Marketing strategies are plotted to aid in branding and sales efforts set to achieve particular business goals. Marketing targets specific ways to encourage consumer engagement, brand loyalty and consistent sales from key audience and consumer members.
Marketing budgets increase every year as new avenues open up to reach more people, and opportunities arise that encourage brand development and expansion.
Measuring the success of all business efforts and resources has always been important, which is why marketing is now subject to the same metric scrutiny as all other business growth and development strategies.
While most companies are familiar with evaluating marketing engagement through costs-per-click and daily click-throughs, the tools available to measure consumer responsiveness and reactivity to marketing efforts are so much more intricate and detailed than these basic tools.
If you are not yet taking advantage of KPIs to monitor your marketing and use it to its fullest potential, now is an excellent time to read along to learn more and to consider outsourcing a digital marketing firm that can guide you through the process.
What is KPI?
A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a metric that companies of any size can use to evaluate the tactics they’ve employed throughout their marketing strategies. KPIs measure the effectiveness of marketing tools – whom they’ve reached, what results they’ve yielded, how many sales they’ve effectively converted, etc.
Digital Marketing Metrics and KPIs
In digital marketing, KPIs look at the effectiveness of all digital marketing efforts, from social media comments to opened emails to landing page retention.
Every industry operates in its own way. Every brand within each industry caters to its market and chooses a strategic path to follow in hopes of garnering the most consumers and making the most sales.
Depending on the target consumers, product and service at hand, the preferred marketing efforts likely vary. Online media consumers might respond well to push notifications of new stories while fitness guru’s respond better to YouTube and Instagram Live videos.
In either scenario, brands go through an educated period of trial and error to determine which tactics their consumers respond to and which mediums generate the most business. Brands follow these insights closely.
As marketers continue to employ the appropriate marketing methods, consistent research either fuels the same strategy arms or informs the company that the consumers have shifted their marketing interests and consequently, the brand needs to follow suit.
Following marketing research is critical in a digital age where consumers constantly shift media loyalty and expect brands to meet them in their exact online digital experience.
By catering to the KPI insights, brands of all sizes are able to effectively shape their strategies, use resources wisely and to establish long-lasting relationships with a loyal consumer base.
Let’s take a look at some examples of KPIs in digital marketing.
What are examples of KPIs?
Unique Website Visitors
Understanding who is visiting your site tells you how well other marketing efforts are performing for your brand, how valuable your online real estate is and whether or not your online content is sufficiently entertaining to your audience.
Bounce Rate
Once you know how many and how often consumers are visiting your sight, you want to know details such as how long they are staying on each page and which pages they’re traveling to next. This helps you thread calls to action more strategically throughout your online experience and to understand which pages are not prompting consumer attention at all.
Conversion Rates
Conversion rates let you know how often your consumers are following through with calls to action (CTA). Calls to action do not only refer to making sales; some pages might prompt users to watch a video, to sign up for an email or to leave a comment on a blog post. Eventually, calls to action to guide consumers through the finish of the purchase funnel, so you want to be aware of their effectiveness on your audience. If conversion rates are low for certain CTAs, its time to evaluate the copywriting language, what you are asking of your consumers and how you can cater the CTA to be more effective.
Geography
Get informed on from where your audience members are tuning in. Geographic insights might tell you your regular digital media consumers for your local Miami pizza joint are based on the west coast. While that loyal fan base reflects well on your brand, these consumers will not be buying pizza for your spot anytime soon. This type of insight could lead you to tailor efforts toward Miami content and local advertising or it might lead you to investigate opening up a location on the west coast.
Comments and Social
Social media is one of the biggest ways to engage with consumer right now, and your effective presence online is no longer limited to likes and followers. KPIs measure how often consumers are commenting on or sharing posts, which informs you on the type of content to post for the most engagement.
Sales Revenue
Awareness of exactly how much revenue digital marketing efforts are making is essential to profit margins and business growth. KPIs measure every extension of online and digital marketing so that you curb efforts toward your highest ROI.
Assessing your KPIs should be routine maintenance at your company. By measuring the indicators of your marketing tactics, you can see how effectively your strategies are working. Ideally, you can measure the success of your marketing tactics against previously set goals and either realign your marketing strategies or set a goal farther than the one previously established.
If you do not yet have a KPI measuring system in place, reach out to our team at Executive Digital. Our expert team has the knowledge, resources, experience and foresight necessary to determine which strategies your company should keep or have in place and how to increase your return on marketing expenses by thoroughly analyzing available metric feedback.
Get in touch with Executive Digital for a free consultation, today.