The 5 Marketing Metrics You Should Care About The Most

I know that you know, that we all know, that we’re doing a great job, but are we really?   In almost every case, looking at numbers can give us a good indication of how well we’re doing, and where there is still room for improvement. Only problem is knowing what numbers to look at, and how to read them properly.   Sometimes, it’s easy to fall into the abyss of Vanity Metrics, which were beautifully defined by Eric Ries as “something that makes you feel good, but they don’t offer clear guidance of what to do.”   This is why we’re here now, to help you choose the right numbers to look at, through this list of 5 KPIs (key performance indicators) that should matter most for marketers.

The Top 5 Marketing Metrics:

Traffic

Tracking your web traffic is crucial in developing effective digital marketing campaigns. In order to properly gauge which methods are working and which aren’t, you must pay attention to web traffic.   In keeping track of web traffic, Google Analytics is your best friend to get details on bounce rates, demographics and page views. The better you understand your traffic the better you understand your target audience.   It’s important when assessing if your bounce rate is good, you should compare your bounce rate by industry. For example, blogs and landing pages have very high bounce rates, so this isn’t necessarily a red flag. Kissmetrics very clearly demonstrates what the industry standard is for bounce rates as well as how to improve your bounce rate.

2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

This term can be defined as: “the price you pay to convince someone to purchase your product or service”. In order to properly grow your company through marketing efforts, you have to know the price for a new customer.   In order to determine the price of a new customer, simply take any given month’s marketing budget and divide that by the total number of new customers. When the CAC is too high, you have a problem.   The value of a customer must always exceed the CAC for a business to properly function. There are other ways of assessing CAC that you can read about in this blog post.

3. Social Media Reach

With the tremendous potential and influence that comes with social media platforms, it’s imperative that you know exactly which platforms and campaigns will give you the best ROI. Most social media platforms offer tools for company pages to track their analytics. For instance, Facebook has “Insights” for its pages and Twitter has an Analytics Dashboard.   However, there are plenty of other great tools you can use to keep track of all of your “social reach.” You can track your social media reach by using Google Analytics, Buffer or any of the other list of tools.    

4. Landing Page Conversion Rates

In order to understand which landing page has the best conversion rates you have to track; bounce rates, exit rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. By combining these important metrics you will have a better pictures of which elements are working and which are not.   Search Engine Journal published their research and found that a quarter of all accounts are converting less than 1%! While the average across industries was at 2.35%. Although there were accounts converting more than 10% in the top tier.  

5. Email Marketing Metrics

The most important metrics to pay attention in this category are; delivery rates, open rates, click rates, and conversion rates.   By understanding your metrics you will know exactly what it is you need to change. If you have a high conversion rate with a low click rate, you likely need to come up with better titles. But if you have an open rate with a low click rate/conversion rate, you might need to work on coming up with better content. A key factor to a successful email marketing campaign is the cleaning of the email address list. Improve your email deliverability and reduce your bounce rate by using an email verifying tool.    When looking at any of these metrics you have to keep your eye on the prize: Which metrics will increase revenue? Keeping this goal in mind will help you stay focused and ultimately spend your time focusing on the right metrics.