As a marketer, marketing metrics is a term you’re undoubtedly familiar with, and when used correctly, can have a big impact on the success of your strategies. There are many metrics available at your disposal, but the key is to prioritize the data that informs your strategy at every stage of the funnel. Your customers take a journey – from awareness to consideration and ultimately, conversion. Ttracking important metrics can help you understand how and where your audience is engaging, where they drop off, and what needs to pivot to nurture them towards a conversion.
In this blog, we’ll explore six key metrics that every marketer needs to be tracking to stay on top of their performance and make informed decisions for the best results.
Website Traffic
Your website is a hub for first impressions, learning more about products or services, and converting customers. The flow of data coming from your website should not be ignored, but it’s also important not to take it at face value. When you track website traffic, you should focus on the data that tells a story of how your customers funnel through your site – literally and figuratively.
Use tools like Google Analytics (GA4) to understand which pages your visitors are landing on, where they are coming from, and how they behave once they land on your site. Do you have a blog that’s generating tons of traffic? Look into the channels these users come from, what devices they’re using, and how long they engage with the page. Now, what are these metrics telling you?
Analyzing your website traffic is more than the number of active visitors. It’s a chance to dig deeper and understand the journey customers take on your website. When you leverage different dimensions and segment your data based on clear objectives, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s working and what needs to pivot, creating stronger and more successful content in the future. Not to mention, tracking website traffic helps inform and improve your SEO efforts. By understanding which pages or devices drive the most traffic, you can optimize content, improve user experience, and refine keywords to reach more users and boost search engine rankings.
Engagement rate
Engagement rate measures the total percentage of your audience that engages with your content on social media and on a website. Social media engagement can include likes, comments, and shares, while website engagement includes measurable actions like scrolls, clicks, and form submissions. By tracking this metric, you can identify the type of content, products, or services that resonate with your audience and adjust your marketing strategy as necessary.
How to Calculate Engagement Rate
Analytics tools like GA4 can provide the data to generate engagement rates for each report or for specific dimensions such as pages, devices, and browsers. The formula looks like this:
ER = (total number of engaged sessions / total number of sessions) *100
Consider this example from the Google Merchandise Store GA4 demo account:
Using the formula above, we can determine that the total engagement rate for all landing pages is approximately 68% (active users / sessions). Analyzing engagement per landing page shows us that the Home page has an engagement rate of 79%, the Shop New page is 82%, Holiday Collection is 90%, and the list goes on. Breaking down engagement by specific dimensions can help you understand what content your users are interacting with the most and refine your strategy to align with this content. On the other hand, low engagement rates can indicate that something needs to pivot.
For social accounts, the engagement rate is calculated by dividing the total number of engagements by the total audience, then multiplying by 100 to generate a percentage:
ER = (total engagements / total audience) *100
Using engagement rates to inform your content strategy allows you to look past the post with the highest likes or shares. It provides a holistic view of audience interests, enabling you to align your content with the right people and increase the chance of conversion.
Bounce Rate
Your website’s bounce rate is the opposite of your engagement rate, meaning it is the percentage of sessions that start and end on the same page. Tracking this metric means understanding how well your page captures and retains visitors’ attention or answers their specific questions. A high bounce rate could indicate issues with content relevance, user experience, navigation, or even page load speed. Investigate the pages with a high bounce rate to identify potential issues that are driving visitors away. The formula to calculate the bounce rate is simple:
Bounce rate = # unengaged sessions / total # of sessions
Consequently, if your engagement rate is 60% then your bounce rate is 40%. Default reports in GA4 do not include this metric but can be customized within any detailed report and compared directly with other website metrics. It is good practice to compare your bounce rate with other dimensions including landing pages and user segments. By doing so, you will understand where your website falls short of user experience and refine your strategy based on content that visitors actually engage with.
Conversion Rate
A conversion can be defined in many ways. From a page scroll and form submission to cart checkout and purchases, it can look different depending on your business goals. Despite this, calculating your conversion rate helps you understand the percentage of customers who completed a specific conversion.
Platforms like Google Analytics typically provide the conversion rate, known as the “key event rate”, in Reports or you can easily customize your report to include them. Take a look at this example from the Google Merchandise Store GA4 demo account:
Here, the key event rate is broken down by primary channel, giving us the total percent of users that completed all key events from the channel they came from. It’s important to dig deeper and consider your conversion rates for other dimensions such as device, age range, or ad. If the conversion rate is greater for mobile users than desktop users, it is worth investing more in your mobile campaigns. Similarly, you can isolate specific key events you have listed in your account, such as purchase, add to cart, or view item. If you’re creating a campaign targeting mid-funnel customers, you might isolate your “purchase” key event to determine which channels, devices, or age groups to target.
The benefit of tracking your conversion rates is more than figuring out when and how your users convert. It helps you strategize more effectively for future campaigns by setting a realistic budget and estimating your ROI to ensure maximum return.
Return on Investment
A key metric that tells you if your marketing efforts are truly paying off is your return on investment (ROI). This metric allows you to measure your campaigns’ effectiveness and profitability. If your ROI is high, then your efforts are cost-effective and are generating good profits compared to the costs, while a low return indicates your campaign is underperforming. Of course, every marketer wants to see a high return, but even a low ROI can provide a moment to learn about your audience and create a stronger strategy.
How to Calculate ROI
Your return on investment is defined as the revenue directed from your marketing efforts minus the cost of marketing, divided by the cost of marketing:
ROI = (return – initial Investment / initial investment) * 100
Since ROI is typically represented as a percentage of your investment growth, you can use this simpler formula:
ROI = (net profit / total cost) * 100
Practice measuring your ROI consistently to understand which tactics are delivering value and where adjustments need to be made. Remember a high or low ROI can help you allocate resources more effectively, contributing to long-term success of your marketing initiatives.
Customer Lifetime Value
A trusted metric that every marketer should be tracking is customer lifetime value (CLV). This long-term metric describes the amount that your average customer will spend through their customer lifecycle. It helps marketers understand which customer segments are the most valuable to your business and worth investing in for higher ROI. When you have a solid understanding of our CLV, you can create targeted strategies to reach similar high-value customers while nurturing existing relationships.
How to Calculate CLV
Calculating customer lifetime value requires two formulas, but it is not as daunting as it may seem. First, you must determine your “customer value” metric, which is defined as the average purchase value multiplied by the average number of purchases:
Customer Value = Average Purchase Value x Average Number of Purchases
Next, multiply this number by the average customer lifespan to determine your CLV:
Customer Lifetime Value = Customer Value x Average Customer Lifespan
The result will indicate the revenue an average customer should generate throughout their relationship with your business.
Final Words
Tracking the right marketing metrics is crucial for understanding how your strategies drive success at each stage of the funnel. Whether you are analyzing the details of your website traffic, determining which pages have the highest bounce rate, or prioritizing high-value customers, each metric provides valuable insight into customer behaviour and content performance. When you leverage these metrics you can optimize your marketing efforts more effectively, reaching users that are more likely to convert through data-driven content strategy and SEO. While impressions and clicks are still informative metrics to consider, leave those behind to harness metrics that translate your customers’ journey into tangible insights.
About IN2communications
IN2communications is an award-winning digital marketing and web design agency helping hundreds of B2B organizations create awareness, boost consideration rates and generate sales leads.
Our awesome team provides experienced expertise in the following areas: Creative Strategy, B2B Campaigns, Web Development, Video Production, Social Media, Paid Advertising, SEO, Email Campaigns, Blogging, Presentations, Webinars and remarkable Content Creation.
