In business, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) help you see the big picture and evaluate your strategies to better adjust them. There are many different KPI examples that you can use to track and evaluate a company’s success.
Measuring digital marketing KPIs is one of the crucial functions of a marketing department.
But why is it so important?
Because digital marketing, more than any other form of marketing, thrives on the proper use of KPIs.
With digital marketing, almost everything is quantifiable. You can see how much your marketing strategy is costing you each step of the way and understand how much Return on Investment you’re getting.
However, along with this ability to quantify, challenges and questions arise. Some of these challenges include:
What are the Key Performance Indicators for digital marketing?
Will these online marketing KPIs accurately reflect your “wins and losses” in the real world?
How can you “move the dial” on these KPIs in a positive way?
While these challenges are difficult, they’re very important to solve. Let’s start with the simple definition. What is a KPI In Digital Marketing?
Key performance indicators for digital marketing represent measurable values that give an indication of campaigns’ performance, conducted by marketing teams, in every digital marketing channel, be it in display advertising, social media, or search engine optimization.
By establishing the right KPIs for your business, you can increase the chances of your success, and ensure a positive Return On Investment (ROI).
The challenge and opportunity of digital:
The world is moving further and further in the direction of digital. One huge example is the explosion of smartphones. Not long ago, cell phones were something you either used to call or text others. Now, you might have a Facebook Ad campaign specifically targeting smartphone users. This kind of fast-paced change is becoming the norm in our modern, digital economy.
The benefit of it is that every marketing action can be measured. The digital arena benefits businesses of all sizes, especially by utilizing a cost-effective budget. Unlike traditional media, in digital you can set your targets more specifically and segment different interests of your audience, developing a truly personalized marketing strategy. You can find new markets and utilize the potential global reach, build customer loyalty and a community around your social media, or create immediate campaigns without having to wait for a specific media outlet to confirm your media plan.
However, many marketing departments are having a tough time keeping up with these extremely quick developments and changes. The ever-changing marketing industry keeps marketers on top of their game if they know how to evaluate their results and obtain a positive ROI.
But how do you know where to start?
Start with your fundamentals first! Start off with your standard digital marketing KPIs. These include Page Views, Bounce Rate, Conversion Rate, ROI, etc. You can track them all thanks to the Google Analytics (GA) KPIs and metrics available in your GA account (in case you have integrated them with your website).
You can also view your social media channels KPIs like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Pinterest.
However, a common error in setting digital marketing KPIs is tracking too many of them or at least trying to track them all. There are a lot of vanity metrics that appear important but don’t directly contribute to your bottom line. Vanity metrics can include things like social media followers, likes and shares on content, or website page views. What it's important to keep in mind is that pages or websites with a large number of followers use multiple campaigns and try to target existing or new customers. They don't take into account the success of their sales in organic traffic, and most of the time, they perform aggressive marketing during times when they want to promote their products. In other words, they don't rely on their page followers to "see" their products but use advertising campaigns to increase their sales.
So, if you want your marketing to have a solid ROI, you need to focus on online marketing KPIs that pinpoint the areas of the biggest impact.
Up until this point, we’ve been at a broad-level overview of this topic. Stay tuned for more insights!
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