If you’re reading this, I assume you’re either an online marketer or someone who’s about to become one.
There’s a lot that goes into becoming a successful marketer, but a crucial first step is collecting accurate marketing performance data. In this article, we’ll discuss how to track your online marketing efforts effectively, including which metrics to use and why.
Online Marketing Metrics You Need To Know
As a marketer, you’ll need to determine the metrics that matter for your team and then track them regularly. Here are the major categories to look out for:
Pricing
Pricing is always a critical factor in any business, especially when you’re competing for customers with lower prices. An easy way to track pricing is to examine your competitors’ pricing and determine how you’re doing relative to your competitors. If you notice that your prices are falling behind, it could be a good indication that your customers are catching on and want more for less.
Sales
A successful marketer is one who makes sales and gains profit, so it’s essential to track this metric. One of the simplest ways to track sales is to examine your marketing campaigns, social media posts, and website traffic for goals set in advance. Looking at these three areas regularly throughout the year will help you determine whether or not you’re on the right track to earning a profit.
Costs
Marketing is expensive, so it’s essential that you track the money you’re spending on marketing to determine its effectiveness. One of the best ways to track marketing costs is to examine your revenue and expenses for the previous month. By taking the time to look at these numbers regularly, you can easily spot trends that could help you determine whether or not your marketing efforts are serving you well.
Metrics That Matter
You’ll want to track several metrics to determine the success of your online marketing efforts. However, not all metrics are created equal, and you need to examine the ones that matter the most. Here are the top three metrics to track:
Revenue
The first and most crucial of these metrics is revenue. Do you have a paypal account? Did you set up sales channels like Amazon, or Etsy, or do you rely on a company like Stripe to collect payments for you? The answer to these questions will determine whether or not you’re a profitable venture and the success of your marketing efforts. Tracking revenue is fairly straightforward. You can use tools like Google Analytics to get an overall view of your results in this area.
User Behavior
The next vital metric to track is user behavior. What actions do your customers take after they visit your website? Do they purchase something immediately or do they bounce away? Is there something in particular they don’t like about your website and, if so, what could you do to fix it? By understanding user behavior and determining what actions you want your customers to take, you can develop a strategy that will improve your conversion rate. Additionally, user behavior metrics can help you determine the success of your marketing campaigns and the impact of your social media posts. For example, if you notice that a certain hashtag is significantly impacting your traffic but don’t have an easy conversion process on your site, you might want to consider removing the hashtag from your social media posts or changing the design of your website to better suit the audience you’re attracting with this particular hashtag.
Conversions
Conversions are pretty self-explanatory; you want to track the number of people who’ve taken the action you want your customers to take. In the case of a lead generation website, your conversions might be a purchase but could also be signing up for a free trial, subscribing to a newsletter, or engaging with your blog. In the case of a realtors website, your conversions could be signing up for a free account, viewing an open house, or sending in a listing request. Once you’ve determined the actions you want your customers to take, you can set up a goal to track the number of times you can convert a visitor into a customer. Just be sure to examine your bounce rate (the amount of visitors who leave your site immediately after landing there) before and after your introduce a new conversion channel; if it goes down, you’ll know that your customers aren’t finding the information they need on your site and that you need to either increase the amount of informative content or establish more ways for customers to find what they’re looking for.
ROI
The return on investment (ROI) is basically the profitability of your marketing efforts as compared to the costs associated with generating that revenue. The main difference between an ROI and a profitability metric is that an ROI only measures the benefits you’re achieving while marketing, whereas a profitability metric will take into consideration all the expenses associated with generating that revenue.
For example, let’s say you’re paying $50,000 per month to operate your website (including hosting, domain name registration, and maintenance). You determine that your website’s traffic is generating $500,000 per year in revenue. Your monthly ROI would be $500,000 divided by $50,000, which is 10 percent. To calculate your annual ROI, you’d need to multiply your monthly ROI by 12 to get your annual revenue.
More Metrics To Consider
The metrics discussed above should be enough to get you started, but you might also want to track the following:
Pageviews
The number of times a person visits a given website or blog post. This metric doesn’t take into consideration whether or not that person left the site or blog or bought something or engaged with the content. Simply put, views determine how much a person enjoys your content without taking into consideration whether or not they act on it.
Demographics
The demographic of your audience is a very important element of your strategy as a marketer. Who are they and what do they want? The easier you can find out, the easier you can target your efforts. One of the best tools for gathering demographics is Google Analytics. With this tool, you can examine the demographics of your website visitors and see how your audience differs from the demographic of your competitors.
For example, if you’re marketing to adults in Australia, you might want to consider focusing your efforts on sites written for an Australian audience or using Aussie English in your copy to make it more appealing to Australian readers. Or, if you notice that your demographic is mostly female, you might want to consider developing a strategy to attract more male readers.
Conversions Per Hour
Instead of simply tracking the number of times a customer has taken a certain action, you can examine how much profit you’re making from a given action. This way, you can track the effectiveness of your conversion strategies and determine whether or not they’re worth pursuing. For example, if you notice that your product sales are increasing, but your SEO efforts aren’t resulting in any conversions, you might want to reevaluate your strategy. Are you overlooking a vital step or is the product just not that good?
Cost Per Acquisition
This is essentially the cost of acquiring a new customer. If you determine that users are consuming your content without taking action, this is the cost you’re incurring for that content. To track this cost, you can use the user behavior metrics described above along with other marketing metrics to examine the value of a given user. For example, you might want to examine which marketing activities led to the most cost-effective user base. Alternatively, you can use tools like Google Analytics to examine traffic sources and then determine the most cost-effective approach to attracting the right audience.
Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or you’re just getting started, you need to know how to track your marketing efforts effectively. The above metrics can help you get started, but you might also want to examine the demographics of your audience, the value of a given user, and the effectiveness of your social media posts. If you notice that any of these numbers are significantly different than what you’d expect for this stage of your business, you might want to reevaluate your strategy. Is this the right time to enter this market? Are your customers responding to strategic messaging? Which approach should you take to increase conversions: focus on SEO, or should you invest in paid ads?