1. MEASURING THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF YOUR NLINE MARKETING
So, if these metrics are not the way to measure marketing effectively,
what should you be measuring? Try these more actionable metrics to
get a better picture of how marketing is driving revenue:
THE NEW WAY
OF MEASURING SUCCESS
CONVERSIONS
why this works better:
Conversions tie back to your actual
business goals and are much more
indicative of visitor action.
how to measure:
Use Goals in Google Analytics to measure
conversions on your website, such as
purchases, downloads, or registrations.
If you have a marketing automation
system, this will also help you determine
conversions.
CONVERSION RATE
why this works better:
Knowing the rate at which visitors are
converting for a certain action on your site
will help inform and optimize your online
strategies, including user experience,
landing page design, ad copy, and content
pieces.
how to measure:
Using Goals in Google Analytics, you can
easily see what your conversion rates are.
TIME TO PURCHASE
why this works better:
If you have an ecommerce website,
knowing Time to Purchase will help you
determine the purchasing habits of your
customers by telling you the average time
it takes (in days) for a customer to buy.
how to measure:
Time to Purchase is included in Google
Analytics’ Ecommerce Module.
TRAFFIC SOURCES
why this works better:
Knowing where your visitors are
coming from (especially combined with
conversions) will help you determine
where to concentrate your marketing
efforts.
how to measure:
Google Analytics has a set of reports
called Traffic Sources. It’s also important
to ensure your campaign URLs are tagged
with source, medium, and campaign so
you can get a more detailed picture of
what campaigns are working.
ATTRIBUTION
why this works better:
One of the biggest challenges of marketing measurement is determining which
campaign or traffic source should be credited with a conversion, such as a sale.
Attribution can show you what traffic source your customers interacted with first,
second, third and fourth before eventually converting.
how to measure:
Some marketing automation systems have tools that show attribution and a customer’s
content path before converting. Google Analytics also has an Attribution Modeling tool
for looking specifically at traffic sources.
THE OLD WAY
OF MEASURING SUCCESS
PAGEVIEWS/UNIQUE
PAGEVIEWS
what it measures:
How many total times pages on a website
were viewed, regardless of visitor or type.
Unique Pageviews measures this by each
unique visitor.
why it’s not effective to measure:
Only tells you that a page was served, but
doesn’t really indicate visitor action.
VISITORS/UNIQUE
VISITORS
what it measures:
How many total visitors came to the
website, including repeat visits by one
person. Unique Visitors is each unique
person visiting your website, and does not
count repeat visits.
why it’s not effective to measure:
Just a traffic stat that doesn’t measure
visitor value or action. Also could include
employee visits.
TIME ON SITE
what it measures:
How long a visitor, on average, stays on a
website.
why it’s not effective to measure:
Tabbed browsing and server timeouts
make this difficult to measure with
accuracy. Visitors could open your site in
a tab, then leave it open for later reading –
meaning they’re not necessarily engaged
the whole time.
BOUNCE RATE
what it measures:
Percentage of visitors who immediately
leave your website upon clicking through
to a page – without looking at any other
pages on your site.
why it’s not effective to measure:
As with Time on Site, tabbed browsing
and server timeouts have also made
bounce rate difficult to measure with
accuracy.
PAGES PER VISIT
what it measures:
How many pages, on average, a visitor
looked at on your website.
why it’s not effective to measure:
It’s not necessarily indicative of your true
buyer personas’ behavior, and does not
measure any particular visitor value.
NEW VISITS
what it measures:
Percentage of visitors to your website who
have never been to your site before.
why it’s not effective to measure:
This metric is highly susceptible to cookie
deletion – which means that many of a
site’s previous visitors could be measured
as new visitors.
According to the State of Marketing Measurement Report from Ifbyphone, how marketing
is measured is being scrutinized more and more by CEOs. They’re being asked to measure
a wider range of metrics with a greater focus on how marketing is driving revenue.
Because of this growing trend towards revenue- and action-driven metrics, it’s important
to understand why some of the metrics that have traditionally been important, may not be
relevant anymore.
49% 48%
43%
41% 40%
38%
34% 34%
22%
12%
10%
5% 4%Noneoftheabove
THE TOP MEASUREMENTS CEOS FIND MOST IMPORTANT INCLUDE:
IncreaseinbrandperceptionIncreaseinpurchaseintent
Increaseinawareness
Increaseincustomerretention
Customeracquisitioncost
Increaseinwebsitetraffic
Costperlead
MarketingROI
Conversionrate
#ofnewleads
Increaseinsales/revenue
#ofnewcustomers
what metrics really matter?
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