Important digital marketing metrics

Marketing metrics are a dependable way to track performance and help to measure the success of marketing campaigns. For different types of marketing campaigns, different types of metrics will be important . The most important marketing metrics are those that help to optimize current marketing campaigns and plan successfully for the next one. Marketing metrics are not broad as they are designed to measure each key aspect of a campaign. Metrics provide proof and which metrics are important depend on the goals of a campaign. Given below are some metrics that are staples of marketing campaigns.

Overall website traffic

The success of the website of a company is determined by its website traffic. A website is the face of a brand. The number of visitors that a site gets within a certain time frame can be interpreted in many ways. The more traffic a website gets, the more leads it can generate. The total number of visits should ideally grow over time. If the number of visits decrease over time, then the marketing channels used should be analyzed to assess where the problem lies.

Traffic by source

To understand how each marketing channel is performing, traffic by marketing channel or source is an important tool. Sources of traffic can be segmented to understand which channels did well and which did not. Some important sources are direct visitors, referrals, organic search, and social media. There is limited time available to capitalize on all channels and this is a great way to determine which channels are winning and which need a little more attention.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate refers to the visitors who left a website after visiting one page. They did not navigate to the subsequent pages of a website. This helps to understand the effectiveness of content and design. Visitors may leave because of the time taken by the website to load, or irrelevant content. Irrelevant content will not encourage visitors to click further. For instance, if a company is trying to promote a new product, but the link sent to users is sending them to the homepage of a website, the bounce rate may be high. 

Engagement rate

This is a tricky metric to measure as the engagement rate will differ depending on the platform. On social media platforms, engaged customers will connect with a brand through likes, comments, and sharing. The level of engagement with content or a marketing campaign can be determined by this metric. Engagement is possible if a user chooses to engage with created content.

New visitors versus return visitors

This metric is important as return visitors indicate the effectiveness of content. If a visitor visits a website multiple times, it means that the information given to them is valuable. If new content is posted on a regular basis, it is easier to review this dual metric on a regular basis. For more organic traffic, new visitors are important. For instance, if a new email marketing campaign has led to more returning visitors, then the campaign can be called effective.