In this world where everything is digital, it is possible to track almost anything.
You can collect data on how many consumers visit your website, how long they stay, how far they scroll down the page, if they click any links, etc.
You can find out how long consumers engage on your social media pages and if they click on your paid ads.
Collect all the data possible, and then what? Use the data to measure the worth of your advertising efforts.
Discover what digital marketing strategies are converting to sales and which are stagnant.
Amazon Advertising points out another reason to track metrics, “Finally, marketing metrics are the primary way marketers can show the impact that marketing and advertising is making for their company or organization. This can inform annual budgets and headcount, making these insights essential beyond ongoing measurement and campaign planning.”
Track marketing performance metrics to influence future strategies and budget spending.
What Are Digital Marketing Performance Metrics?
Any aspect of your marketing strategy that is measurable is a performance metric.
You have so many tools to track the results from your paid ads or website optimization. Find out if you are headed in the right direction.
Do your efforts bring in more sales?
Rather than tracking the metrics yourself, you can hire a trusted digital marketing agency to interpret your marketing performance metrics and see how to convert more sales.
Metrics in Marketing
Some digital marketing performance metrics may include traffic distribution metrics. What is the greatest source of sending traffic to your website?
Or the churn rate is the average time customers return to buy products from your business.
Once you find measurable statistics for your business, you can work to improve the metrics and consequently increase sales.
Key Performance Indicators in Marketing
Your company will set specific key performance indicators that determine whether a digital marketing strategy is working or not.
KPIs are goals set by the company that measure success.
ClickUp describes, “Marketing KPIs are measurable metrics your company can track to gauge performance over channel-specific marketing activities.
It proves the Return on Investment (ROI) about the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and strategies so the business can double down on what’s working and adjust for what’s not.”
If your marketing KPIs are not met, it’s time to pivot the marketing strategy.
Metrics vs. KPIs
KPIs measure performance based on key business goals, while metrics measure performance or progress for specific business activities.
Marketing key performance indicators are strategic, while marketing performance metrics are often operational or tactical.
All KPIs are metrics, but not all metrics are KPIs.
Learn more about KPIs and how we can use them to grow your business.
Measuring the Right Marketing Performance Metrics
Metrics are a collection of data.
If you can’t do anything with that data to turn it into sales, then it’s not important.
It’s all about choosing the right marketing performance metrics to contribute to your marketing KPIs.
See what Investopedia has to say about KPIs: “At the heart of KPIs lies data collection, storage, cleaning, and synthesizing. The information may be financial or non-financial and may relate to any department across the company.
The goal of KPIs is to communicate results succinctly to allow management to make more informed strategic decisions.”
Customer-Centric Digital Marketing Metrics to Track
Pinpoint the digital marketing metrics to track that will help you meet your KPIs.
Here are some examples:
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) or Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
This is how much it costs to complete a sale.
Include marketing performance metrics to find out how much you invest in each customer before they make a purchase.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
From Formstack, “Cost per lead, or CPL, allows you to measure the cost-effectiveness of your marketing campaigns at generating new sales leads. It designates a dollar amount to each lead your campaign generates.
This is particularly effective for analyzing effectiveness of online advertising options such as AdWords or social ads. A successful CPL will be low for individuals (leads) with a large overall number of viable leads.”
For example, how much does it cost to bring in the lead if you run pay-per-click campaigns for your skincare company and secure a new visitor to your website?
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The customer lifetime value is the revenue one customer brings to your company and will continue to contribute.
Over the course of a lifetime, how many times will the customer return to purchase the product? For example, you can expect a return every 3-6 months if it is for makeup or hair care.
You can also calculate gifts or referrals the customer may produce.
Important Website Performance Metrics to Track
Your website design is essential to tracking performance metrics.
The website's structure, content, and keyword optimization are all factors in tracking performance.
On-Page Time and Engagement Time
A website can track how long a user stays on each page.
You have the ability to measure engagement as well, including scroll length and links that are clicked.
A consumer may enter a clothing website, navigate straight to women’s clothing, click on shirts, and scroll halfway down the page.
You will be able to see the activity and know what to use for a retarget ad if they happen to exit the page without making a purchase.
Discover how engaging your website is or isn’t by how long someone stays on each page. Your content will shine through on these metrics.
Does your website content stand out from the competition? Or does it make a bad impression?
Find out the answer and make the appropriate change.
Website Bounce Rate
A website bounce rate is measured by taking the total number of single-page visits to the site and dividing it by the total number of visits overall.
The website bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that load the first page and immediately click out of the website.
For example, a consumer sees an ad for acne treatment and is curious about what they see, so they click on the ad.
