Your metrics provide important information about your business - this is how you will follow them. (Photo: Pexels.com)
There are endless metrics a business can track, but not all of them are essential to growth.
The more companies can learn about their current and future customers, the more effective their marketing efforts will be.
But while some metrics, such as the number of page views, are absolute, there are equally important metrics that we can never measure in numbers.
So what are the indicators that are important to follow to encourage growth, and what can be done to reveal the complete picture?
1. Traffic sources
Where do visitors to your website or app come from?
Did they search for you and if so, what words did they use to do so?
Did they click on a link from one of your business partners, see a post on social media, or receive a recommendation from a WhatsApp friend?
It is important to know how many people visit your website each month, but it is equally important to identify how they find you.
The problem is that many times we have no way of knowing where the traffic is coming from.
The analysis tools, most of which rely on Google Analytics data, do not always know how to distinguish the source of the traffic and therefore classify it as direct/none.
Many get confused and think that this is a direct typing of the URL, but in fact there are many other cases where traffic may be classified this way.
For example, if the site is in the user's favorites list, if he clicked on a link from a Word file, or if a certain address on your site has been saved in his browser (then he only needs to type a few letters and not the full URL).
Even traffic from other sites that linked to you could be classified this way, if the person who added the link did not include special parameters for monitoring the traffic.
All of these make the tracking of traffic sources complex and branched, and this is without mentioning the issue of attribution in sponsored advertising.
These are critical insights and cracking them will help you prioritize optimization of the most successful channels and make improvements to the underperforming ones.
2. Involvement
When publishing posts on social media, sending promotional emails or displaying ads, it is only natural that we would want to measure the engagement rates to know which content receives more likes on Instagram, and which on Facebook, and are there specific days when posts receive more comments, opens or clicks?
Knowing the audience's preferences and engagement habits will help you communicate with them better, and optimize the timing and frequency of advertising.
It will also guide you in creating content as you will have a better idea of what your audience likes and what they respond to.
However, engagement alone may not be sufficient to determine the level of interest of the user, who may engage with content simply out of habit or because it was presented to him at the right time, without paying special attention to it.
To this end, we would like to measure the user's level of attention, which is already much more challenging because it is not a measure that consists of many variables: length of stay on the site, the way of scrolling through the content (for example, does the user read articles from start to finish or jump from title to title), duration of watching videos ( Some of the users watch the video to the end and some just pass by it) and more.
Since all of these metrics don't exist yet on most platforms, digital marketers have to make do with what there is, which brings me to the next point.
3. Time spent on the site
When visitors browse your site, it is important to find out how long they are browsing.
This metric reveals how interested visitors are in your content, and what content they are interested in.
If you see that visitors are browsing your site for only a few seconds, this can be an indication that they did not find what they were looking for or that they are not interested in what you have to offer.
It is possible that the metadata they saw on Google or on the site they came from did not match the content of the page.
Another reason may be a too long loading time which discourages the surfers even before they have seen the content.
If you see that visitors are on your site for several minutes, it can signal that you have content that the market is interested in.
Low exit rates and a high time spent on the site are a dream scenario for any business, but it is also important to know which types of content get a long time and which less.
These metrics are available today in Google Analytics and allow you to generate important insights about the content that interests your visitors.
4. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Every customer has a cost - acquiring customers for free is a marketing myth.
Businesses need to measure how much it costs to acquire customers throughout their buying journey.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the amount of money a business spends on acquiring a new customer.
In the context of digital marketing, CAC represents the total cost of acquiring a new customer through online channels such as social media, email marketing, paid search, display advertising, affiliate marketing and other channels. To calculate CAC in digital marketing, you need to add up all the costs
involved in acquiring a new customer, including the cost of marketing campaigns, tools, software, salaries of marketing personnel and any other expenses incurred in the process. Then, divide this total cost by the number of new customers acquired during that period. For example, if a company spent 10,000 NIS on a
campaign digital marketing, and that campaign helped her acquire 100 new customers during that period, the CAC will be NIS 100.
Knowing the CAC is important for businesses because it helps them understand the effectiveness of their digital marketing campaigns and whether they are generating a positive return on investment (ROI).
By analyzing the CAC, businesses can optimize their marketing strategy to reduce costs and increase revenue, ultimately improving their bottom line.
5. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Loyalty is hard to achieve, but easy to measure.
How much customers are likely to spend on your brand during their lifetime is an essential metric to consider how much to invest in marketing to them.
This is an important metric that indicates the total financial value that a customer brings.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a metric that represents the total amount of money a customer is expected to spend during their relationship with the business.
In the context of digital marketing, CLV is an important metric that helps businesses evaluate the long-term profitability of their marketing efforts and customer retention strategies.
To calculate CLV in digital marketing, you need to estimate the total income that a customer is expected to generate for the business throughout his life.
This calculation takes into account factors such as the average purchase value, the frequency of purchases and the expected duration of the customer's relationship with the business.
For example, if a customer usually spends 50 NIS per month at a business and is expected to remain a customer for 2 years, their CLV will be 1,200 NIS (50 NIS x 24 months).
Knowing what your CLV is is important because it helps them evaluate the ROI of their digital marketing campaigns and allocate their resources more effectively.
By increasing CLV, businesses can improve their revenue and profitability in the long run.
In addition, CLV can also help businesses identify which customers are the most valuable and focus their retention efforts on those customers to further increase their lifetime value.
6. Brand equity
Brand equity refers to the intangible value a brand holds in the marketplace, including its reputation, recognition, customer loyalty, and overall brand equity.
In the context of digital marketing, brand equity plays an important role in driving customer acquisition, retention and advocacy.
Nike, Coca Cola and Calvin Klein are all household names, even to those who don't buy their products.
People buy a mobile phone and call it "Pelephone", whether they are Pelephone customers or not.
All of these testify to the brand's equity and the extent of its penetration into the minds of consumers.
Measuring brand equity can be challenging because it involves evaluating intangible factors such as reputation and customer loyalty.
However, there are a number of metrics and tools that businesses can use to measure and track their brand equity in the digital space, including brand awareness and sentiment, engagement, customer loyalty and brand engagement.
Analyzing all these variables will help you know how strong you are in the market and if the customers prefer your brand over the competitors.
It will also help to know if customers are willing to pay more for your products than they would pay for similar products from competitors.
For example, thousands of accessory companies make bags under $20, but there are over 5,000 Louis Vuitton stores, where the cheapest bag ever reported sells for $790 and it is still one of the most successful brands in the fashion world.
Your brand equity may change over time, so this metric must be continuously monitored.
In conclusion
With so much data available, it's easy to become overwhelmed with information.
Instead, focus on the most important metrics for your business.
Ask yourself what questions you most need answers to, whether they relate to your brand or your target audience.
Then look at the data and find the answers.
Defining goals and target audiences ahead of time, identifying the most important digital channels for your brand, prioritizing metrics and setting realistic benchmarks based on past performance will help you track progress over time and identify points for improvement.
Marketing and digital
MarTech
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metrics
digital marketing
surfers
