The last few weeks of the year calls for all businesses to brainstorm new product or service ideas and polish their business vision. It is the time when they review their internal procedures and revise their external communication strategy.
Similarly, it is great to put together a digital marketing strategy for your company to achieve a specific goal, i.e., boost brand awareness, level-up lead acquisition, or enter a new market.
Whatever your goal is, consistently monitoring and tracking your campaign’s performance is equally important to ensure you are not investing your resources in the wrong direction.
Tracking a Digital Marketing Campaign
This article discusses 12 must-have metrics that you must track to ensure your digital marketing campaign is a success. Let us dive in:
1. Online sales
This is one of the easiest ways to check how well your digital marketing campaign is doing and is simple to implement if you are using a web analytics platform such as Google Analytics. All you need to do is paste a small snippet of code on your website, and you will instantly be able to see which of your digital campaigns are driving the highest sales.
2. Leads from web forms
Most websites have web forms in place that visitors can use to book appointments, enquire about services, schedule personalized demos, get free downloads and so on. Many of the visitors who fill up your form could later convert into customers if they are approached promptly and nurtured right.
Another good way to track digital campaign success, therefore, is to track on Google Analytics which campaigns bring in the most web form submissions.
3. Phone call leads
If you have an official business number that potential customers may call for inquiries or to place orders, you will need to track the leads and sales from these calls too. Set up dynamic number insertion (DNI) so that different visitors see different phone numbers depending on how they arrived at your website. Then, you can look at your phone logs to see which campaigns brought in the most calls.
4. Live chat
Live chat is a great way to engage website visitors who want immediate answers to their questions. Once you have a chat tool in place on your site, you can use the built-in tracking programme or integrate Google Analytics into the tool so that you can keep track of which digital campaigns are driving the most live chat conversations.
5. Number of site visits
While website visits don’t necessarily lead to conversions or even a further enquiry, it is an important metric to track, especially when it comes to viewing traffic trends over a period of time. For instance, measuring site visits from organic SEO is a good way to see how well your site is doing on its own. It also helps you identify and correct potential problems if there is a drop in organic SEO traffic.
6. Pageviews per visit
While website visits are important to measure, they are not necessarily indicative of interest, particularly if the visitor leaves at once without exploring any of the product or service pages. Another metric to keep an eye on, therefore, is the number of page views per visit.
Google Analytics gives you insights on how people click through your website, including which pages they visit most often. This can help you promote the product pages or the blog posts that are performing especially well.
7. Time spent per visit
Analytics can help you track how much time people are spending on your website. While this is not a direct sales metric, people who spend longer browsing your pages are likelier to buy from you later.
A related metric in this regard is the bounce rate, or how many people hit the back button the moment they reach your website.
A high bounce rate could be indicative of a disconnect between your digital marketing campaign and your landing page content and could also lead to SEO penalties if Google flags your website as spam. Tracking your bounce rate, therefore, will help you spot problem areas and rectify them quickly.
8. CRM tracking
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools are primarily used to track your sales processes and prospecting activities. However, they can also be useful when it comes to tracking your digital marketing campaigns.
For instance, you can filter the prospects in your CRM by campaign or lead source to track in real-time whether your marketing efforts are working for them. Plus, most good CRMs such as SuperOffice include a marketing and email automation feature that lets you craft customised, relevant email content based on the tracking source of your lead.
9. Social reach
Tracking the social reach for the posts you share on your social media pages helps you see how many people actually saw what you posted. Ways to increase your reach include branding all your social pages consistently, having a regular schedule of high-quality content posting and engaging with your social community.
10. Social engagement
The main criterion to measure any digital marketing campaign’s success is your engagement rate. While social reach is always higher than the number of people who engage with your posts, you should aim for an engagement rate of at least 2-5%.
Likes, Shares, Retweets, Clicks and Comments all count as forms of engagement. Based on which of your posts garner the most engagement, you can adapt your content strategy to give your followers what they want and thus encourage them to engage even more.
