Ever heard of the term digital marketing metrics?
Digital marketing metrics are a set of values used to measure and track the success of a marketing effort using digital marketing.
Generally, these measurements are carried out with the help of tools, such as Google Analytics. Metrics that are measured can be an indication of whether your digital marketing efforts have been successful. So, you can determine the next strategy.
So, this time we will invite you to learn digital marketing, especially the complete metrics. Come on, see the discussion…
15+ Digital Marketing Metrics You Must Know
Digital marketing is a strategy that has many metrics. Here are some categories of digital marketing metrics:
- Website Traffic Metric
- Engagement Metric
- Conversion Metric
- Revenue Metric
Let’s talk about 16 metrics for digital marketing based on those four groups.
Website Traffic Metric
Website traffic metrics focus on measuring website traffic performance as the center of your online business activities. What are the digital marketing metrics?
1. Overall Traffic
Site visitors add up to make up a website’s total traffic. To include, but not be limited to, visitors coming to the site directly, through search engines, ad networks, or affiliate programs.
Google Analytics, Ubersuggest, and other digital marketing tools can be used to gather this information.
As an example, consider the aggregate traffic data presented by Google Analytics. You can see daily session counts on the Acquisition page’s Sessions graph.
The graph’s peaks and valleys can be used to determine the day’s performance of a website’s traffic.
Your site’s conversion rate directly correlates to the volume of traffic it receives.
So what are you supposed to do now that you know how traffic is?
Therefore, the overall traffic chart can serve as a primary foundation upon which to build the future course of action. Let’s take a look at the following example:
- When traffic decreases – If traffic decreases and the reason is that some keywords are losing to competitors, then do content updates, content audits, and so on.
- When traffic increases – If many keywords rank first in Google, do trend analysis to be able to produce content on similar topics according to trends.
In practice, there will be many scenarios that you can find. But by understanding the overall website traffic, you can know the condition and potential of your website traffic.
2. Channel Metric
The people who visit your site could have landed there through any number of different entryways. There may be substantial traffic contributions from each channel.
Among the many potential traffic generators are:
- Direct – Traffic that goes directly to the website because visitors type in your website URL.
- Paid Search – Traffic from ads posted on Google search pages.
- Affiliates – Clicks on your website from other affiliates who have used their own special links.
- Other – External traffic comes from places other than Google’s servers.
- Display – Traffic originating from display ads.
By analyzing channel metrics, one can foretell which sources have the most traffic-driving potential and which channels could use some work.
Let’s take a look at this example to learn about channel metrics:
In the aforementioned scenario, the direct channel is the primary source of traffic. Sites that receive a lot of direct traffic tend to be popular among their target audience.
In this case, it is imperative that the company’s brand be consistently upheld even if the website is down. There is a lot of value in employing an SEO-friendly content strategy for awareness campaigns as well.
However, if you have invested time and energy into paid search but aren’t seeing results comparable to the example, your paid search strategy likely needs some fine-tuning.
3. New vs. Returning Visitor
There are two types of people who check out your site: first-time visitors and returning customers.
The website will be able to tell the difference between first-time visitors and frequent flyers by looking at their past behavior. Here’s how Google Analytics could be used as an example:
You can gauge the success of your digital marketing efforts to attract new visitors and retain existing ones by comparing the ratio of new to returning visitors.
Imagine, for instance, that you are employing an email advertising strategy. Your website is apparently receiving a large influx of traffic from both new and returning users. This indicates that the marketing strategy was effective in eliciting the desired response from the target demographic.
While it’s crucial to attract new customers, it’s also worthwhile to keep the ones you already have around. So, how would you recommend we get customers to come back?
- Give visitors a pleasant experience when accessing your website, for example with an eye-catching, easy navigation, and more.
- Always provide the latest content so that visitors always want to return to your website.
- Improve your email marketing efforts by offering content that is relevant to your audience’s needs.
4. Exit Rate
Exit rate is a metric that shows how many times visitors visit one page to another, until they leave the website.
A website visitor might, for instance, click the download button after entering the site via the landing page and perusing the ebook page. The site visitor abandons the page rather than fill out the form.
Exit rate can give an idea of the performance of website pages. The higher the percentage exit rate on a page, the more likely it needs attention: why do visitors leave this page?
You can see this exit rate metric in digital marketing tools, such as Google Analytics which has placed the exit rate as an indicator of website performance.
From the exit rate data, you can re-evaluate pages that are most often left by visitors. For example, auditing in terms of speed, appearance, and updating content on certain blog pages to make it more attractive.
Engagement
Metrics Engagement metrics are useful for measuring the interaction between your audience and the digital marketing that you are running. Several digital marketing metrics related to engagement, namely:
5. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a website page without doing anything. Useful for signing up for newsletters, making purchases, and filling out forms.
If the bounce rate is high, you will have less effort to persuade consumers to buy products or just get leads. Because they were already gone.
In addition, if visitors come from Google, then your website will be deemed not suitable for the needs of the audience. Google might not recommend your website for similar needs in search engines.
For that, trying to keep the bounce rate low is very important.
