Metrics for a marketer: how to figure it out

Why do marketers need metrics? How will key marketing metrics help evaluate a campaign? What performance metrics are used in online marketing?

A marketer must keep abreast and track changes on the site: the number of visitors, the cost of leads, the value of customers, and so on. Analytics helps to understand what needs to be changed in the promotion strategy: change channels for attracting traffic, change creatives, re-segment the target audience? Without these findings, the company will drain the budget in vain. In this article, we will tell you what main metrics a marketer should track in order to effectively promote a brand in the market.

Basic marketing metrics: how to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising campaigns

Metrics in marketing help to digitize promotion results. You can see how things are and where you need to change tactics in order to save the budget and get more effect.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

The result is calculated based on the sum of audience clicks and the number of banner or teaser impressions. The parameter is used to evaluate running ads. The format of the ad doesn’t matter: it can be a banner, a teaser, a product ad. Finished results are measured in percentages.

For example, the CTR of this ad is:

49/2556 = 1.91%.

If the campaign is launched simultaneously on two or three sites, then the metric will show where users click more often. This will help to correctly allocate the budget and weed out inefficient promotion channels.

The normal CTR value varies depending on the business, competition, and product placement. Some marketers believe that a value in the range of 5-20% in PPC is considered acceptable. The metric is informative only when the number of clicks on an ad is more than 100. If an ad is shown twice, and users clicked only one, then this will not be enough to evaluate the effectiveness.

If the CTR is above the norm in a specific niche, then the advertising campaign is successful: the audience is interested in the product or creative, and traffic flows to the landing page. If they are low, you need to find the root of the problem. It can be in the title, description of the product, disinterest of the audience, its distrust of the company. It is important to analyze not only the creative, but also the brand itself, products and customer service quality, as well as the reputational background.

You can improve the metric if you once again divide the target audience into segments and set up an ad for each. The offer should be clear, concise and understandable for the consumer, contain emotional triggers. For example, you can see the successful creatives of competitors.

Related material: How to choose and evaluate the work of a contextual advertising contractor? Or 20 performance indicators of your Yandex.Direct advertising campaign

CPC (Cost Per Click)

This marketing performance metric shows how much it costs a brand to click through a probable customer’s ad. The indicator is used to evaluate the PPC.

There is no average CPC value. The cheaper it costs a company to click, the better. Therefore, a marketer needs to look for ways to reduce the cost of an advertising campaign.

The following factors influence the cost of clicks:

• key frequency;
• geolocation;
• competitiveness;
• day of the week and time the ad was shown;
• Relevance of the landing page to audience queries.

For high-frequency keywords and highly competitive areas, the cost of a click is more expensive. You can manage its price using the advertising account: set a budget limit or % of the average bid price.

To improve the CPC indicator, you need to revise offers and creatives, test the formats and content of headlines, monitor the payback of the AC and find channels that do not give the expected profit. If possible, it is worth moving through medium or low-frequency keys.

RPC (Revenue Per Click) – income from each click on an ad

This metric in Internet marketing shows the ratio of the profit received from an ad to the amount of clicks on it.

It is recommended to compare the results obtained with the CPC, otherwise you will get a minimum of information. In this case, the RPC should be higher. That is, the profit from each click should be greater than the expense.

To improve the indicator, the advertising strategy is being reviewed, starting with the cost per click and pricing for brand products.

Metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of lead generation

A lead is a likely buyer. And lead generation is the search and collection of potential customers.

Advertising also generates leads – it is a source of targeted traffic to the brand’s platform. During the start of an advertising campaign, the goal is to obtain a specific number of leads and an amount of income. The indicators differ for different product categories.

The following metrics are commonly used to evaluate lead generation.

CPA (Cost Per Action)

The cost of targeted actions per lead.

Let’s see how it works in practice: the brand launched a campaign to collect customer email addresses to further “warm up” and sell products. The target action of the lead is to fill out a form on the website. That is, the company buys email from the audience in order to then make a mailing list to them. Profit from leads should be higher than the acquisition cost. The company should receive about 80-90% of the addresses from the audience that clicked on the banner. Otherwise, the budget is wasted.

To improve results, research the needs of consumers and segment the target audience.

You can view the CPA in Yandex.Direct or Google Analytics.

CPO (Cost Per Order) — the cost of a confirmed order or completed deal

The metric shows the price of a single customer purchase. The indicator is used to evaluate the effectiveness of promoting online stores and service sites, such as real estate agencies, financial organizations. CRO helps to evaluate the profit received from leads. This is a type of CPA.

CRO is the ratio of advertising costs to the number of completed orders.

Normally, the resulting profit exceeds the budget for attracting leads. To improve performance, you need to increase the relevance of advertising, so study the needs of the target audience.

CR (Conversion Ratio)

A metric that is responsible for the development and scaling of a business. The indicators are calculated based on the ratio of the number of completed deals to the amount of visits. The higher the ratio, the better for the brand.

Related material: Increasing ad conversion: building a graph, finding the shortest customer path and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

LCR (Lead-Close Rate or Lead Conversion Rate) — Lead Closure Rate

This is the ratio of the amount of customers to leads.

