Digital Marketing is a very dynamic field. There are new trends, strategies, methods, and tricks almost every day. You cannot depend on your year-old research and strategy to rock the digital marketing scene. You always need to be updated about the best practices and updates. Social media platforms and ad service providers are also continually modifying their algorithms and terms, and there are many times when these changes don’t favor digital marketers. Digital Marketing KPIs are valuable pieces of information that you crucially need for your strategy. These KPIs help formulate the best plan for your digital marketing campaign and help you ace the game.
KPIs indicate if your campaign is going in the right direction and also if the campaign is cost-effective and efficient or not. Not checking your performance with KPIs’ help is almost like walking blindfolded around the edge of a cliff. Sooner or later, you are going to fall. These key performance indicators keep upgrading with time. The determinants of performance change over time, so you need to be upgraded with the most precise performance indicators.
While it is almost impossible to determine what is the best KPI for your campaign, you can pretty much get good results if you know what’s right. We have got you covered. This article will present a list of Top 23 marketing KPIs you should be tracking.
Let us first know what KPIs are.
What is a KPI?
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. KPI is a measurable value that helps us understand how effective a campaign is working or how effective a business is in fulfilling its objectives. KPIs are often used to formulate strategies. There are different KPIs for each process in a marketing campaign.
Now that we know the meaning of KPI let us now proceed further with our list of Top 23 marketing KPIs you should be tracking.
Top Marketing KPIs you should track
This is a curated list by expert digital marketers with years of experience in the field. These KPIs are referred to by the most successful digital marketers. Make sure you check all of them.
All-rounder KPIs
These are the KPIs that need to be tracked in most of the scenarios.
1. Traffic
This KPI helps you in determining whether people are interested in your content or not. This KPI also helps to determine the location of your visitors. You can get a great idea about the interests of your audience. Traffic can be broken into various categories like:
- Traffic sources
- Paid Traffic
- Organic Traffic
- Social media traffic
- Direct Traffic
- Pageviews
- Referral traffic
2. Cost per click (CPC)
If you are running a paid campaign, then this is a determinant of how cost-effective your campaign is. In most cases, it is only favorable to have a lower CPC. Higher CPC is caused because of an unattractive campaign. This is also used to compare the efficiency of various campaigns.
3. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is one of the most important digital marketing KPIs. It indicated the percentage of visitors or the engagees who took the desired action to take with the campaign. The higher conversion rate means a successful campaign. There are various types of conversion rates:
- Conversion rate per channel
- Landing page conversion rate
- Social media conversion rate
- Conversion rate per device
- Conversion rate for specific keywords
- Conversion rate for specific campaign.
4. Bounce rate
There are many times users land on a website by mistake, or they are simply not interested. The number of users leaving the website quickly indicates the bounce rate. This campaign suggests the precision of your target. If the bounce rate is high, you are probably targeting the wrong audience.
5. Session Duration
Session duration indicates the average amount of time spent by the visitors on your website. The higher session duration means a successful campaign. In some cases, this can also be due to difficulty in navigation or understanding the content. If the session duration is unexpectedly high, it is better to analyze the webpage and the content.
6. New Vs. Returning visitors
This metric has excellent value. The more returning users indicate that your content or campaign is going well and is worth returning. The high number of new visitors is also a positive KPI as it shows the ongoing campaign’s efficiency.
Social media KPIs
These are primarily for social media marketers.
7. Page followers
This is one of the most essential KPI on social media. This is directly proportional to the popularity of your page or brand. Make sure you have used ethical and genuine methods to gain these followers, or else you can end up getting a shadowban.
8. Reach and Impressions
Reach indicates that how many people have seen the campaign, and Impressions, on the other hand, are slightly different as they show that how many times a campaign has been viewed. Reach indicates the precision of your target, and Impressions mean the effectiveness of your campaign or content.
9. Engagement rate
This is a vital digital marketing KPI for content creators as this displays the number of people who engage with your content or campaign compared to the number of people who saw it. If the engagement rate is high, that means your content or the campaign is compelling enough. An interaction can be anything from a reply, like, comment, retweet, like, share or save.
E-commerce KPIs
For the digital marketers in E-commerce.
10. Revenue per Transaction (RPT)
This indicates the average revenue per transaction by dividing the total revenue generated by the total number of transactions done on the site. This is an essential factor and helps determine how much an average user is spending on the site.
11. Total Sales Revenue
This indicates the total monetary value of all the transactions done on the site. This macro Digital Marketing KPI helps determine the scale of the business and the effect of the campaign as a whole.
12. Cost per transaction (CPT)
This metric helps you in determining the cost-effectiveness of your campaign. The cost per transaction should be lower for a successful digital marketing campaign. This is calculated the dividing the total spend by the number of transactions from the campaign.
Paid Marketing KPIs
For those digital marketers who are into paid marketing.
13. ROI or Return on Investment
This is an essential determinant in not only digital marketing but also in businesses and investments. This generally indicates the profit generated on the investment. In digital marketing, it represents the profit earned regarding the money spent on the campaign. It is calculated by dividing the product of difference of profits and cost and 100 by the costs.
14. Click-through rate (CTR)
CTR is a KPI that tells how many people are clicking a particular link compared to the number of people coming around that link. This indicates the impact of the advert.
15. Cost per conversion (CPC)
While this is an all-rounder digital marketing KPI, it gets more important here as paid marketing is very concerned about the costs. This metric indicates the cost per sale or the cost required in getting an individual action performed.
16. ROAS or Return on ad spend
ROAS is often misplaced as ROI. These two are different from each other. While ROI is a macro KPI, this one is a Micro KPI. ROAS displays the amount of profit earned on each dollar spent on the advertisement.
Email Marketing KPIs
Digital marketing KPIs for Email Marketers.
17. Open rate
This is the most critical KPI for email marketers as it completely displays if your campaign is creating an effect or not. It is evident that if a person has not opened an email, they have not read your message and do not know about your campaign. For a better open rate, the mail subject should be unique, compelling, and catchy.
18. Unsubscribe rate
This KPI needs one to be careful with it. This displays the number of people unsubscribing to your newsletter or updates. This needs to be in control as senders with higher unsubscribe rates often end up in spam folders which is not suitable for your email marketing strategy.
19. Click Rate
A good click rate is directly proportional to the open rate. If people are impressed or caught by your subject, they will open your mail, but if you can bring them in your call to action, then congratulations! You have caught the fish.
SEO and content marketing KPIs
For SEO experts and content managers
20. Search engine ranking or position (SERP)
This SEO KPI displays the effectiveness of the totality of your SEO tactics. The SERP can vary due to numerous factors such as domain authority, page loading speed, number of backlinks, domain age, etc. Make sure you keep an eye on the SERP.
21. Number of backlinks
This metric is important in improving the site’s domain authority as it displays the site as a trusted source, and it tells the search engine that more and more sites cite the information from your website and hence help your ranking grow.
22. Number of referring domains
For a better SEO, more and more domains should refer to your site. This helps with the domain authority and site navigation.
23. Blog performance
An informative, popular and worthy blog can be a great support to your website. Make sure you track and improve the critical blog metrics such as page views, conversions, clicks, and backlinks.
The bottom line
Well, these were some of the most important KPIs to improve your digital marketing campaign reporting and tracking. We hope that you’ll be able to benefit the most from these KPIs.
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