Digital marketing metrics provide a way to measure the results of a marketing campaign which can give you insights into what’s working. Metrics give you important information about how well you’re doing and how close you are to achieving your goals. There are plenty of digital marketing metrics to choose from. The question is which metrics matter the most? Which are most helpful for measuring your success in digital marketing?
Digital Marketing Metrics to Understand Your Traffic
An important clue to how well your marketing campaigns are doing can be found by using the right marketing metrics to measure traffic. You need to know whether you’re succeeding at driving traffic to your website, how many visitors you’re getting, and whether there are sudden drops or increases in traffic.
Consider whether you can determine patterns in drops in traffic, such as time of day or whether it’s the weekend. Some metrics that can help you understand your traffic include:
- Total site visits – This is a number that should grow steadily from one month to the next. It gives you an idea of how effective your ads are at driving traffic.
- Traffic source – Are your visitors mainly coming through organic search, referral, direct, social, or paid? Is your traffic source concentrated in just one or two areas? Evaluate this information for your site as a whole and for individual pages.
- New and returning visitors – The number of visitors that are new versus those that are returning can give you insight into how long it takes visitors to make a purchase.
- Device used – How many of your visitors are arriving through mobile devices versus desktop? If you have a high bounce rate or exit rate for mobile or tablet users, you may be underdelivering to this segment of your audience.
Paying attention to your bounce rate or time on the page can also help you understand whether people are engaging with your content or leaving without clicking on another page. While it may not be obvious what needs to be changed, a high bounce rate lets you know that people aren’t finding what they’re looking for so your site needs some tweaks.
Conversion and Revenue Metrics
In the end, what you really want to know is the bottom line. How profitable are your advertising campaigns? To find this out, there are conversion metrics to pay attention to. Digital marketing metrics to look at for conversion and revenue include:
- Conversion rate – This lets you know how many people are following through on your call to action, which could be to sign up for a newsletter, download an ebook, or contact you. How many of those who signed up for your email list purchased a product? This rate gives you an idea of how many prospects you’re turning into customers.
- Click–through Rate (CTR) – This is a ratio that shows the number of people that clicked through to your ad compared to the number of people that saw the ad. This is usually a low number, but it’s something you should always work toward increasing by tweaking ad copy or designs.
- Cost per lead – This metric lets you know how much you’re spending on getting someone to become a lead, meaning someone who may eventually become a loyal customer.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA) – This metric measures the cost of acquiring a new lead. You’ll need to look at which ad channels work best in your industry, such as Facebook, Search, or Display.
- Cost per click (CPC) – This lets you know how much you’re investing for each click on your ad. Monitor this number over time and pay attention to the average CPC in your industry.
One of the most important metrics is return on investment, or ROI. It compares the amount of money you’ve spent on digital marketing and how much you’ve earned from this investment. If your ROI is negative, you’re losing money and you need to look at what needs to be changed.
Gaining the Insight You Need
Your metrics should give you a good idea of what’s working and what isn’t. If the metrics you’re looking at aren’t giving you the insight you need, you may need to rethink the tools you’re using to determine how close you are to success.
Digital marketing is an ever-evolving field. If you’re falling short of your goals or don’t think you’re using the best digital marketing metrics, reach out to Softline Solutions. Our team of experts is highly skilled in evaluating marketing strategy, and our goal is to help you meet your online potential. Get in touch with us today.
