In this week’s edition of the Goodness Report, we are shining a spotlight on six marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) you may be overlooking, that can offer valuable, data-driven insights to bolster your marketing strategy and support your business goals.
We live in the age of data. According to Domo, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created each and every day – that’s a lot to process. So how can we boil down all of this data into valuable, actionable insights to inform and optimize our marketing strategies?
To help weed through the litany of metrics and reports at our disposal, here are six key performance indicators to help your team get started gathering data most relevant to your business goals:
Traffic vs. Engagement Rate
“How can we drive more people to our website?” It’s a question as old as the internet. But a question fewer people are asking is, “How can I get those visiting my site to take meaningful action?” It’s time to stop worrying so much about the number of people visiting your website, and start focusing on how you can get your website content to work harder toward your business goals. This is where engagement rate – or the percent of website visitors taking action on your website – comes in. With the average website engagement rate being anywhere from 55-65%, we want to ensure our page and overall site engagement rate is at or above this range. If any of your pages are falling below this engagement rate, then you know it’s time for a site audit and content refresh.
Search Engine Rankings
So you have a website, but will your target audience actually discover it? With 39.8% of Google users clicking on the first search result that appears on their search results page, and that number dropping sharply to just 10.2% for the third search result, we want to make sure your website is popping up as one of the top results for all top search engines. You can determine this by #1 using a keyword planner to find popular and relevant search terms for your audience, and #2 using a search engine analysis tool to determine your website’s position for these keywords. From there, various search engine optimization tactics can help you rank higher for keywords most relevant to you.
Traffic by Source
There are only so many ad dollars and so much manpower your team can dedicate to the wide spectrum of marketing channels at our disposal. That said, how can we tell which platforms and mediums are working hardest for your website and are therefore most deserving of your investment? When we break down our website traffic by the sources our website visitors are coming from, we can see which sources are driving the most people to our site, and also how engaged these people were once they arrived. Using trackable, easy-to-build UTMs, you can track traffic coming from search engines, email campaigns, individual social posts, brochures, business cards, digital ads, print ads and so much more!
Share of Voice
The Marketing Rule of Seven states that your target audience has to have, on average, seven different touchpoints with your brand before taking action. This is why it is so important to have a clear communications and brand awareness strategy aimed at increasing share of voice in your market. By analyzing web traffic, social media follower count and reach and overall media coverage volume for each competitor, we can determine how loud your competitors are and which brands your target audience is seeing the most. From here, we can also analyze engagement – sure your competitor may have 100,000 Instagram followers vs. your 10,000, but what percent of this audience is actually taking meaningful action on their channels?
Engagement by Content Territory
According to Statista, the average social media usage worldwide in 2022 was 151 minutes per day, with this usage rising consistently year after year. Our brains digest an incomprehensible amount of content every day – so how can we know which content will stand out, make an impression and resonate with our audiences to create loyal followers and brand believers? By establishing key content pillars within your content strategy and analyzing average engagement and engagement rate across each pillar, you can slowly start seeing which content works best for your audience.
Social Media Demographics
You can have the best creative campaign, a huge social media following and hundreds of thousands of website visitors – but if you’re not reaching your target audience, all of this is worth nothing. Here is where the value of social media comes into play. Our social media platforms know a shocking amount of information about us. From our gender, location and age to our hobbies, interests and insecurities, social media platforms know us sometimes better than we know ourselves. While this data is obviously useful for ad targeting, it can also be very informative for our overall marketing strategies. A good marketing strategy is one that is informed by and tailored specifically toward its target audience. Leverage insights from your channels’ audience demographics regularly to ensure your strategy is built with a realistic audience in mind.
In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, these six marketing KPIs serve as invaluable tools for businesses trying to navigate the seemingly endless sea of data. By leveraging insights gleaned from website analytics, search engine data, social media and more, your business can craft strategies that deeply resonate with your audience, fostering meaningful connections and creating tangible results that ladder up to your business goals.
If you’re interested in leveraging data analytics to ignite success for your organization, or to explore how your organization can partner with Idea Hall, please contact Michelle Ruiz-Ponce at michelleRP@Ideahall.com or Rebecca Hall at Rebecca@ideahall.com.
This week’s article comes from Idea Hall Account Manager and Marketing Data Analyst Sophie Booth, who wears several different hats at Idea Hall on a day-to-day basis. Sophie’s expertise includes building integrated marketing performance dashboards for clients, conducting competitive analyses, utilizing data to target key market segments and optimize campaign performance, pitching media to secure coverage and crafting and executing social media strategies. In March 2022, after completing a rigorous 8-course training program, Sophie earned her official Google Data Analytics Certificate, equipping her with the skills to prepare, process, analyze and share data for thoughtful marketing activations.