So, let’s look at an example of a bounce rate metric from a website below:
In this example, the bounce rate is 49%. Although not very high, but it needs to be improved.
There are a number of reasons for the high bounce rate, including:
- The content doesn’t match the needs of visitors.
- Visitors are able to get information quickly.
- The display quality of the website or content is low.
The solution is to identify the page with the highest bounce rate and investigate its cause. You can do it in order of importance if you like.
After that, you can work on decreasing the bounce rate by doing things like optimizing the site’s load time, making it mobile-friendly, etc.
6. Average Time on Page
Time on Page is a metric that shows how long a visitor is on a website page. Then, how can this metric relate to engagement?
When you create blog content and the audience reads the content to the end, it shows high engagement.
Well, the engagement of a page can be calculated from the average time per page visit of each visitor or the average time on page. Here’s the formula:
Thankfully, you won’t have to figure it out on your own. You can see detailed reports in the Google Analytics tool like the example below:
In the Google Analytics example above, the average time on page is only around 45 seconds, not so good.
In order to do that, we need to find a way to get past it. One of them, by trying to audit the content. What are the steps?
- Adjust the content according to the stages of the marketing funnel, be it awareness, consideration, purchase, retention or advocacy.
- Re-optimize your content from an SEO perspective, both off page and on page SEO.
- Setting all outgoing links to Open in a New Window, in order to prevent visitors from going to another page.
- Use Embed for supporting videos in blog posts so visitors don’t have to move pages to view them.
7. Pageviews per Session
Pageviews per session is the average number of pages viewed by visitors in one visiting session.
This metric is calculated when someone visits a page on your site and doesn’t leave immediately, but goes to other pages on your website.
Well, the more pages visited in one access, the higher the number of pageviews per session.
If this metric is high, it means visitors are interested in and need content on your site.
A number of possibilities open up to you in that case, including:
- Increase traffic on other content with internal links.
- Generate leads by giving out free ebooks, newsletter subscriptions and more.
- Leading website visitors to a landing page to buy a product or service.
Let’s look at the following example of pageviews per session:
From the example of the Google Analytics report above, it can be seen from the direct channel, pageviews per session is at 5.10. That is, the average page visited by visitors is approximately five pages, before finally leaving the website.
Is that a good result? According to a survey from Littledata, websites with pageviews per session at 5.3 are included in the 10% best websites.
Then, how do you make visitors feel at home seeing more pages on your website? Here are some ways you can do this:
- Create interesting, educational and easy-to-understand content.
- Create a customer journey, so you can find out the mindset and provide content according to visitor needs.
- Create internal links for each piece of content so that readers can quickly access related pieces.
- Maximize responsiveness, so that visitors are comfortable accessing pages from any device.
8. Impression
The number of people who saw your content is measured by a metric called “impressions” (viewers).
If you’re doing any kind of digital advertising, whether it’s Facebook ads, Google AdSense, Instagram ads, or a website, you’ll find this metric somewhere.
The number of times a page from a user’s Google search results is viewed can be determined with impressions.
The numbers show that the landing page in question has been seen by many people. The click-through rate is disappointingly low, though.
In other words, the campaign’s success in bringing visitors to the landing page was commendable, but few of them actually converted.
You can then formulate a plan to enhance conversion rates. Making a compelling landing page that attracts potential customers is one of them.
9. Engagement Rate
Your content’s engagement rate is a quantitative indicator of the level of interest your audience takes in it. Different channels of digital advertising can benefit from this metric’s implementation. Take the case of online social networks as one example.
Your audience’s level of engagement is a reflection of how they relate to your brand.
For instance, on social media, engagement rate metrics include not only the number of followers but also the number of likes, comments, and shares.
To compute social media interaction rates, use the following equation:
Meanwhile, websites measure user engagement by comparing the duration of user sessions to that of site visitors.
How do I access user-interaction-logging sessions? Criteria are as follows:
- Users are actively involved on the website for more than 10 seconds, which can be seen from the average time on page.
- At minimum a user views two pages in a session, you can check the pageviews per session metric.
- Perform conversions.
A simple example, your blog content has succeeded in adding 100 subscribers out of a total of 1,000 visitors on your website. So, your site’s engagement rate is 10%.
It should be noted, the percentage of good engagement rates varies in each industry.
For example, e-commerce is one that has a high level of engagement competition. The reason is, all business activities are carried out online so if there is no engagement, business development will certainly not go well.
Conversion Metric
Conversion measures how many actions a target consumer takes according to your business strategy goals. For example, buying products, registering for membership, and more. Key performance indicators for digital marketing include:
10. Click Through Rate (CTR)
CTR measures how many people clicked on an ad in comparison to how many times the ad was shown. You can see how successful your digital marketing content is in terms of this metric.
The phrase “how to create a blog” appears in some of your blog posts. There were apparently 100 people who saw the promotion post, but only 10 of them actually clicked on the link, for a CTR of just 10%.
Consider the following additional Google Analytics data:
Based on the sample CTR report provided above, the CTR is roughly 0.58%. How do you rate these metrics for CTR?
A percentage point of 0.58% is satisfactory for online transactions. This is due to the fact that both the data source and the business sector can affect what constitutes an optimal CTR.