Let’s consider an example: a brand sells information products for online promotion, collected 100 leads, sent a letter with a course program and a link to pay for services. 20 people paid for the lesson – LCR is 20%, 80 – respectively 80%.

The higher the score, the better the company’s lead closure strategy. To improve LCR, marketers recommend reviewing sales scripts, lead generation tactics, and improving the quality of generated traffic in order to attract “warm” users.

LPO (Leads generated Per Offer) – the number of leads from a specific type of advertising

The metric is used if the company has placed advertising banners on two or three or more sites at the same time.

The metric can be found in analytics services. But for the metric to be displayed, UTM tags are required for each banner.

However, you do not need to rely on the number of leads. Consider the number of sales from each site. Sometimes you can get a lot of leads from one channel, which in the end do not generate sales.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) — the cost of attracting one customer

The ratio of advertising spend to the number of customers who made purchases.

If the profit from the client is greater than the budget spent, then the company is in the black.

LTV (Llifetime value) – lifetime value from the client

This is the income that one buyer brings during interaction with the company. The metric shows the level of audience interest in brand products.

If quantitative results increase, then the brand scales.

Financial metrics in marketing

ROI (Return On Investment)

The main metric in evaluating marketing channels. Results are calculated as a percentage.

If the result in the end was more than 100%, then the investment in promotion paid off for the brand, if less, the company suffered losses.

It’s important to monitor your ROI during ad launches and stop draining your budget when the campaign stops generating revenue. This will help to avoid loss.

AOV (Average Order Value)

The metric will show how much money customers are willing to spend on brand products. This is the ratio of the amount of purchases to the number of orders. AOV helps the company determine pricing and create an offer that is aimed at increasing the company’s income.

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The higher the average check, the better for the company. You need to track the indicator in dynamics.

If the average check falls, then marketers need to offer customers related products: shadows and mascara for buying lipstick or a case when ordering an iPhone. If at the same time the indicators do not increase, then it is necessary to analyze not only the relevance of related products, but also the quality of service.

Please note that the data for the listed metrics is taken from CRM or other financial statements.

Email Marketing Metrics

As with other tools, you need to evaluate how much the investment pays off. This can be done using the following metrics.

Deliverability

This is the ratio of emails delivered to emails sent. Results are calculated as a percentage.

Deliverability reflects the quality of the collected database of mailing addresses and the correct operation of the mailing service.

Ideally, the indicator is 100%. But some boxes may be “broken” or fake. For example, a client could make a mistake or deliberately give incorrect information when filling out forms.

To improve, it is important to collect only a database of potential customers, and not buy from third-party resources. In addition, you need to use proven email marketing tools.

Related article: The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing

OR (Open Rate) — email open rate

The metric measures the proportion of recipients who opened the email. The indicator helps to understand how loyal the audience is to the brand and trusts the company.

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Marketers consider 13-39% to be normal for the B2C segment, for B2B — 30.5-34.9%. Three factors influence the results: niche, company size, and target audience segments.

To improve the result, you need to eliminate technical bugs with the delivery of the newsletter and make relevant offers for the audience. Marketers need to test header formats and offers, pay attention to the frequency of mailing, otherwise letters will end up in Spam.

CTR (Click-through Rate) – percentage of clicks on a URL in an email newsletter

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The expected figure depends on the business niche. The average result should be 5.6%. If it is lower, then you need to make sure the offer is relevant.

Metrics for web analytics

These metrics will show the user experience of the company’s website. The results are displayed in analytics tools: Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics. If services are not connected or you need to compare with competitors, then use additional options, such as SimilarWeb.

BR (Bounce Rate)

The metric shows the percentage of the audience that viewed only one page and closed the tab or left the resource immediately.

Yandex considers leaving the page as a failure earlier than 15 seconds; Google – opens only one page, and the amount of time on it is not taken into account.

Normal BR values ​​depend on the selected analytics service. If the results for Yandex are up to 20%, and for Google – up to 60%, then the strategy is correct. If the indicator is higher, it means that people were not interested in the information on the resource.

The result will improve if you reconsider the relevance of the content and analyze the usability.

PPV (Pages Per Visit) – an indicator of the depth of the site’s browsing

The indicator helps to understand whether the content is relevant, how the site has a positive user experience. The higher the results, the more pages the user opens and the longer he stays on the site.

Normally, the indicator should be equal to 3, ideally – 4.5. If higher, then the user was looking for detailed information, but could not find it.

You need to analyze the quality of usability and user experience on the site. A marketer should think about how to improve the content.

ER (Engagement Rate) — target audience engagement indicator

The metric shows the ratio of human actions on a web resource to the number of pages viewed. Results are measured in percentages.

The indicator is informative only if the site has forms for filling out, feedback, subscribing to the newsletter, placing an order, and so on.

High scores indicate that the audience is interacting with the resource. This helps the site rank better in search results.

Analysis of all this data and continuous improvement of the campaign is a necessary component of successful promotion. If you want to achieve better results, order the Integrated Marketing service from Exiterra.

Author: Exiterra.com Digital Agency