Which marketing indicators do you measure in your company?

The main objection to SEO and marketing strategies is that their effects cannot be measured. Promises of image or recognition may be too vague to be verified. However, skillfully used marketing indicators allow you to easily measure the effectiveness of each of your campaigns. 

What are marketing indicators? 

Marketing indicators are those developed over the years patterns, standards and conceptsthat allow you to measure the effectiveness of a campaign or strategy. As you know, the essence of a successful business is constant control of the company's results in relation to previous quarters, years or months. Sometimes it is quite difficult to assess what has changed and how, especially when we take into account many different variables (fluctuations in sales in on-line and off-line channels, trends, seasons). That is why it is worth reaching for ready-made determinants of the condition of the business. 

One of the yardsticks in marketing is KPI indicator (Key Performance Indicator), which allows you to measure the effectiveness of activities in the business area. It can be said that most of the marketing indicators belong to KPIs as part of the company's sales and promotion strategy. 

What marketing indicators can be distinguished? 

Marketing sources mention several dozen values that need to be measured. The situation is not made easier by the fact that there are more and more. 20 years ago, it was enough for a store owner to know how many customers enter the store and do their shopping. A decade later, he had to keep an eye on the number of visits and conversions in the online store. Today, it would be good if he also knew the involvement of customers in social media and the number of customers who appear in the store from this source.

Here are some marketing metrics you should know about: 

1. Social media indicators: number of followers, increase in the number of followers, conversion from MS, commitment.
2. Website traffic indicators: bounce rate, time spent on the website, number of visited subpages, conversion, traffic sources.
3. Sales funnel indicators: conversion, obstacles on the customer path.
4. Cost Indicators: Marketing Expense per customer, per sale, per lead, per channel in relation to generated sales, Marketing Expenditure Return (ROMI).
5. Content marketing indicators: amplification rate, commitment, time, number of readers, conversion. 

The most important marketing indicators 

The internet is full of lists of five, ten, or fifteen key marketing metrics that need to be measured. This shows that opinions are divided even among experts, and measuring a value or two is definitely not enough. Even if you have a few favorite indicators that you follow at work, it is worth adding new ones every now and then. Especially if the current data is no longer sufficient for you and does not translate into results. Sometimes, when you add one new indicator to your data, the picture of the situation in the company begins to look completely different than before. For example, website traffic of several hundred thousand users sounds great. However, if it turns out that they spend an average of a few seconds in your store, you will understand that you have only seen half of your marketing image so far.

So what are the most important marketing indicators? Often mentioned are: 

1. MQL - Pre-qualified customer ratio, e.g. all people who signed up for the newsletter.
2. SQL - the so-called coefficient qualified leads, i.e. people who submitted a specific purchase inquiry.
3. Funnel conversion - the number of people who buy in relation to those who "enter" the sales funnel. 
4. Customer retention rate - thanks to it you know if you actually have fewer or more clients than a year ago.

Marketing metrics - are you using the right ones? 

Corporations typically take most of the marketing metrics described here. However, in a small business, this would be difficult, if not impossible. In that case, you have to somehow choose which indicators will be important to you. Don't take marketers' word for it and always ask why this particular indicator should interest you. 

When you collect data, you can better control the effects and costs of your campaigns. You will then apply it successfully performance marketing, i.e. one in which you pay for each click, conversion or display of an ad. If all the data is on your side, you can choose the model that will be most profitable for you. In fact, it is impossible to say clearly which indicators are the most important in your case. It would be worth knowing the volume and source of traffic on the websiteas well as conversion, which is how many visitors decide to buy. However, if you stop there, the data will not be of much use to you - it is worth reevaluating your marketing metrics at least once a year, preferably quarterly or more frequently. By measuring results frequently, you can implement your strategy agile marketingthat is, to modify the goals and assumptions of the campaign, even every week. 

Advantages and disadvantages of marketing indicators

First and foremost, when you apply marketing metrics account for the effects of the campaign - subordinates, associates and subcontractors. Suppose someone promises you creating a website and more traffic to the site. Indeed - there are more visitors in the statistics, but this in no way translates into your sales goals. So you can request that the bounce is reduced-rateand at the same time the average time spent on the website and the number of visited subpages will increase. This is much more interesting information for you than the mere fact that there are more entries. 

On the other hand, you need to be sure that the adopted indicators actually translate into sales. In corporations, it happens that the efforts of the entire company for a quarter are focused on increasing the marketing coefficient for only one parameter, which is actually of marginal importance. In the next quarter, another factor is improved with a large expenditure of resources and work - sometimes the necessary actions are opposite to the previous quarter. This doesn't lead to any improvements, although apparently the marketing department has their hands full. To avoid such a situation, please order marketing audit and start measuring marketing indicators that will translate into real sales value and the number of customers.