What Are The Most Important Marketing Metrics Every Business Should Track?

Are you a business owner who assesses the success of your marketing efforts just on gut feeling? Unfortunately, if your sense of accomplishment is based on intuition alone, your business may not be as successful as it seems and could actually be running at a loss. That’s why, it’s extremely important to track your marketing metrics, so you can see whether your business is winning or not.

Monitor These Key Marketing Metrics

Marketing metrics are data measurements that help business owners and marketers understand how well their content marketing and promotional strategies are performing. Analyzing your business data helps you make the necessary adjustments to improve the outcomes of your marketing efforts. If you don’t know where to start, here are some of the most important marketing metrics you should track:

1. Website metrics

Websites are one of the top marketing tools for businesses. By building a professional website, you can show potential customers that you have a legitimate business. Additionally, it’s a great tool for increasing your digital presence and capturing leads. However, running a website without tracking its performance limits your potential for online success. Although there are tons of website metrics you need to check, the following are the most essential:

• • Page views. These refer to the number of times a visitor has seen your web page per session. If your page views are growing, it means your visitors are interested in your content or offers. 
  • Traffic sources. There are several types of website traffic sources, such as organic, direct, referral, paid search, email, and social media. Usually, the highest traffic source for a website is organic search. However, if your data shows that social media is your top traffic source, then you should capitalize on this by optimizing your social media strategy.

• Top performing pages. These pertain to your web pages that attract the most views or visits. By knowing your website’s top-performing pages, you can replicate what works and allocate your budget and resources more effectively.

• Keyword rankings. These refer to the position or spot where your web page appears within search engine results for certain keywords or phrases. For example, if your e-commerce website shows up in the third spot for “floral dresses Ohio,” then #3 is your keyword ranking for that search term.

Most of these website metrics can be measured using Google Analytics. It’s a free tool! While it can’t directly provide your website’s keyword rankings, it can show you data about your web page’s most searched queries or keywords.

2. Social media metrics

Getting your business on social media is an excellent way to increase awareness of your business and promote your offers. But how do you know if your social media marketing efforts aren’t in vain? To find out if your social media initiatives are paying off, focus on measuring the following metrics:

• Reach and impressions. Reach refers to the number of people or accounts that have seen your posts. Meanwhile, impressions pertain to the number of times your posts have been shown. 

• Engagement rate. This generally covers the number of likes, shares, and comments your posts have. The more people engage with your posts, the more likely they are to be pushed higher or remain visible in others’ feeds.

• Follower growth. To measure follower growth, you just need to subtract your “current” follower count from that of the previous month. Some social media platforms like Instagram show the number of followers you have gained within a month. On other social platforms, you need to either track your follower growth manually each month or use a third-party tool like Buffer, Hootsuite or Later.

Some may say that these social media metrics are only vanity metrics—and they may be quite right. However, being highly visible on social media still plays a crucial role in reaching and connecting with your target clients and it helps with SEO (search engine optimization).

3. Email marketing metrics

According to Forbes, 81% of companies use email marketing. Yes, those emails you thought were useless and dead are actually powerful marketing tools. By sending emails, you can boost your website traffic and help you sell your products or services. 

In fact, we’ve covered the importance of effective email marketing campaigns in our previous blog. And we’ve discussed some of the most important email marketing metrics you need to check, such as:

• Open rates
• Click-through rates
• Conversion rates
• Unsubscribe rates

You can read our previous email marketing blog here to learn each of the ideal metric benchmarks.

4. Return on Investment (ROI) metrics

The common goal of every business is to make sales. While it’s great that people are visiting your website, engaging with you on social media, and reading your emails, these won’t mean much if your marketing efforts are unable to convert those people into paying customers. So, here are some of the vital ROI metrics you need to measure:

• Conversion rate. For every marketing channel or tool you use, it’s essential to monitor its conversion rate. To calculate this metric, use this formula: Conversion Rate = # of Conversions / Total Number of Visitors.
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). ROAS measures how much money your business earns from advertising campaigns compared to how much you spend. This can be determined by using the following formula: ROAS = Ad Revenue / Ad Cost.
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). This metric will help you measure how much it costs you to acquire a customer. To find out your CPA, use this formula: CPA = Total Marketing Spend / Total Revenue.

Out of all the marketing metrics you need to track, measuring your ROI metrics is one of the most challenging. However, computing your ROI is essential because it helps you understand whether you’re getting your money’s worth.

Make Data-Driven Decisions for Your Business

Tracking business metrics is often complicated, confusing, and time-consuming. That’s why most small- to medium-sized businesses are avoiding it. However, if you want to improve your marketing results and scale your business, monitoring your marketing metrics is a must. This also helps you make data-driven decisions for your business and prevents you from relying on guesswork. If you need any help in this area, TigersEye Creative is just a phone or email away. Contact us on this page to get started.