Marketing involves a management process in which products and services initiate from a concept and culminate with a customer. This process coordinates the four elements of marketing including: identification and development of a product or service, price determination, selection of a distribution channel, and implementation of a promotional strategy. The metrics of marketing is really quite a fascinating subject when you delve into it.
Marketing is a different concept from that of selling. It has less to do with customers actually buying your products, but is more focused on developing a demand for your goods or services based on customer need.
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What Are The Metrics Of Marketing?
Metrics are used in marketing strategies to determine the effectiveness of specific marketing efforts that have been implemented. Metrics will look different based on the individual marketing campaigns, and their desired results. But what are metrics? A metrics is a method used to measure something.
In the case of marketing, metrics are useful in determining if the results of a specific marketing technique are effective. Think of metrics as a barometer that sheds light on what is working and what isn’t. Marketing metrics are used in many areas of business, and this includes the big wide world of online marketing.
Examples Of Online Marketing Metrics
There are many numbers and analytical statistics that can be measured to glean insights into, not only your online marketing strategies, but also how your customers are behaving, in regard to, these techniques.
Information, based on metrics, is essential to carefully manage and create coherent marketing campaigns. Metrics are key players in determining success or failure in the online world. Below are a few examples of metrics used to evaluate the progression of your campaigns.
1. Metrics based on traffic
2. Email marketing metrics
3. Social media metrics
4. Content marketing metrics
For the purpose of today’s post, I will concentrate on content marketing metrics. As any blogger can attest, content creation is at the heart of, not only affiliate marketing, but is necessary to provide value, build trust, and generate traffic and sales.
Content Marketing Analytics
Content marketing is essential to attract and generate leads, expand customer reach, increase brand awareness, promote engagement, and generate online sales. Optimize your metrics to increase your ROI.
- Site Visitors
How many readers are visiting your site? Are they new to your site or are they a returning visitor? Which of your pages are the most viewed? Which links generate the most clicks? Focus on tools that increase your traffic like engagement in forums, stepping up your social media presence, or commenting on sites with similar niches as yours in order to drive traffic to your site via the comments you leave.
Find these niche-related sites by googling targeted keywords or by utilizing Google Alerts. You’ll, then, be notified each time your keyword is used. Make sure your using low-competition keywords in your posts in order to increase your chances of ranking quickly. Optimize each and every article you write to generate free traffic – it’s just smart business!
[Read More: Jaaxy Keyword Research Tool Review]
- Bounce Rate
Determine how long readers are staying on your site. Bounce rate is determined by the entry and exit clicks from your individual readers. The goal is to have them stay on your site by visiting multiple pages. Are your visitors engaging by leaving comments, clicking through to other posts, or watching your videos? Google analytics is an indispensable tool that details information regarding your site traffic.
Aim for a bounce rate of 25-50 percent. A rate over 70 percent is cause for concern, signaling a need to shake up your strategy. This could include more targeted keywords, fresher content, compelling calls-to-action, or a even a different pop-up strategy to increase conversions.
- Call-To-Action Clicks
What percentage of you visitors are clicking on your call-to-action buttons either on your website or landing page? Whether it’s an “add-to-cart,” “sign-up,” or “download-here” button, access your metrics to implement more effective methods if your conversions aren’t meeting your goals.
Experimenting with various colors, shapes, sizes, fonts, or strategic placement of buttons are all methods to increase clicks. Perhaps you need to rephrase the call-to-action itself to make it more compelling. Or change your free offer to something completely different. If your free pdf isn’t converting, for example, consider offering a free video instead.
- Click Through Rates
CTR is a key marketing metric that calculates the number of people who clicked on an ad. This number is then divided by the number of times the ad was viewed. This is referred to as “impression.” Ad clicks ÷ by ad impressions = CTR.
Measuring click-through rates is an essential metric for any email or paid-ad campaign because it shows how appealing the ad is by how many clicks it’s generating.
For pay-per-click campaigns, a higher than average CTR decreases the cost per click significantly. CTRs that are lower than average drive up costs dramatically so becoming familiar with these metrics is valuable information in determining your ROI.
If you have a high CTR, but a low-conversion rate, it could be that the audience you’re trying to reach is too broad. If the message in your ad doesn’t align with your landing page, make changes to ensure that it does.
- Social Media Marketing
Are your posts being shared? Track your social retweets, likes, and shares to determine which ones are generating the most chatter. What percentage of your site visitors are driven from your individual platforms? Choose one or two social media sites in which to concentrate your efforts.
Trying to be active on a myriad of sites is time-consuming, and, therefore, not as effective. Focus on the platforms most frequented by your target audience. Don’t try to market to audiences that have no interest in your products or services.
There are automation tools that can make your life easier, and track your social media metrics. Tailwind is one such tool to help manage, not only your Pinterest boards, but also your Instagram account.
Board Booster is an efficient pin-scheduling tool for bloggers that manages and automates all your pins. Hootsuite is another social media management tool that allows you to manage all your platforms conveniently in one place.
[Read More: Hootsuite For Social Media]
- Subscriber Rate
Implement a place on your site for your readers to subscribe to your newsletter. Increase the chance they’ll sign up by offering a free gift. It could be a complimentary pdf, or a free video or tutorial. Over time determine what percentage of your visitors are subscribing. And what about those who unsubscribed?
