Running any marketing campaign requires an investment of time and money, therefore replicating the success of effective campaigns and discounting ineffective ones is key to streamlining your process. Measuring the success of your marketing communications drives your strategy forward so that you can determine what works for you.
It is important to be aware of the tools at your disposal and how you can make the most of them to inform your marketing strategy.
Why do you need metrics?
Metrics directly measure the performance of your campaigns and how well they are progressing towards key performance indicators (KPIs). The information collected from the outcome of your campaigns essentially provides a benchmark for where you are right now and how you can get to where you want to be.
In short, metrics are a crucial component of any campaign as they take away the guesswork regarding its success. They provide clear data that can enable you to test new strategies and filter out approaches that are less successful than others.
What are the most important metrics?
In reality, each of the various metrics provides key and distinct information which can be of value when informing your marketing strategy. However, when restricted for time, it is important to know which hold the most fundamental data.
Google Analytics
With regards to how users are responding to your website, Google Analytics can play an important role. It allows you to identify the number of visitors to your site and the bounce rate (which measures the number of people who only visit one page before leaving). It also provides data on the number of page views you receive and the average session duration for how long users spend on your website.
These metrics provide marketers with information on their pages’ performance as well as an idea of how well optimised their website is for ensuring a positive user experience.
The bounce rate metric provides insight on whether visitors come to the website for a single-page session, so do not interact with other pages and subsequently leave. Bounce rate is measured as the percentage of all of your site’s sessions which results in a bounce.
This can be key for analysing whether your website is easy to navigate, delivers what your users expect, and if the content is clear. However, it is important to keep in mind that users who bounce may find the information they’re looking for on that page and therefore leave because they have completed their action quickly.
This is why the context of these bounce rates can reveal more useful data – for example, a high bounce rate on a home page indicates that users have decided within seconds that your website will not offer them the information they need, whereas a high bounce rate on a contact page may show that prospects are taking note of an email address or telephone number, then moving on.
The page view metric refers to the total number of views per page within a set time frame. This is also useful for separating out unique views and recurring views by the same user so the total doesn’t appear inflated.
Average session duration tells you the average length of time users are spending on your website. It is key for allowing marketers to identify whether users are finding what they are looking for and as a result, investigate why are they not staying longer if the duration time is low.
Combining the marketing metrics can help you craft an idea of what areas of your site need improving, allowing for you to trial different strategies in an attempt to boost your website’s efficiency.
Email Marketing
Email marketing metrics are useful for determining how successful your campaign is and allows you to infer what your recipients do and do not respond well to. One key metric is the open rate, which informs you of how successful your subject line is as that is the first thing users will see.
This opens up the opportunity for marketers to use A/B testing, in other words testing different subject lines to determine which is the one recipients opened more. This can help craft an optimum style of subject line to deliver the best results. However, with the changes to emails in iOS 15, this could be a thing of the past.
Ultimately encouraging recipients to open the email is the first hurdle to cross.
The clickthrough rate is a vital metric for marketers as it measures the percentage of recipients who click on a link within the email to be taken to a landing page. This provides an ideal opportunity for you to segment your email lists to cater the links and content towards specific groups within your audience.
The conversion rate follows from the clickthrough rate, by measuring the number of recipients who clicked on the link to then complete a call to action. This can include actions such as making a purchase. This provides key information to help marketers understand how well the link and content was presented.
Social Media
As for social media, there is a plethora of metrics available to identify how well your campaign is performing. Generally, it is beneficial to understand how many people saw your campaign. The reach identifies the number of unique viewers a specific post could have and the impressions identify the number of times it has appeared in the user feeds. These metrics are key for establishing the size of your audience and how other data falls in relation to it.
The engagement refers to the number of likes, comments and shares a post receives. For example, if your post has 400 impressions but only received 3 likes, this could mean that your campaign’s presentation needs improving to prompt more engagement.
Finally, the conversion rate, much like email marketing, is the number of users who clicked a link to your website and took an action such as subscribing to your newsletter or making a purchase. This metric shows that the social media content was relevant and accurately represents what is on your website.
All of the mentioned metrics can provide benchmarks and key information to take onboard when focusing or shifting the way you communicate your marketing.
How is Marketing ROI calculated?
Although expanding your growth through campaigns is important, you do not want this to come at the expense of your business. To assess whether this is the case, marketers turn to measure their Return On Investment (ROI). ROI essentially compares the amount of money spent on a project with the revenue gained from it.
There are various ways to calculate ROI, with the most basic form being by subtracting the marketing cost from the sales growth and also dividing this by the marketing cost. Measuring your marketing ROI is essential for identifying how effective your strategy is on the most fundamental basis. It factually highlights how successful your campaign is and provides you with a sense of direction when moving forwards.
Summary
In summary, the most effective businesses use marketing metrics as key indicators of the success of their campaigns, and deploy them to steer and evolve campaigns that secure a better response rate and a higher ROI.
For more information on how we can help you with your marketing campaigns, please see our digital marketing services or contact our team at customerservice@mackman.co.uk