you can easily identify the ones that need your attention:
Green: the actual rank is lower or equal to the estimated rank
Yellow: the actual rank is at most 50% higher than the estimated rank
Red: actual rank is more than 50% higher than the estimated rank
Warning icon: the keyword is no longer tracked in the Rank Tracker
You can also analyze your forecast keywords' performance in the Rank Tracker. As soon as you set the Objective in the Forecast, a group with all the included keywords is automatically created next to your current groups, so you can easily focus on the keywords you're targeting.
Tracking across the platform
By tracking your campaign objective, you can make the most out of forecasting, through a deep integration between our products.
In the Agency Dashboard, you get an overview on your campaigns' performance in the Objective overview, and you can sort or filter the campaign list by objective status.
The objective status is included in the calculation of campaign health, and this helps you easily monitor your clients' satisfaction.
Read more about tracking objectives in the Agency Dashboard here.
Once you set an objective for a campaign, you can also compare estimated forecasted traffic with actual traffic in the Organic Traffic tool. This allows you to run a detailed analysis of your performance against the traffic objective set with your client over a specific timeframe.
Note:
As you would expect, you cannot change the SEO goal of a scenario once you set it as an objective. If you want to make changes, you can create another scenario and set that one as an objective, but this will delete all the progress data on the current one.
One adjustment you can make on a set objective is the monthly budget.
Changing this value will update the campaign MRR value in the Agency Dashboard as well, so you can prioritize the campaigns in your portfolio based on revenue.