Updated 2/2018
If you don’t know what’s broken, you won’t be able to fix it.
Can you imagine going to the doctor and getting the wrong diagnosis?
Doctors have to be extremely careful in their analysis and diagnosis. After all, lives are on the line. If they’re not sure how to proceed just by examining the patient, they may send them to get tests and lab work done.
I remember the first time I broke a bone. When I went to see my doctor, he looked at my hand, applied some pressure, asked some questions, and, completely confident in his diagnosis, said what I didn’t want to hear:
“Your fractured your hand.”
But still he wanted me to get some x-rays. Why? He already knew it was broken.
If the doctor didn’t know the exact shape, size, and location of the fracture, he wouldn’t be able to fix it.
The doctor had to know every detail of my injury in order to correct it, and that’s what I want to talk to you about:
The importance of thorough marketing analytics.
Marketing analytics is the process of measuring, analyzing, and managing your marketing strategy’s performance to maximize its effectiveness and optimize your return on investment (ROI).
Analytics allow marketers to be more efficient and minimize wasted marketing budget. And they let you approach your marketing plan like a thorough doctor, taking steps to understand the situation before making any adjustments.
The importance of measuring efforts
This one is pretty obvious: if something costs more than what it’s giving you back in return, it’s not a sustainable business strategy. That’s why it’s important to measure your marketing efforts.
The Lenskold Group, leaders in marketing profitability management, found that:
“Companies making improvements in their measurements and ROI capabilities were more likely to report outgrowing competitors and a higher level of effectiveness and efficiency in their marketing.”
And most advertising methods available have awesome tools for measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Online marketing can do the measuring for you
Statistics from Internet World Stats show that almost 90% of the entire North American population is online. And the quickest and easiest way to reach out to this huge market is through PPC marketing, like advertising on Google AdWords or other search engines and social networks.
Google AdWords also gives you quick access to marketing analytics, simplifying the task of gathering and measuring data on the efficacy of your marketing plan.
Google shows you how many people have seen your ads, clicked on them, visited your website, or called you. With their tracking tools, you’re able to see the actual sales your ads are generating.
You can see how your ads are doing at any time, and then you can tweak them by trying new words or phrases, or pause a campaign and restart it whenever you like.
Google’s AdWords isn’t the only online advertising service that gives you helpful insights, but it is one of the most popular.
The role of KPI’s in marketing
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the criteria by which you measure how well you’re meeting your goals. Sometimes this looks like customer satisfaction surveys with questions based on your values and goals as a company. You can set them very specifically on your online advertising platform.
With this information you can streamline your marketing efforts toward better achieving those desired goals in the future.
Measuring how well you’re meeting your KPIs allows you to continually improve your marketing and have a meaningful impact on your business.
What are the most important KPI metrics to track in marketing?
There’s a huge number of meaningful marketing metrics you can use to prove your effectiveness. Here are 5 that every marketer should be measuring to create more powerful campaigns.
1. Sales Revenue
There’s a reason why this KPI is at the top of the list. You need to make sure that your sales are exceeding the expenses your marketing campaigns incur.
2. Cost Per Conversion (CPC)
How much is every conversion costing you? How many conversions are generated by each of your efforts? What’s the value of these leads? These are questions you need answered when looking at a cost per conversion report. For example, if you spent $500 on AdWords to generate 10 sales, your CPC is $50.
3. Online Marketing ROI
Reporting and analytics play a huge role here. Having the ability to report and analyze website activity, as well as where the traffic is coming from, is vital to the online success of your business. Here’s a screenshot of how to see your ROI in cost per click via Google Analytics.
4. Form Conversion Rates
This one is related to the effectiveness of your content marketing. Are your marketing efforts to drive traffic to those landing pages worth it? Your content marketing is something that you should always be optimizing. Formisimo explains there’s a science to understanding how and why people complete (or click away from) conversion forms, and when you’re able to measure that data, you can adapt to gain more conversions.
5. Social Media Reach
How many customers are you getting from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc.?
Here’s a look at how you can use Facebook’s Page Insights analytics to see how your content is performing.
If you know how well each social network is working, and, more importantly, which one works best for your business, you can effectively and efficiently focus your social marketing.
Armed with these metrics, you’ll be able to prove that marketing is delivering qualified leads and turning them into sales, and to optimize your budget to ensure that your marketing efforts get you the biggest bang for your buck.
Stop wasting money and start tracking your marketing efforts
Give us a call today at (915) 585-1919 to schedule a consultation
At 8 Signal, we believe you can outsmart, rather than outspend, the competition. We’re your marketing department—without the overhead!
