Marketers to increase social network campaign tracking

Over three times as many marketers will track social networking efforts in 2008 compared with last year, according to a new report from global services firm, Sapient.

by Helen Leggatt

Sapient’s recent Interactive Marketing Survey was designed to understand how marketers implement and track online campaigns along with how marketing spending is to be divided across channels.

One particularly noticeable change is the intention to implement tracking of social networking campaigns and promotions. Last year, just 12 percent of survey respondents tracked social networking campaigns, 42 percent intend to implement analytics to track this medium in 2008.

"In 2008, marketers will seek the ability to seamlessly incorporate this medium with their other channels, including search and e-mail, and the capability to monitor and measure performance to ensure they are achieving optimum results," said Sapient Chief Creative Officer Gaston Legorburu in a recent statement.

The survey found that marketers were most confident in the tracking of email campaigns (32 percent) and search marketing (30 percent).