Based on Similarweb data, we can see that different industries have different ideal CTR figures for Display Ads vs. Search Ads.
CTR relies heavily on clicks and impressions. Make sure your content is seen by a large audience, and only then tweak it to increase its click-through rate.
Experimenting with various Ad formats can help boost click-through rates. The idea is that you can figure out which types of advertisements are most successful in attracting site visitors.
11. Cost per Click (CPC)
The cost-per-click (CPC) is a metric used in digital marketing that determines how much money you will spend on advertising.
Here’s a formula you can use to figure out how much money you’ll spend on each clickable ad.
Below is a sample of a CPC report from Google Analytics:
If you’re running a first-tier ad campaign, expect to pay $1.42 per click. CPC for ad #10 is $0.97.
This means that while 484 clicks is quite respectable, the cost per click on a first ad is a hefty $688. Meanwhile, the price drops to $66 for the tenth advertisement.
If you have multiple ads with similar CPCs, do you prioritize the one with the highest clickthrough rate? Always make use of information gleaned from marketing resources.
You should also think about the fact that if your ad gets a lot of clicks, Google Ads and other marketing platforms will reduce your costs. Assuming your ad is engaging and addresses the concerns of your target audience.
Starting with higher-quality advertisements is one approach to achieve such outcomes.
- Creating buyer personas specifically, so that ads are right on target.
- Make attractive ad copy text with copywriting.
- Optimizing landing pages.
- Identify relevant keywords to increase ad impression opportunities.
12. Cost per Lead (CPL)
Cost per click (CPC) measures how much it costs to attract one user, while CPL (Cost per Lead) measures the cost to attract one lead or potential user. Therefore, you need to consider the costs you incur to get leads or potential users.
For example, you allocate a budget of $10 for an ad. Apparently, you get 50 leads. So, the cost you pay for each lead is $ 2.
13. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is a metric that measures the effectiveness of your landing page in getting visitors to click on CTA buttons, make purchases, download ebooks, and more.
So, you can find out what percentage of your website visitors convert.
For example, out of 100 visitors to an ebook page, 10 people download it. So, the conversion rate that you have achieved is 10%.
To increase the conversion rate percentage, you can do the following:
- Maximize CTA with persuasive and relevant sentences.
- Do A/B Testing to select the best design version.
- Monitor with Conversion Tracking changes from conversion rates.
Revenue Metric
As the name implies, revenue metrics are used to analyze the success of selling your product. At least, there are three important metrics that you must understand:
14. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a metric for measuring the cost of acquiring a consumer.
Find the CAC by dividing the sum of all marketing and sales expenditures by the number of new clients acquired.
For example, your total marketing costs are $10, and you get 10 new customers. So, the CAC is $1.
15. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is a metric for measuring profit after placing an ad to sell a product.
With these metrics, you can analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of your ads generating revenue across different channels.
In the example above, ROAS is calculated based on the advertising platform, campaign, or even each ad. You will know which ads generate higher profits.
To measure ROAS, you can do calculations with the following formula:
For example, you spend $ 10 on an ad and earn $ 30 from the ad, then your ROAS value is 300%. That means your advertising strategy is working and needs to be continued.
16. Return on Investment (ROI)
Return on Investment is the final metric for digital marketing (ROI). Through the use of Return on Investment (ROI), the financial benefits of your digital advertising campaigns can be determined. The higher your return on investment (ROI), the more money you’ll make.
Return on investment (ROI) is determined by multiplying one’s net profit by one’s total costs, then dividing that number by 100.
Suppose your annual marketing budget is $10 and your net profit is $20. In that case, your return on investment is half of what you initially invested.
It follows that 50% of your revenue comes from digital marketing.
Ready to Practice with Digital Marketing Metrics?
From up here, you probably already know that measuring certain metrics is essential for gauging marketing success. We’ll be looking at everything from website visits and engagement to form fill rates and revenue.
Internet Usage Metrics:
- Overall Traffic – An estimate of the state of digital marketing performance and conversion opportunities.
- Channel Metric – Measuring which sources/channels are potential and which should be improved.
- New vs Returning Visitor – Measures digital marketing efforts that keep visitors coming back to a website.
- Exit Rate – Describes the performance of a page, so you know which ones require an audit.
Engagement Metric:
- Bounce Rate – Finds out how many people visit a page then leave without reading it.
- Average Time on Page – Analyzes the amount of time users spend on a page to gauge their interest.
- Pageviews per Session – Measures the average number accessed in a session.
- Impression – Measures the number of visitors a page views and helps analyze other metrics.
- Engagement Rate – Measuring visitor interest in the content being run.
Conversion Metric:
- Click Through Rate (CTR) – Checks how productive your content marketing has been.
- Cost per Click (CPC) – The cost for each ad that a visitor clicks on.
- Cost per Lead (CPL) – The cost of acquiring leads or potential users.
- Conversion Rate – The percentage of visitors who are interested in converting.
Revenue Metric:
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – The cost of producing a customer.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – Calculates how much money was made from advertisements.
- Return on Investment (ROI) – Measures the profit from the digital marketing process.