Once the website loads, they see the pictures, design, content, or prices and decide never mind, not for me.
A KPI may include a low bounce rate of under 20% of the visitors that leave after the first page loads.
Goal Completions or Conversion Rate
Goal completions or conversion rates measure how many advertisements returned sales.
Use click-through rates, email opt-ins, and sales metrics to come up with the conversion rate.
For example, out of 10,000 email subscribers, how many convert to actual customers? What is the conversion rate?
If you return a lot of sales from the email subscribers, then your email content is working.
On the other hand, you may realize that sales are driving more from PPC ads or social media accounts. Then you can change your email marketing campaign to yield better results.
Critical Off-Site and Paid Advertising Metrics
Getting the full picture in your marketing strategy is essential to meeting your KPIs.
You may think some marketing performance metrics are not worth tracking. Think again.
Gain a new perspective on common metrics and how to use the data to your advantage.
Inbound Link Volume and Quality
The more inbound links you have on your site, the more users will get a chance to explore other areas of your brand.
Embed inbound links into quality content to keep your user engaged and increase your website engagement metrics.
In addition, the more a consumer learns about your brand, the more invested they will be in supporting your purpose.
Why does it matter to measure how many clicks your inbound links receive? If you put out quality content that leads to more quality content, you are more likely to seal the deal with a sale.
When a website links to your site, it increases your domain authority.
The higher the domain authority, the more strength the inbound links have, contributing to the SERP rankings and increasing your page’s rank.
For example, consider a veterinarian website. If the consumer finds the site from a dog grooming article, they may click on a link within the article related to why their pet is not sleeping.
When they click on the inbound link, they could be prompted to book an appointment with the vet to get individualized advice on the pet. And you’ve just converted a visitor into a client through inbound links.
SERP Rankings
SERP stands for search engine results page ranking. Where does your company fall on the list of businesses when a consumer searches for a specific keyword?
If you are on page 7 of the Google search, it’s likely that the searcher will never even see your company in the suggestions.
On the other hand, if your company comes up on age one, then you have a big chance of increasing the number of visitors to your website.
SERP rankings include gathering data on your business for each keyword. Maybe your company is high on the list for leather shoes for men.
But your company is on page three or four when someone searches for genuine leather handbags.
Now you have a clue on which keywords to implement more on your website to optimize the phrase and get more conversions for specific products.
Social Media Engagement
When you think of social media engagement, likes, comments, and shares come to mind. Maybe you have a link in your bio, those click-throughs count too.
While all of these marketing performance metrics are easy to track, other social media metrics should be considered.
A good social media marketing plan will include stories, and reels, sharing outbound and inbound links on LinkedIn and Twitter, and building a community.
Keeping your product at the forefront of the consumer’s mind is the goal of social media marketing. So, while shared posts are always good, they are not the only way to measure social media engagement.
Harvard Business Review highlights the urgency to track marketing performance metrics, “The competition for consumer attention in the digital era places a premium on building strong, compelling brands. Brands drive growth, engage stakeholders (customers, employees, investors, and partners), and are key financial assets for the enterprise.
New engagement channels, such as social media, reduce the costs of brand-building, and advancements in artificial intelligence and analytics make fine-tuned targeting easier.”
Creating a profile on social media is free advertising for your company. When you share a photo or highlight a product, thousands of consumers could see the post.
All at no cost to you.
Impressions and Cost Per Impression
An impression in digital marketing is when a consumer views an advertisement.
A cost per impression is the amount an advertiser pays per view or per 1,000 views, depending on how much traffic the ad gets.
While social media is a way to advertise to potential customers who know about your brand, you can use paid ads to reach people who have never heard of your company.
If you own a law office and have 800 followers on Instagram, then your posts will go out to all of your followers.
But if you are ready to find new leads, you can use paid ads to show up as sponsored ads on social media.
When people spend a large chunk of their days scrolling Facebook and Instagram, paid ads are a great way to bring in new visitors to your website.
Pay-per-click advertising comes with its own set of metrics, all customizable by each business owner running the ad campaign.
Use Metrics to Select Your Digital Marketing KPIs
It’s time to link your business metrics to your digital marketing KPIs. What can you learn about your business to help you reach your goals?
If you have yet to utilize your marketing performance metrics to your advantage, you can take a look at our experience and see how The Growth Shark can increase your sales.
Setting marketing key performance indicators and tracking metrics can feel overwhelming when it is not in your wheelhouse. Focus on the parts of your business that you love by saving time and outsourcing your digital marketing needs.
If search engine results are an important metric for you (and it should be), be sure to check out 10 Most Important SEO Metrics to Track Organic Performance.