11. Email open rate
Email marketingshould be an important part of your digital marketing campaign if it is not already. Your email open rate is the number of people who opened your email as a fraction of the number of people who received it.
>Ways to increase your open rates include properly segmenting your email list, sending emails at appropriate times and having an eye-catching subject line. A/B test your emails as much as you can so that you can achieve higher open rates over time.
12. Track your KPIs properly
Ideally, you should track your KPIs in one consolidated report so that the senior management can go through it at a glance. This also lets you quickly spot problem areas (such as significant drops or spikes over a period of time) so that your team knows what to work on and what to skip in the future.
Advanced Insights for Enhancing Digital Marketing Strategies
Utilize Heatmaps for Website Interaction Analysis
Heatmaps provide visual representations of where visitors click, move, and scroll on your website. They offer invaluable insights into user behavior and preferences, helping you understand which parts of your site are most engaging or need improvement.
Monitor Conversion Rates
Tracking the conversion rate, which is the percentage of visitors who take a desired action (like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter), is crucial. It helps in understanding the effectiveness of your website and landing pages in compelling visitors to take action.
Analyze Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Understanding the lifetime value of a customer is essential for long-term success. This metric helps in determining the total worth of a customer to your business over the entire period of their relationship with your company.
Track Referral Traffic
Analyzing referral traffic, which is the segment of visitors that come to your website from direct links on other websites rather than directly or from search engines, can give you insights into which external platforms or partnerships are most beneficial.
Engagement on Blog Posts
If your digital strategy includes content marketing, tracking engagement on your blog posts (like comments, shares, and average time spent on page) can provide insights into the topics and types of content that resonate most with your audience.
Leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Predictive Analysis
Incorporate AI tools to predict future trends and consumer behaviors based on historical data. This can help in personalizing marketing efforts and anticipating market shifts.
Utilize Sentiment Analysis on Social Media
Sentiment analysis tools can evaluate the emotions behind social media mentions and comments, providing deeper insights into customer perceptions and satisfaction levels.
Incorporate A/B Testing Regularly
Regularly perform A/B testing on various elements of your digital campaigns, including email subject lines, landing pages, and call-to-action buttons, to determine what works best with your audience.
Enhanced SEO Tracking
Beyond basic metrics, delve into more advanced SEO analysis, like tracking your website’s domain authority, backlink quality, and keyword rankings to fine-tune your SEO strategy.
Content Performance Analysis
Evaluate the performance of different content formats, such as videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts, to identify which types of content are most effective in engaging your audience and driving conversions.
Explore Cross-Device Usage Patterns
Understand how your audience interacts with your digital presence across different devices (desktop, mobile, tablet) to optimize the user experience for each platform.
Implement Tag Management Systems
Use tag management systems to efficiently manage tracking codes and gather more comprehensive data across your digital platforms.
By incorporating these additional steps and insights into your digital marketing campaign tracking, you can gain a more holistic view of your campaign’s performance and uncover new opportunities for optimization and growth.
Harnessing Predictive Analytics for Data-Driven Insights
In the realm of modern digital marketing, the application of predictive analytics has emerged as a powerful tool for gaining deeper insights and refining strategies. Predictive analytics leverages historical data, machine learning algorithms, and statistical models to anticipate future trends and outcomes. Integrating predictive analytics into your campaign tracking can offer invaluable advantages:
- Anticipating Customer Behavior: By analyzing past behavior patterns and engagement metrics, predictive analytics can forecast how customers are likely to interact with your campaigns. This insight informs personalized content and timing, increasing the chances of engagement and conversion.
- Optimizing Resource Allocation: Predictive analytics identifies which channels and campaigns yield the highest returns. This aids in allocating resources more efficiently, ensuring that efforts are focused where they’re most likely to yield optimal results.
