Digital Marketing KPIs – What They Are & Why They Matter
Digital Marketing KPIs or Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable goals which help you to track and measure success.
KPIs are a useful way for Digital Marketers to set expectations and prove that their work is having a positive impact.
What is a KPI?
KPI stands for key performance indicators and is a quantifiable way to measure your progress against the goals that you have set. Most organizations use KPI to measure their success rate and analyze progress based on KPIs.
To track your digital marketing strategy performances and results, you must have KPIs that can indicate your campaign’s progress.
While you start a campaign on digital media, you must focus on whether you are getting the required results.
The KPIs you set will determine organizational/project progress, which is why it is essential to set realistic and obtainable goals.
Choosing indicators that would give you clear results can help you succeed and improve your strategy for the future.
Following are some of the components that must be focused while setting your indicators:
· Clear and Concise
Your indicators should not be vague, and the objectives selected should be written with precision and accuracy. Including exact numbers, dates, and values can help you give clarity.
For example, “We want to improve our services in the coming days” is a vague statement, instead “We want to obtain 50 good reviews on our Facebook page in the next 30 days” is a precise statement.
· Simple
The indicators must not be too hard to understand by the people in the organization. Keeping goals and indicators simple can reduce any confusion and uncertainty.
· Action-oriented
Your goals should be action-oriented, so they guide what steps to follow. Having action-oriented targets can make the job easier and focused.
· Timeline
KPIs with timelines can make it easier for the organization to measure progress and assign tasks to the respective teams. Submitting work on time can help you reach targets on time and is better for the organization’s success.
Why Are KPIs Important?
Measuring KPIs is essential for several reasons: firstly, KPIs keep the focus of all business activities on the overarching business goals.
Secondly, they are very useful in measuring actual performance against expected performance to determine the success of a project. Another way in which KPIs help the business is by analyzing the success of different strategies.
For example, in marketing, we often distribute our budget on different channels for marketing and only one is the main cause of our profits.
Sometimes several campaigns are running simultaneously, and you get a good response; however, you must also recognize which of the campaigns got you the best results.
This helps you root out the best performers from the laggers so that you can improve your cost of acquisition.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when developing KPIs:
· Choosing the Right KPIs
It is vital to keep the ultimate target in your mind while selecting the KPIs so that the right amount of attention is paid on other aspects.
Don’t get carried away on digital media while planning your strategy.
For example, checking your page views after launching a specific campaign can help you determine the traffic generated.
Similarly, not each KPI is supposed to help you; hence having precise KPIs will keep you focused. Starting with minimum metrics can help you monitor results and improve step by step.
· SMART
You must be familiar with SMART goal setting, and yes, it applies to KPIs as well. To keep your KPIs clear and concise, you must follow the SMART model to avoid any ambiguity.
The above abbreviation guides you to keep these attributes in mind while selecting your KPIs. Having specific goals can help you focus on one thing at a time. If your goal is measurable, then it can be easy to monitor.
The goals you set must be relevant to your targets and achievable within the said time-limit. Having time bounds targets can keep the teams focused, and it is easy to monitor the progress. Categories
Digital marketing campaigns are often carried out for the following purposes:
1. Lead Generation
Lead generation is often a target set by businesses in campaigns launched online. In the simplest terms, lead generation is about reaching potential consumers to make them consider buying your product. Monitoring the cost-effectiveness and customer acquisition often indicates the lead generation tactics’ results. Cost-per-lead generation helps you evaluate whether the time, cost, and energy spent on lead generation are effective or not.
2. Website & Traffic Metrics
To enhance your marketing performance, you must set indicators for the website’s traffic. The most common targets involve an increased number of views and traffic on the website, increasing conversion rates.
Tools such as Google Analytics can help you monitor our traffic and conversion rates.
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Cost-per-click (paid advertisement) and SEO optimized content can help you improve your website’s traffic.
Returning vs. new visitors can also help you monitor your website’s traffic and growth.
3. SEO Optimization
Organic traffic is extremely helpful for lead generation and also saves you a lot of money. Digital marketers focus on SEO to increase organic traffic on their platforms.
The number of monthly website visits that come through search engine results is also done through SEO optimizations—creating quality content, using top keywords, linking to relevant pages.
Getting inbound links through guest posting can help you improve your SEO standing.
4. Paid Advertisement
ROI is an integral feature when spending on paid advertising, as it indicates progress. Paid advertisement can become quite expensive, which is why cost-per-conversion in comparison to customer retention is important.
This way, you can manage the budget you want to assign for the advertisement.
To determine the cost of converting a consumer, simply add the cost of all resources spent on paid advertisement in a given period and compare it with customer lifetime and profit to compute how much you should be spending.
Paid keywords with little competition can help you improve your rankings as well.
5. Social Media Tracking
Your brand might be mentioned on social media by users or fellow businesses, which increases brand visibility.
You must monitor the mentions on social media to analyze the standing of your business. Using social media management and tracking tools can help you with insights.
Calculate social media ROI by calculating the cost spent, including designers, staff payroll, marketing budget, etc. and the benefit yielded in terms of cost spent.
Dos and Don’ts While Setting KPIs
While setting your KPIs you must set those that can easily be measured. Choose what you want to measure and set appropriate goals that have a direct impact on the company’s progress. Defining the indirect of irrelevant indicators will only confuse. Often marketing KPIs are set around
- Cost Per Lead
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- Website views and visits Per Marketing Channel
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)
Quantifiable metrics can help your organization thrive and achieve its target. Focusing on leading indicators is equally essential to help you set realistic results.
You must avoid indicators where you do not have a direct influence. For example, only target the indicators which you can control and monitor and have no external dependency or influence.
The analytical tools have made it easier to track performances; however, multiple metrics are of no substantial value.
Vanity metrics like Facebook likes or Twitter followers are easy to measure; however, if that’s not the target of your campaign, then it is of no use.
Therefore, you have to focus only on the metrics that matter to your campaign. Analyze if these metrics are going to gain your benefit or loss before deciding the indicator.
Focusing on Customers
For any business to thrive and succeed, it is crucial to identify the target audience.
You must carefully reach to the people who would be interested in purchasing your products.
Certain tools and analytics allow you to monitor the customer buying trends by indicating factors like what time your audience is most active, what is the gender that prefers to buy your products, etc.
Similarly, making buyer personas can help you in the identification of your audience. Based on data and research, you can create a buyer’s person to create better digital campaigns and reach out to your target audience. You can also use the buyer persona for personalized marketing campaigns.
To create a buyer’s persona:
- Analyze and determine the trends in your existing customer database
- Use forms to gather useful information about your customers.
- Questionnaires
- Interviews
- Surveys
- Ask the salesperson about experiences
To Sum It Up
Marketers must build their own plan depending on the business type and niche. A Software Development Company would always advise you to optimize your campaigns and measure results to make valuable decisions for your upcoming campaigns.
There is no need for an extensive list of KPIs, and to fulfill each of them, rather setting realistic and attainable goals within a time limit should be kept in mind.
Data obtained from KPIs must be recorded and stored in a simple yet comprehensive way for further analysis.
It makes it easier for anyone in the organization to access the data while making further decisions for future campaigns.
The lessons learned from these campaigns can provide useful insights to you for further actions.
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