How to measure KPIs in digital marketing + 7 examples

You and your team brainstormed for days and designed an out-of-the-box marketing strategy to drive traffic to your digital platforms. But your well-thought-out, stellar digital marketing strategy is only valuable if you assess its outcome.

Specific metrics are essential to goal-setting because they let you measure progress. You don’t need to guess if a campaign is successful because you have solid numbers determined by KPIs – to prove it.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are focused targets that help businesses measure progress. These take the guesswork out of understanding which marketing tactics work and which don’t.

Here’s everything you need to know about KPIs in digital marketing before you launch your next campaign.

What are KPIs in marketing?

In digital marketing, KPIs measure the success of a particular strategy. If the strategy meets or surpasses these indicators, it’s working well. If not, it’s time to rechart and find a new approach.

KPIs should be numerical figures, such as rates and percentages. For example, a company may set a target rate for how many recipients click a link in an email or how many of those clicks turn into sales.

These metrics help entrepreneurs, not discourage them – falling short of a KPI doesn’t mean you won’t achieve your marketing goals. If anything, a missed target signals it’s time to develop new marketing ideas and create even better content.

The importance of KPIs in digital marketing

Social media platforms, browser ad services, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, and email marketing platforms provide digital marketing metrics, offering a wealth of data to analyze.

By assessing these metrics, entrepreneurs not only save time and money but also discover best-performing strategies. For instance, a company may find that its SEO-rich blog churns out more leads than a partnership with a social media influencer. This digital marketing performance data is essential to craft effective strategies.

7 digital marketing KPI examples

It’s time to figure out what’s working for your company. Here are seven important KPIs you can start tracking today or implement in future campaigns.

1. Website traffic

Your company’s website likely comes with an analytics dashboard, which provides information about how many people visited your site and more. Track your page views to analyze the most viewed webpage. If these pages contain a certain type of content, most likely the information is relevant to your target audience or your search engine optimization (SEO) keywords are performing well on search engines.

Continue creating more high-quality content in this style. And keep up with trending target keywords to organically drive traffic to your website and appear higher in search engine result pages (SERPs). Who knows – you might earn a featured snippet!

2. Click-through rates (CTR) and lead conversions

A CTR, expressed as a percentage, factors in the number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of times the ad was played.

So whether you’re running an affiliate marketing campaign with bloggers or influencers, pushing out promotions to your email list, or launching a call to action (CTA) such as a giveaway, track the rate interactions turn into leads. Use your website or CRM’s analytics to view where clicks occur and use that knowledge to improve your site’s design.

3. Social media engagement

The first step on social media is to post relevant content that attracts followers. Once you have an established community, interact with them to ensure a high engagement rate so that customers feel connected. This consists of follower actions, such as likes, shares, comments, and reactions to your content.

A solid engagement rate is challenging if you have a massive follower count, as not all users may connect as deeply with your brand as those who follow smaller, more niche accounts. Leverage every platform’s in-house analytics to access metrics. Evaluate your conversion rate, which is the number of followers turned into buyers, to track sales. Also, keep a check on mentions, which is the number of times users refer to your brand in their posts or comments, to analyze your engagement.

4. Average time on page

Learn your customer’s attention span and how well they connect with your content by examining how much time people spend on your webpage. More extended visits imply greater interest and a higher possibility of converting that interest into a lead.

5. Return on investment (ROI)

ROI, expressed as a percentage, is calculated by dividing net income by the total investment multiplied by 100. Track ROI to establish an efficient marketing budget. Calculate it ROI What do you pay for your best-performing strategies? Use that number as a budget for future campaigns, spending only what you need to achieve results. There’s no sense in pouring money into a strategy that isn’t bringing in high returns.

6. Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Calculate CAC – the price of gaining a new customer – by dividing the cost of a campaign by the number of new customers earned through it. For instance, if you spend $100 on a browser ad and get one new client, your CAC is $100. Since appropriate spend varies by sector, research the ideal customer acquisition target costs before investing. These figures depend on a product’s value and a customer lifecycle’s length. Companies that sell more expensive products or boast an outstanding retention rate can afford a high CAC.

7. Page authority

Organic traffic is golden but hard-won. As your company gains traction, your content performs better with search engines, ranking higher in query results. Household-name baking brands, for example, are authorities on achieving a soft-baked cookie with just the right consistency. If your culinary start-up wants to compete, evaluate your content’s analytics. Write SEO-rich texts, and harness the power of content marketing.

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Tracking KPIs is a solid strategy to understand your audience better and run more targeted campaigns. Stay abreast of industry trends, and tweak your marketing strategies to make them efficient.

Discover how to get the most out of influencer marketing, and learn the ins and outs of endorsement deals to generate the highest ROI.

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