- Early Identification of Trends: With predictive models in place, you can detect emerging trends before they become widespread. This allows your team to seize opportunities early and tailor campaigns accordingly.
- Enhanced Lead Scoring: Predictive lead scoring assesses the likelihood of leads converting into customers. By evaluating various attributes and behaviors, you can prioritize high-potential leads, enabling sales teams to focus on prospects with the greatest potential for conversion.
- Dynamic Content Personalization: Predictive analytics facilitates real-time content customization. As users engage with your campaign, predictive models adjust content recommendations based on their behavior, ensuring a tailored experience that resonates with each individual.
- Mitigating Churn: Predictive analytics can signal potential churn by identifying behavioral patterns associated with customers on the verge of disengagement. This allows for proactive intervention, potentially saving customer relationships.
- Fine-Tuned Campaign Timing: By analyzing historical engagement patterns, predictive analytics can pinpoint the most opportune times for sending emails, posting on social media, or launching campaigns. This maximizes visibility and engagement.
- Evolving Campaign Strategies: As predictive models provide continuous insights, your campaign strategies can evolve dynamically. This iterative approach ensures that your efforts remain aligned with evolving customer preferences.
- Challenges and Considerations: While predictive analytics offers significant benefits, it’s essential to address challenges like data quality, model accuracy, and interpretability. Collaborating with data scientists and analytics experts ensures that your predictive models yield reliable insights.
| Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
| Anticipating Customer Behavior | Predictive analytics uses past behavior patterns and engagement metrics to forecast how customers will interact with your campaigns. This insight enables personalized content and timing, enhancing engagement and conversion prospects. |
| Optimizing Resource Allocation | Predictive analytics identifies the most productive channels and campaigns, enabling efficient resource allocation. This ensures that efforts are concentrated where they yield optimal outcomes, enhancing overall campaign effectiveness. |
| Early Identification of Trends | Leveraging predictive models, emerging trends can be detected in their early stages before they gain widespread traction. This empowers your team to capitalize on emerging opportunities and tailor campaigns to align with developing market trends. |
| Enhanced Lead Scoring | Predictive lead scoring evaluates the conversion potential of leads based on diverse attributes and behaviors. This allows for prioritization of high-potential leads, enabling sales teams to focus on prospects with the highest likelihood of converting into customers. |
| Dynamic Content Personalization | Predictive analytics enables real-time customization of content. As users engage with your campaign, predictive models adapt content recommendations according to user behavior. This ensures a personalized experience that resonates with each individual, enhancing engagement. |
| Mitigating Churn | Predictive analytics can identify potential churn by recognizing behavioral patterns of customers at risk of disengagement. This proactive insight allows for timely intervention, potentially saving customer relationships and reducing churn rates. |
| Fine-Tuned Campaign Timing | By analyzing historical engagement patterns, predictive analytics identifies optimal times for activities like sending emails, posting on social media, or launching campaigns. This ensures maximum visibility and engagement, enhancing overall campaign effectiveness. |
| Evolving Campaign Strategies | Continuous insights from predictive models enable dynamic evolution of campaign strategies. This iterative approach ensures that your efforts remain aligned with evolving customer preferences, ensuring sustained relevance and maximizing campaign impact. |
| Challenges and Considerations | While predictive analytics offers substantial benefits, addressing challenges such as data quality, model accuracy, and interpretability is crucial. Collaborating with data scientists and analytics experts ensures reliable insights from your predictive models, enhancing decision-making. |
Wrapping it up
But tracking KPIs can be a time-consuming process and if your resources are tight, you don’t want your marketing team to invest a lot of time making reports rather than running the digital marketing camping itself.
That is the reason why it is important for you to decide when you want to report – weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Moreover, tracking is an overwhelming process for those companies or teams if they are running a full-fledged campaign for the first time.
Hopefully, this article helps in getting started. So, how do you usually monitor the performance of your digital marketing campaigns? Tell us in the comments below!
Image: Depositphotos
