KPIs, or key performance indicators, provide you with a measurable means of differentiating marketing strategies that work from those that are not worth the investment of resources, time, and blood/sweat/tears. Here are 10 marketing KPIs you need to measure (and cannot afford to ignore).
1. Sales Revenue
How does your marketing strategy affect your sales growth? Make note of ups and downs. Track the information over multiple quarters. Doing so allows you to strategize your approach year by year.
2. Lead Intelligence
Measure the number of leads you get. Common sense tells you that more is better. Yet when you remember that leads are not necessarily buyers, it makes sense to focus primarily on qualified leads.
3. Customer Lifetime Value
Repeat business increases your bottom line with minimal marketing costs. Determining the lifetime value of repeat or higher ticket customers helps you focus your business goals. Should you continue to focus primarily on bringing new customers to your business or should you create a loyalty program that woos the repeat buyer?
4. Customer Acquisition Cost
Pay close attention to how much it costs your business to turn a prospect into a buyer of your product or service. Divide the amount of money you spent marketing by the number of new customers your business received. Knowing this figure lets you set a realistic marketing budget.
5. Visitor to Lead Conversion Ratio
This is an indicator of the quality of your website visitors with respect to making buying decisions. Your conversion ratio reveals the overall capability of your website to persuade a prospect to become a buyer.
6. Overall Website Traffic
This is straightforward. The more traffic you get, the more chances you have to convert visitors into leads. However, there is more to this than meets the eye. For example, find out what brought visitors to your site and how they behaved once they got there. This includes session duration and bounce rate.
7. Social Media Marketing Effectiveness
Track your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. audience. Measure the increases or decreases of your base. Most importantly, measure the percentage of followers who turn into website visitors and – ultimately – buyers, and the length of time and number of touch points required for conversion.
8. Email Conversion Rate
You can learn a lot from the way that your leads interact with your company via the emails you send out. Some click on links and others do not even bother to open the message. Other metrics to measure here include the forwarding rates and unsubscribes.
9. Inbound Links
Closely monitor how many consumers link to your website. As your standing and authority in your niche climb, you should receive more inbound leads.
10. Landing Page Interactions
Your landing page should have a persuasive call to action that visitors follow. If your landing page conversion is low, you may need to revisit your overall strategy to make sure you’re bringing in the right prospects in the first place. Gauging this measurement is easy when you keep track of the landing page conversation rate.