July 10, 2020
Modern marketing is about taking calculated steps. There is no longer a lot of guesswork involved (although it’s never a perfect science). That means every effort must be measured and quantified. This is how a business gains insight to make more informed decisions.
There are a million ways the gauge success and a ton of metrics to collect. Here are just a few to keep your finger on:
This is a big picture number that should be tracked and monitored over time. This gives you a rough idea of how effective your campaigns are at driving traffic. It’s a number that should always be steadily growing, month after month.
This metric gives you an idea of the usefulness and quality of the content in your campaigns. The amount of return visitors gives you an idea of how “sticky” your posts are. Does it keep people coming back for more? This ratio will demonstrate how new content is performing. It will also show which pages on your site are weak.
How long are people spending on your pages once they click them? The time spent on your site is a corollary to the interactions per visit. It gives a business insight into engagement and the level of interest visitors display. People that spend the most time will likely convert to your best customers. This figure helps to optimize content for consumers and increase their lifetime value.
Like it sounds, this is the number of people that immediately “bounce” from your site. They click on the URL and something turns them off. A high bounce rate can point to a variety of flaws in your digital marketing strategy. Causes can include:
For an ecommerce site, the bounce rate is the same as the abandonment rate. This usually indicates there is an issue with the checkout process.
The main way to define conversions is by the number of anonymous visitors who enter your database or CRM (customer relationship management system). This can include meeting a number of actions like:
This figure is the number your financial department will be the most interested in. It can be the ultimate measure of success for a marketer.
When running paid ad campaigns and email marketing, measuring the click-through-rate (CTR) is essential. For PPC campaigns, the higher the CTR the lesser the cost-per-click (CPC). A lower score can drive costs through the roof.
This typically depends on how you define conversion. It can include things like cost-per-lead or cost-per-referral, but the overall figure is extremely important. This is what ultimately determines your margins. That’s because a high cost per conversion can turn a high conversion rate into a negative. When the costs are too great, they drop your net income.
This is different than cost-per-conversion because cost-per-acquisition (CPA) is all about revenue. This metric starts when someone becomes a paying customer. The figure will tell you exactly how many marketing dollars you can spend before someone makes a purchase.
The ultimate measure of marketing success is your return on investment. This will prove that your marketing strategies, technologies, and efforts are profitable and worth pursuing. Does everything deliver results to your bottom line? If it doesn’t, it must be changed.
The lead-to-close ratio can help keep things on track. For example, if you’re spending $25 per lead and you close at a rate of 25%, it will cost you $100 on average to acquire a new customer. If it exceeds that amount, you are in the black on projected ROI.
You may or may not want to track any of these formal metrics. It all depends on where you are on the digital marketing spectrum.
However, metrics can give you a pretty accurate view of how your business is doing digitally, what channels are effective, and which campaigns are successful. This enables a business to make rapid adjustments that always ensures a steady stream of customers.
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