Digital marketing proves to be relevant in business promotions each passing year, and 2018 wasn’t an exception. Forester reports that an average company spent 41% of their marketing budget on digital marketing. Digital marketing budget is also reported to have surpassed that of TV, taking up 40.8% of the total advertising budget. Despite the huge numbers, many brands don’t get to enjoy maximum results for their efforts.
Before stepping into the new year, it’s important that you measure your digital marketing for the year. That way, you are able to focus on the things that are truly beneficial to your business.
Here are four metrics to measure your digital marketing this past year.
- Lead generation
Lead generation is a priority in digital marketing. Online marketing is a game of numbers. Having many people troop into your site increases your chances of lead generation. But make no mistakes, high traffic doesn’t equate leads. Conversion rate is what makes the difference.
Every visitor to your site should be motivated to take favorable actions. If they didn’t buy from you, they should fill your email subscription form or download your lead magnet. If your conversion rate is way below your traffic, then you have to figure out ways to create a balance.
An effective lead magnet can be used to stir visitors’ interest. Having parted with their contact details in exchange for the lead magnet, you can follow them up with lead nurturing.
- Brand awareness
Brand awareness is a tool for introducing new products or penetrating a new market. Having created and disseminated digital marketing campaigns, you need to be sure that they served their purpose.
Did your brand gain more visibility this year?
If you made use of an advertising channel to create awareness for your brand, one metric to evaluate is the impression rate. It shows you the frequency of your ad’s visibility to your target audience.
Having your ads shown to the right audience generates favorable reactions because they resonate with your message. When outcomes of your campaign aren’t positive, you need to change direction.
Click through rate is another metric to measure in regard to brand awareness. It’s the percentage of clicks your ad got in comparison to the overall impressions. A low click through rate is an indication that your ad was either shown to the wrong audience or lacked the capacity to appeal to them.
- Organic traffic
Organic traffic directs visitors to your site continuously even long after you are done with the digital marketing campaign. This is made possible via Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as it puts your content on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Ideally, you should aim for keywords that will place you at the top. Measuring organic traffic in your digital marketing helps you to get the most of it.
Check your website contents that appear on the first pages of search results and generate the most traffic. There’s a reason why these contents are doing so well in SERPs. Take a cue from them in creating other pages on your website. If you are using a series of content creation strategies, the content strategy with the best performance should be your focus henceforth.
It’s also important that your digital marketing generates traffic from the location of your target audience. If you sell physical products, people in your locality should be your first target. Hence, your location should top your geographic traffic. If that isn’t what you have on ground, you have to tailor your SEO techniques in that direction.
- Sales generation
After all is said and done, you want to make sales. Revenue is your rewards for providing value to customers.
Leaving your revenue unmonitored could create an illusion of high performance when the reverse is the case. Evaluate your sales records throughout the year to see if there were improvements.
What’s your average order value? Identify how much you made from fulfilling a single order. If you cannot account for profit after fulfilling an order, it means you are running at a loss.
There are three elements responsible for eCommerce revenue: Traffic + eCommerce conversion rate + Average order value = Revenue.
Measurement is an effective technique in detecting loopholes in business performance. No matter how great a digital marketing strategy appears to be, there are always opportunities for improvement. Examine the digital marketing lessons learned in 2018 and use findings to put your measurement results in perspective for the new year.