Do you have any idea as to which of your marketing campaigns are best performers? Track these digital marketing KPIs to become a true marketing genius.
Did you know that Americans spent 6.3 hours a day using digital media in 2018?
Digital marketing is key to the success of brands, businesses, and companies across a variety of sectors. And there are several ways in which you can ensure your marketing has the most impact.
Keep reading to discover what digital marketing KPIs are and which ones you should be tracking to optimize your business.
What is a KPI in Marketing?
The first question you might be asking if you’re new to digital marketing is, what does KPI stand for in marketing? KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. When referred to in marketing, this relates to evaluating your success and failures across all campaigns.
Different businesses focus on different marketing KPIs, however, most tend to look at Cost Per Lead, Cost Per Acquisition, Website Visits Per Marketing Channel, and Marketing Qualified Leads.
Marketing KPIs allow marketers to access large volumes of data to determine what is and isn’t working. This can then help to inform marketers about their strategies and make crucial decisions about how to improve.
What Are the Main Marketing KPIs?
There are five main categories when it comes to marketing KPIs. SEO optimization, lead generation, social media marketing, website and traffic metrics, and paid advertising.
Some of these might not apply to your business, for example, if you’re a start-up and having created all of these strategies yet. But don’t worry, just focus on the KPIs that do apply to your business.
Every business is different, as such, KPIs can vary. The most important thing to remember is to create KPIs that are clear and easy to track. When thinking about what your goals are for the 5 categories, write down a list of what you hope to achieve from your marketing and start creating timescales and milestones of success.
Your KPIs should also be reviewed and reported on a regular basis, both with the marketing team and with the key stakeholders in your business. This ensures that targets are met and that strategies are decided upon.
How to Track Your KPIs
There are a number of metrics you can track to ensure your marketing efforts are working. Unsurprisingly, there is also a lot of software that can make tracking your KPIs easier. We’ve broken down the five main categories of KPIs, so you can see if you’re effectively tracking them.
SEO Optimization
SEO is one of the most profitable ways to increase organic traffic. Your SEO optimization metrics should mainly focus on tracking organic traffic and getting targeted leads.
You need to track traffic from organic searches. This metric can be found on Google Analytics and Bing SEO Analyzer, these two reporting platforms will show you how well your keywords are performing and how much traffic came from the organic search.
You should also track how many new leads came from organic search. This can be very useful for understanding all your new leads and how much value your SEO has for your sales and profits. You can use marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Marketo, and Hubspot, to analyze new leads.
Lead Generation
Many businesses will understand the importance of lead generation and should have it in their KPIs already. But if you don’t then the main thing to monitor is the cost-effectiveness of your lead generation efforts.
We recommend you track the monthly new prospects. This metric can be effective when enquiring about your marketing efforts because it allows you to see how many new leads you have. A lead might be someone signing up to your newsletter, someone trying out your free trial, or someone creating an account with you. This type of lead generation is easy to track, all you need to do is use a pipeline management software and filter the dates and data about new leads that you want to know.
You might also want to think about KPIs for qualified leads per month, the cost per conversion, and the average time of conversion.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a little different when it comes to metrics. Most businesses choose to set KPIs that relate to their brand awareness, engaging with their customers through social channels, and converting the online community into customers.
Monitor the website traffic and see how many people came from social media. This should be tracked monthly and can be measured using Google Analytics.
You also need to track leads and conversion from social media, this can help to see whether your social media efforts are working. To do this you can use your CRM tool and find out which customers and prospects came from your social media channels.
Website and Traffic Metrics
Website KPIs are critical for the future success of your marketing performance. Many businesses have website KPIs centered around getting more traffic on their landing pages and increasing their conversion rates.
To ensure you’re tracking your website metrics, you need to use Google Analytics to monitor your monthly website traffic across all pages. You also should use Google Analytics to check out data such as which customers are new and which are returning. It is also useful to track metrics such as how long a person stays on your page and what your website conversion rate is.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is where you want to be sure your efforts are paying off. There’s no point investing money in your PPC campaigns if they aren’t achieving your goals.
Focus on monitoring the number of monthly leads and conversions you receive from PPC advertising. You can do this using Google Adwords, which will also be accessible in your Google Analytics. To ensure that your campaigns are being tracked, set up reference codes for each campaign.
You should also consider setting up KPIs for Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) and Cost-Per-Conversion (CPC). Your KPIs for these should be tracked every two months, as these conversions can take longer than a month.
You might also want to think about KPIs for affiliate marketing. For more information about affiliate marketing, including earning per click and how you can make more money, have a look at this article: what is EPC.
Improve Your Digital Marketing KPIs Today
If you aren’t already tracking our suggested digital marketing KPIs then make sure you start today. Improving your digital marketing strategy is vital for the success of your business. With the ever-evolving digital world, you also need to make sure your KPIs reflect your current and potential new business goals.
If you found this article to be helpful, be sure to check out our other blogs about marketing, business, and social media.
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