If this amount is significant, consider redesigning your newsletters or modify your publishing schedule to increase conversions. Email marketing services, such as, AWeber, MailChimp, Mad Mimi, Constant Contact or Stream Send will conveniently automate your newsletters so you don’t have to think about it. Automate anything you can to streamline your efforts.
- Evergreen Content
Which posts are the most relevant over time? Which content on your site receives the most views? Leverage your evergreen content – content that remains relevant over time – by repurposing it to increase conversions.
Refresh the content by making sure the title is captivating, link to pertinent posts on your site, create a video series from your evergreen content, or design a free offer based on it. Evergreen content is a gift that keeps on giving so use it to your advantage.
If you’d like to learn more about the metrics of marketing and other skills involved in building an online business, read my review or click the banner below to learn more. There’s never been a better time to invest in your financial future.
[Read More: Is Wealthy Affiliate Legit Or A Scam?]
Key Points
Hone in on your content-marketing metrics to improve and optimize your online strategies, ensuring your campaigns are as successful as possible. Becoming familiar with your marketing metrics can be overwhelming initially.
Begin by measuring metrics you understand and are comfortable assessing. You can then branch out from there as your online presence and expertise expands.
What metrics do you use for content marketing? Let me know in the comments:)
Wow Holly,
What a detailed explanation of online marketing. I have learned so much from your blog. For one thing I now realize just how little I have been implementing. As you suggest, I concentrate on two different social media platforms, Instagram and Pinterest. I was working on Facebook but found it far to slow to achieve results.
Pinterest is my favorite as it works at a breathtaking pace. I also love the fact that Pinterest analyzes the data for me, so I can quickly see just how effective my pins are at driving traffic to my site. I also use Tailwind to schedule pins. However, I haven’t used Tailwind on Instagram as yet.
I’m disappointed in myself down for not having utilized email marketing yet. I guess I am struggling to know exactly what to do. I was hoping to construct an eBook for my site on gardening so that I could give it away as a teaser to grow a list, but I’m not sure what plugin I should use for this.
I understand Content marketing but I do need to make sure I develop the metrics for this. Up to now I have been using some hit and miss methods. Thank you for your informative article. Jim
Thanks so much for reading my article Jim. Good for you for focusing on Instagram and Pinterest, two of my favorite social media networks. I like Pinterest analytics too. It’s helpful to see which pins are the most popular. Tailwind is awesome, isn’t it?
I think offering your readers an eBook on gardening,in exchange for their name and email address, is a great idea and a great way to grow you list. Check out Beacon, it’s a WordPress plugin you can use to create eBooks.
Much success to you!
Thanks for this article. It was very helpful and well written. I am doing an affiliate program and I did like 3 articles in the last 2 days. I have the next article in mind. I found a low competition keyword that I can link some good items with. But then I was just checking out my blog and the image links disappeared so I’m a little weirded out. Hopefully it corrects itself because it happened on pages I didn’t even touch.
Thanks for explaining the metrics. I’m using internal links because that’s supposed to help with metrics. I remember a couple websites with internal links and I would open every one in a new tab as I read. I enjoy websites with internal links. I guess that’s why Google wants people to focus on user experience not just making websites for bots.
Hi Charles,
Thank you. That’s strange that your links disappeared. Try opening a new browser and see if that helps. I had something similar happen a couple of weeks ago. I was using Chrome and my images didn’t show up on the post I’d been working on so I opened up the post in Firefox, and voila my images were there. I have no way to explain it, but was so relieved to have my images back.
Yes, both internal links and external links are important. I’m like you and like opening internal links when I’m reading an article. I hope people do that on my site, because it will not only further educate them, but will keep them on my website longer, which Google rewards in terms of rankings.
Thanks so much for your comment!
Really nice and interesting post. Ever since starting Wealthy Affiliate’s program, I have learned so much valuable info on online marketing. Much more than I’ve learned in Uni. As my website is still in the beginning phases, I mainly use site comments and site feedback at the moment as an analytical tool on my content. I cannot wait to start building a list of email subscribers like you have written about under “subscriber rate”.
Valuable info her!
Thank you Mitchell. I’m so glad to hear that you’re a member of Wealthy Affiliate. I wouldn’t have an online business had I not joined their platform. The skills are so practical. I just love working online.
Site Comments and Site Feedback are awesome and great for people who are in the beginning stages of their online business. It can be difficult to get organic comments when you don’t have much website traffic. Comments are an important marketing metric because they show Google that people are engaging with your content.
Good luck building your email list. I know you’ll get there. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment!
Hello Holly,
I must say that this article is very helpful and informative. I think that it’s important to measure what works and what does not when it comes to building an online business
There is no point in doing something that doesn’t work. I currently have a problem with organic traffic coming to my website. I think I will focus more on social media as Pinterest and Instagram are gaining in popularity.
Hi Daniel,
Thank you. Yes, it’s important to measure what is working and what isn’t so you can troubleshoot the issues. It’s a waste of time to focus on strategies that aren’t converting.
Good idea to focus on Pinterest and Instagram. Social media is a great marketing avenue. Best of luck to you.
Thank you, Holly,
This post eally cleared some things up for me. I have not ever understood about the analytics of this business, but you explained it in a way that made everything more clear now when I look at it I now know what everything means. I am bookmarking this for future reference. Again, I want to thank you.
Thank you Lynda!
Marketing can be daunting for sure.