If you think that implementing a digital marketing campaign is hard enough, wait until you have to measure its success. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of data and statistics that need to be measured and analyzed. If you don’t know which metrics to focus on, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Many digital marketers make the mistake of paying close attention to ‘vanity’ metrics, which not only have zero impact on business growth, but also sidetrack the entire marketing plan.
What Are Digital Marketing KPIs?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable values that show how your campaign is performing in terms of your specific business objectives. You might wonder how they differ from ‘metrics’ as those two are often interchangeably used. To put it simply, KPIs are a subcategory of business metrics, but their direct alignment to your goals makes them the most significant contributors to your success.
Differentiating the must-haves from the nice-to-haves is a tricky task. Depending on your specific goals, below is a shortlist of essential KPIs that can give you valuable insights for future marketing initiatives.
Overall site traffic is one of the staples of digital marketing. The total number of unique visits is arguably the simplest yet most reliable measure of how effective your campaign is. This is why search engine optimization (SEO) has been a popular marketing strategy in the past two decades. If done right, SEO services can help drive quality traffic to your site and increase your conversions. Changes in traffic flow can also give you insights on which channels and keywords to use for higher rankings.
Coming off the previous point, conversions measure how visitors engage with your site. A conversion happens when a simple site visit turns into profit. Its definition has become so loose in recent years, such that it now includes any activity that could potentially turn a site visitor into a paying customer. That includes account creation, completing a download, subscribing to a trial service, or filling out a form. Tracking these engagements can help you adjust components and offers on your site to make your business more appealing.
Loyalty rate refers to the ratio of new visitors to returning visitors. This will give you an idea of how your site visitors perceive your business and the quality of your content. You can use this data in tandem with your ‘buying cycle’ or the amount of time it takes for a conversion to happen. For instance, you have a long buying cycle coupled with a low return visit rate. These data can help you interpret your users’ behavior to keep them engaged. They could provide clues on what adjustments you can do on your content, products, or services to compel visitors to come back to your site.
Engagement from social media marketing doesn’t only measure the reach of your content. It’s also a good tool to analyze the public sentiment toward your brand. What people say about your business—whether positive, negative, or neutral—reflects your overall brand reputation. Although emotions are a difficult metric to quantify and qualify, active mentions of your business name on different platforms can serve as a window into actual user experience. You can capitalize on these data when managing brand awareness and crafting a response plan.
Choosing The Right Toolset
Using the right digital marketing KPIs is crucial in knowing what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. Through them, you can identify effective strategies, get rid of fruitless ones, and make adjustments where necessary.
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