One of the many advantages digital marketing offers business and marketers alike is the ability to effectively and accurately measure the impact of marketing efforts. From basic data provided by the native analytics feature on most platforms to more advanced analytics setup, we are flushed with the possibilities of gathering all kinds of data as it relates to business success.

The success of your digital marketing campaign is hinged on identifying and measuring the right data.

Below are some metrics you should track to measure the success of your digital marketing strategies. This is not an exhaustive list and the importance of the metrics depends on your business and marketing goals.

We have grouped the metrics according to business objectives so that you are able to identify the relevant metrics based on your business goals. Study the list, identify the ones that are most important for your business and start measuring!

Brand Awareness Metrics

These metrics define how familiar and recognisable your brand is amongst your target audience. Brand awareness can play a key role in success, especially for companies in their early stages because it can establish the company’s and product’s credibility. Some metrics to measure include:

  1. Impressions – Number of times your brand is seen
  2. Reach – Number of people who have seen your brand
  3. Branded Search Volume – Volume of search with branded keywords
  4. Backlinks – Backlinks are a critical piece of brand awareness — they show that other sites are referencing you and your products or services.
  5. Followers – The number of accounts that are following you on social media platforms.

User Engagement Metrics

User engagement metrics have become a big part of measuring success in digital marketing campaigns, but what metrics truly matter? Here are user engagement metrics you should be measuring

  1. Users – These are the people who regularly engage with your brand. You can further understand your users by segmentation based on demographics, behaviours and interests.
  2. Session Duration – This is the amount of time that a user spends in your app in one session. During a session, users typically perform a series of different actions and then either exit or the session times out.
  3. Retention Rate – This is the percentage of users that return to your website over a given period of time.
  4. Behaviour flow – This shows how your users interact between pages on your site.
  5. Social Engagement – Likes, shares, comments, saves, retweets etc

Traffic Metrics

When it comes to website traffic, the focus tends to be on the number of people who have visited your site. However, that information is vague and may not give enough useful insight. The following are important website traffic metrics that you should measure:

  1. User Demographics – Age, Gender, Location
  2. Traffic Source – Shows what channels your visitors are coming from
  3. New Users vs Returning Users – Indicates user retention
  4. Bounce Rate – The percentage of visitors who exit your site without performing any action.
  5. Exit Pages – The last pages users visit before leaving the site
  6. Top Visited Pages – The pages with the highest sessions
  7. Average Time on Site – Average time spent by users on your site

Conversion Metrics

Conversions vary from business to business, depending on the business or campaign goals. They can be anything you want your visitors to do. While some conversions are purchase-related, others are geared towards pushing the prospect further into the funnel. Here are conversion metrics that you should measure:

  1. Click-Through Rate (CTR) – Whether you’re running a website traffic or conversion campaign, clicks on your ads is an important step towards your objective.  CTR is a great measure for how well your ads are performing.
  2. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) – CPA indicates the cost of acquiring a new customer. It is calculated by dividing the total marketing costs by the number of customers acquired. This would provide insights into the profitability of your marketing efforts.
  3. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – ROAS allows marketers to determine the value earned for the cost of advertising. It shows the most and least financially effective advertising campaigns so that you can adjust your marketing budget accordingly.
  4. Conversion Rate – Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that make a defined conversion action on your site. This is a top-level metric that tells you how well your site is transitioning visitors to leads or customers. The overall average conversion rate is around 2%, however, depending on your industry conversion rate averages could be as low as <1% or as high as 10%.

Revenue Metrics

The bottom line for every business is to make money. The revenue metrics show how marketing efforts are contributing to the bottom line. A number of conversion metrics fall into this category but we have identified those that particularly focus on revenue generation.

  1. Cost per Click (CPC) – How much it costs for each click. This is calculated by dividing the total cost by the number of clicks.
  2. Cost per Action (CPA) – Cost for each action taken by the visitor
  3. Cost per Lead (CPL) – Cost for every lead acquired
  4. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – Cost for each customer acquired
  5. Abandon Rate –  The percentage of visitors who abandon the site during checkout or fall out of the sales funnel
  6. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – (Refer to conversion metrics above)
  7. Average Revenue Per Account/User/Customer (ARPA, ARPU, ARPC) – Average revenue generated per user
  8. Churn Rate – Percentage of customers or subscribers who discontinue their subscriptions during a given period.
  9. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – Customer lifetime value can be historical (the sum of all profits from the purchases a customer has made) or predictive (the total revenue your business expects to get from the relationship with this customer).

Identifying the metrics you should be tracking is one of the most important things you must do for the success of your digital marketing efforts. However, tracking these metrics can be quite daunting. We understand this and that is why we are introducing our measurement product, Ragilytics, which has been designed to make the process of tracking and measuring marketing results efficient. To learn more about the product, click here.