Think viral metrics are unobtainable? Guess again. Here's the easy way to track your viral campaign's success.

Unlike search or banner ads, which many consider to have clear metrics to define success, viral marketing campaign metrics are often regarded as "elusive." This is, in part, because it is a relatively new medium. Marketers have yet to fully embrace it, making it difficult to create standards and uniformity among the different online channels.

However, in many aspects, viral marketing is no different than other digital marketing channels. Upon launching a campaign, you need to be clear about your objectives and set them well in advance of your campaign in order to be able to determine its success. This process involves initially identifying the metrics you want to track and choosing a platform to capture and measure those metrics.

Before defining metrics, look at the design of your viral marketing campaign. The same discipline that is used in the design testing of your direct marketing creative should be used when creating your viral marketing campaigns. And be sure to build traceable events into the message before pulling the trigger of a viral marketing production blast.

Once you've got the design down, it's important to divide the measurement of your viral marketing campaign into two phases. The first phase is determining your pre campaign metrics. These are the metrics that you can expect to measure prior to launching the campaign, and they are based on the design and interactive elements in your campaign.

While unique to each campaign, some examples of pre-campaign metrics are:

Number of pass-alongs or forwards. Most pass-alongs will happen one of two ways: either via a viral medium or through the email/mobile medium. A viral medium is something designed specifically for effective pass-alongs. For example, you could put a link that says "forward this message to a friend" in your viral email marketing campaign. If the recipient uses this link, you'll be able to track the number exactly. However, if the recipient uses an email or mobile pass-along, it will not be captured or measured. If they hit the forward button through their Outlook or Yahoo! email, it's nearly impossible to track. That's why it's important to include a clear, easy-to-use viral medium to avoid this untrackable option.

Number of embeds. How many people embedded it on their sites? Viral messages embedded in social networks can be powerful -- if the recipient embeds your link onto a well trafficked social networking site, your exposure increases. However, the flipside is also true. The embedded material can become part of a spam blog and the numbers can be skewed. One way to discount distorted numbers is to allocate higher weights to early clicks while also counting unique clicks in that time frame.

Number of comments in the comment field. Some social networking sites let you add comments to what you are viewing. If you include this option, it's important to keep track of the comments added.

Number of downloads. This is a pretty straightforward metric. If there are downloadable elements in your viral marketing campaign, track the number of downloads by each recipient.

Post-campaign analysis
The second phase of measuring your viral marketing campaign involves conducting a full post-campaign analysis. There are a few straightforward numbers that you might already have on your list to collect. Common data sets include:

• Total number of views
• Total unique viewers
• Average number of views per visit
• Number of conversions
• Number of clickthroughs and the clickthrough rate
• Number of referrer URLs and examples of referrers, which typically tell you where your users are coming from
• Number of email addresses collected

These data sets can be gathered and analyzed by an in-house team. A top line analysis can be as simple as measuring the number of sign-ups, the increase in site visits and the increase in sales. After you complete your campaign, you should do an ad hoc analysis of campaign metrics and a high-level trend analysis. For this type of analysis, many marketers and advertising agencies turn to an outsourced, specialized company that is more experienced and can compile a more in-depth data analysis. This higher level trend analysis can include:

• Trend analysis by day, days, month or quarter
• Positive and negative sentiment reporting and analysis
• Demographic and geographic reporting

Once you have collected this data, you can begin to understand the various aspects of your viral marketing campaign and the many factors that contribute to a viral campaign's success or failure. You will see what worked and what didn't, paving the way for increased success in the future. The bottom line is that even though viral marketing may seem like it deserves new metrics, with some subtle tweaks, most of the "old-fashioned" metrics still get the job done.

Now, go ahead -- hit forward!

Jay Kulkarni is CEO and founder of Theorem, a provider of online media operations and analytical services to digital marketers.