One advantage of the digital age is that industrial marketers have access to a wealth of data and a trove of metrics they can track and analyze to determine if they are meeting their marketing objectives.
However, with so much data and so many options, the task of measuring can seem overwhelming. What metrics really matter? Which ones can help you make more informed marketing decisions?
Below is a checklist of meaningful metrics you should be tracking regularly for your programs. Not every metric or measurement will apply to your program. Choose the ones that are relevant to you and use the results to improve your marketing programs.
- Email deliverability and spam reports. You want deliverability to go up and spam reports to go down, which will indicate you have an accurate and updated email list.
- Email opens. Shows how well your subject line works and how effectively you are targeting the right audience.
- Clicks. Links in emails, linked offers in display or e-newsletter ads, social media links and text links on your website all reveal how well your message is resonating with your audience.
- Pageviews. On your website, directory listings, or content hubs of industry-specific websites, page views indicate the popularity of a page.
- Time on-page. How long a visitor stays on a page before dropping off. This tells you how relevant the content is to the audience.
- New vs. returning visitors. An important website metric that reveals how you’re doing attracting a new audience.
- Social media views, comments, and shares. These social media metrics, tracked by channel, can tell you if you’re using the right social media platforms and delivering content that your audience finds valuable.
- Impressions. For display ads or e-newsletter advertisements. This simple metric counts the number of times your ad is seen and can measure visibility and awareness.
- Video views, drop-offs, and point of drop off. For marketers using video, these three metrics tell you how many people are watching and for how long. If they’re dropping off at a certain point, you’ve lost their interest.
- Brand, company, or product mentions. You can use the free service Google Alerts, which will notify you of specific keyword mentions such as your company name, product names or other relevant keywords that appear in news articles, blog posts web pages. This is a good indicator of the strength of your brand and the effectiveness of public relations efforts.
- Attendees, booth visitors. Important for measuring events such as webinars or tradeshows. You can also track drop-offs for webinars, which is a measure of relevancy and engagement.
Two More Essential Measurements
Seldom do marketing programs exist in isolation or do isolated metrics tell the full story. As every marketer knows, a prospect will have multiple touches with your company before becoming a qualified lead and even more touches throughout their buying journey before making a purchase decision.
- You should try to track all touches a prospect has with your company to better understand what content and programs resonate with them and the cumulative touches that contribute to a sale. Marketing automation software makes this complex task much easier.
- All the metrics and measurements listed here ultimately roll up into one measurement that most marketing teams are ultimately judged by: qualified leads delivered to sales.
If you’re staying within your marketing budget and leads are increasing, you’re doing something right. If leads are flat or declining, examine those metrics that are stagnant and underperforming programs. Weed out the weak and work with your media partners to strengthen your overall marketing portfolio.
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