In the digital marketing age, not only are measurable metrics and other analytical data are possible and available in real-time, the need to measure these data is paramount as evidence to success. In a constantly and rapidly changing business landscape, the need to measure digital marketing success as efficiently as possible has increased in importance more than ever before. Every digital marketing tool available has some means of measuring success made available through the various metrics business owners can obtain.

However, with the tons of data available and easily accessible, choosing the right type of metric to monitor can be daunting for marketers. There is the possibility of choosing and monitoring metrics that really pose no significance for what matters most in business – earning revenues. Marketers might be too engrossed in focusing on “vanity” metrics and lose time analyzing on metrics that would really matter for their business.

“Vanity” metrics, such as the number of Facebook “likes” or YouTube “views”, are metrics that are merely “nice-to-have” – unless these figures can be effectively monetize and translated into revenues. Metrics that really do not have an impact to the bottom line will just be a waste of time and resources. Business owners should learn how to identify which metrics can be influential for business growth and revenue generation.

The infographic:

 The following can show 14 of these metrics that proved to be most important for your digital marketing campaign. These metrics are categorized into three groups, according to the simplified flow of any digital marketing campaign: 

Traffic Generation > Conversion > Revenue

Traffic Metrics 

These metrics are primarily measured and monitoring during the traffic generation stage and are very important for both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) digital marketing techniques. 

• Overall Site Traffic 

Significant changes in how traffic flows to your site can give you an insight on how effective a particular digital marketing technique initiated is effective or not. When measuring site traffic, don’t just focus or rely on page views or the number of hits your website gets but also on how many unique visitors your website get per week or per month. The more unique visitors your website receives, the greater the chances of getting potential customers.

• Traffic Sources

Knowing where your site traffic is coming from and what particular sets of keywords brought them there can give you an insight as to what keywords or keyword phrases you should focus more on your digital marketing campaigns. Search engines still proved to be the primary source of website traffic according to various studies, but you can also leverage on other traffic sources that may prove beneficial for your business.  

• Mobile Traffic

Mobile internet is proving to be a strong digital marketing arena as more and more people across the globe access the internet through their smartphones and other internet-capable mobile devices. This deserves much more attention from digital marketers as these can open new doors for greater and more diverse revenue sources. This metric can also provide and insight on how business owners can effectively structure and plan their content – resulting in better engagement with both mobile and non-mobile website visitors.

• Click Through Rate (CTR)

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) are viable sources for targeted traffic and can be measured effectively by the figuring out the number of clicks your PPC ads receive based on the total number of impressions. Each time your ad is viewed an “impression” is made and Click Through Rates (CTR) measure how many people actually clicked on your Ads. The higher the CTR, the better your Quality Scores will be, allowing you to lower your PPC costs by receiving pricing discounts from Search Engine Marketing platforms like Google Adwords.

• Cost Per Click (CPC)

The Cost Per Click (CPC) defines how much you are going to pay the search marketing platform every time an internet user clicks on your PPC Ad. This value will vary depending on how popular your chosen keyword or keyword phrases are, your Quality Score as influenced by Click Through Rates (CTR), and the standard prices search engines initially set. You can set the CPC budget for keywords, keyword phrases and categories individually or all at once.

Conversion Metrics 

As discussed in earlier Digital Marketing Philippines articles, converting website traffic into business leads or outright sales is the primary purpose for your digital marketing campaign. This goal should be at the core of your digital marketing efforts, with the following providing insights as to what particular metrics are important during conversion. 

• Conversion Rate (CVR) 

Measuring how many website visitors actually gets converted into leads or sale is a valuable and tangible metric that defines your digital marketing success. Whether your goal is to gather valuable information about your website visitors and potential customers, or convert site visits into sales, monitoring your Conversion Rates can give you a great insight as to what particular aspects in your digital marketing campaign will deliver the best results.

• Cost Per Lead (CPL) 

The success of a digital marketing campaign depends on how well your website and content convert website traffic into leads or paying customers at minimal possible costs. Cost Per Lead (CPL) is a metric that defines the lead conversion ratio of a particular campaign and corresponding cost, giving insights to the business owner or marketer on how profitable their campaign is or not.

• Bounce Rate

Not all website traffic to your site can be converted into leads or sales, or stay longer immersed in your web pages and partaking of your website content. On some of these visits, site visitors immediately leave or “bounce” as fast as they arrive – should they find your content irrelevant to their needs. Knowing bounce rates can provide you insights on how you could better improve or optimize your content. 

• Average Page Views per Visit 

Driving good traffic to your website is one of the most important and foremost components in your digital marketing campaign, and how well you can entice them to stay longer on your web pages and digest your content. The more page views generated from each visit the more chances for engagement with website visitors, eventually influencing them to get converted into leads or paying customers.

• Average Cost per Page View 

The amount of investment poured into a paid digital marketing channel like PPC can be controlled by knowing the average cost per page view and the amount of revenue you can generate from a particular page. Your cost per page view should be significantly lower than the revenue you can generate from the page in order to gain profit from your campaigns.

• Average Time on Site

You can measure how well you are engaging with your targeted website visitors by how long their average times during each visit to your site is. This is important for gauging what content is relevant and would drive results from site visitors, gaining their valuable trust, and eventually increase these levels of trust into something that would finally entice them to convert.

• Rate of Return Visitors

Website popularity is not only defined by the amount of traffic your site is generating, but also by the rate of return visitors that keep coming back to partake more of what you can showcase with your content. Knowing your Rate of Return Visitors can give you an insight on how you can improve your content to entice site visitors who have not converted yet as leads or paying customers – to finally do so. 

Revenue Metrics 

Ultimately, the success of your digital marketing campaign can be measured properly by revenue metrics. These will tell you if a particular campaign is profitable or not so you can make adjustments on how you can improve your content for better engagement, higher conversion and bigger revenues.

• Return On Investment (ROI) 

The Return on Investment (ROI) can be aptly measured by website traffic that are eventually converted into new paying customers. This metric will also help you identify which area in your digital marketing campaign is driving sales and revenue, and which areas should be given more room for improvement.

• Cost to Acquire a Customer (CAC) 

ROI is measured by the number of new paying customers for a given time period. The cost for acquiring these new customers on the other hand is defined by getting the total of your marketing and advertising costs for a particular time period divided by how many new paying customers were generated during that same period. Although calculations may not be that perfect, CAC can give you with good insight on how effective and successful your digital marketing campaigns can be. 

As a final note, it is important to reiterate that each of these metrics described above is a good indicator of how successful your digital marketing efforts are. Each focuses on a particular area and stage in your digital marketing campaign, so it would be best to make use of these tools as a whole. The key here is to make use of the data you can extract from these metrics, providing you with an opportunity to identify which digital marketing components work and which ones do not – allowing you to make improvements and establish a better and more profitable digital marketing campaign.