KPIs & metrics

The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Metrics

There has been a shift to the objective & optimized marketing metrics which measure the actual performance of your campaigns to build a foundation for decision making.

Whatagraph marketing reporting tool
Gintaras Baltusevičius

Feb 05 2020 3 min read

Whatagraph marketing reporting tool

Table of Contents

     

    Marketing metrics are the key performance indicators used by the marketing teams to quantify the campaigns' results. These marketing metrics measure the effectiveness of all marketing tasks such as SEO progress, email marketing campaigns, social media campaigns, or content performance to track goal achievements through marketing channels.

    The major focus has shifted from traditional KPIs such as likes, shares, impressions to the major measurable marketing metrics such as cost per lead, customer acquisition, or customer retention.

    The following are the most important marketing metrics used to drive the performance results.

    Overall Traffic

    Overall, ‘traffic’ will depict the number of visitors to your site and bifurcate the sources or mediums they come through. It gives a wholesome view of the site & helps you observe the seasonal trends or any other occasion that might affect your site's visitors in the longer run.

    How to measure:

    • In the Google Analytics dashboard, go to the Acquisition report section.
    • Go to Overview
    • Look in the Sessions column in the table. The column will represent the site visitors through different mediums. Sum all those to get the overall traffic.

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    Channel-Specific Traffic

    The type of window that visitors take to enter your site is called a channel. It is one of the important metrics where visitors enter your site through different channels. Monitoring them can prove very effective in formulating a perfect digital strategy that will benefit the bottom line.

    • Direct: The traffic comes in when people write the URL of your site directly in the search bar.
    • Referral: These are the people who follow through external links or another domain/website.
    • Organic: These are the people who perform the search task on search engines such as Google or Bing & click on your website through the non-paid medium.
    • Social: People also come to your write through social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

    How to measure:

    The acquisition report in the Google Analytics Report will overview all the channels and visitors' numbers through each channel. This will help gauge the effectiveness of integrated marketing communication.

    Conversion Rate

    The conversion rate in the digital world means a metric which measures when the user completes a desired action such as filling out a form or downloading an eBook etc. and tracking conversions can certainly reveal the factors where the marketing team is lagging.

    How to View:

    • Go to Conversions > Goals > Overview
    • Select Source/Medium
    • Click “view full report,” and it will show the goals completion percentages.

    Bounce Rate:

    The bounce rate explains the number of people who left your site after visiting only one page. This will help in recognizing the relevance and attractiveness of content on the site.

    How to measure:

    Overall Website

    • Go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels.
    • Choose a specific channel to see just that channel’s performance.
    • Check the Bounce Rate column.

    Individual Page

    • Go to Behavior > Site Content.
    • Select either All Pages or Landing Pages
    • Check the Bounce Rate column.

    Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

    This is the overall association of the sales & marketing costs, including campaign spending, salaries, and overheads with the number of new customers acquired. This marketing metric gives a bird’s eye view of the bottom line. 

    How to calculate:

    Add up all the program or advertising spend, plus salaries, plus commissions and bonuses, plus overhead within a given time. Then, divide it by the number of new customers at that same time.

    The ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to CAC (LTV: CAC):

    If your product encourages repeat purchase, it is essential to know the ratio between the current value & the cost incurred to acquired him.

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    How to measure:

    Divide the Lifetime value of your current customer (Revenue – Gross Margin/Cancellation rate) by the CAC to know the results. The higher, the better!

    The journey from website visitor to acquired customer metrics

    These marketing metrics help determine how many of all website visitors their journey started & ended on the final stages of proposal & contract. These numbers will help to identify the gaps that prevent turning a visitor into a customer.  

    Metrics:

    • Website Traffic to lead ratio:
    • Website Lead to Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) Ratio
    • MQL to SQL Ratio
    • SQL to Quote Ratio
    • Quoted to Closed Customer Ratio

    Published on Feb 05 2020

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    WRITTEN BY

    Gintaras Baltusevičius

    Gintaras is an experienced marketing professional who is always eager to explore the most up-to-date issues in data marketing. Having worked as an SEO manager at several companies, he's a valuable addition to the Whatagraph writers' pool.