How to Use Marketing Metrics Effectively
We get asked a lot by clients about how they can best track their marketing success - what metrics really matter? Every individual marketing discipline will have a slightly different school of thought here. The Doers way is a little more holistic. What is your business trying to achieve? Are you trying to grow your database? Are you driving sales? Are you wanting to develop partnership content? Brochure requests? We recommend assessing what your focus is each quarter and adapting it to work with the ebbs and flows of your business.
“Vanity metrics can cloud what you’re actually trying to achieve”
Let’s talk vanity metrics
Vanity metrics can cloud what you’re actually trying to achieve. Instead of chasing follower numbers (something we see a lot of clients doing), chase real engagement and action. Are people clicking through on links? Is there synergy between increased marketing efforts and increased enquiries coming in? Are people asking questions? Are they saving your social posts? Are they sharing your social posts? Are they taking action on your emails? Are they spending a longer than average time on your website? Are they enquiring more? These are the metrics that will tell us “people like what we’re giving them” and ultimately these are the metrics that will (even if not immediate) result in conversion.
Tracking metrics
You can track these metrics in a number of ways. Making sure your website is connected with Google Analytics is your best bet but you can also use native analytics on your website’s platform (though we often find these to be quite limiting in what they offer) and the native analytics within your social apps. Using Google Analytics, you can see where your traffic is coming from - identifying the channel that’s working the best for your business, how long they’re spending on the site - your website is piquing interest, what’s driving action - what content is working the best at converting and the overarching demographics of who’s landing on it - are you targeting the right consumer?
If you’re a product-based business, what products are you selling the most of? Is there a correlation between your marketing activities and that specific product? What’s causing the conversions? Is it paid social? An influencer partnership? A piece of press coverage? This will tell you whether your efforts are worthwhile. Try experimenting with what’s working using other products. Can it be replicated?
Not seeing the right numbers?
If you’re not seeing the numbers you want to be seeing, ask yourself why. Is the content you’re producing for your marketing channels not hitting the mark because it’s talking to the wrong audience? Not visually compelling? Not translating well? Ask for feedback from trusted sources - friends, family, colleagues, partners etc (people LOVE to give feedback).Try a different approach - does your branding need some work? Do you need to inject some creative ideas? Do you need to switch up the products or services you publicly talk about? Spend 2-3 months changing up your content and trying some new tactics to see the shift in your metrics.
Remember, there’s no need to check your analytics daily. Review every few days or at the end of every week to give you a better and more consistent read. Weather, holidays, major news announcements etc can all impact the engagement people will have with your business so giving yourself some time across a few days/a week will allow for more consistency.
7 Essential Tools for Measuring Marketing
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
Klaviyo / Hubspot / Mailchimp / Mailerlite / other email platform
Hootsuite / Later / Planoly / Sprout Social / Sprinklr / other social media management platforms
Salesforce / Shopify / Netsuite / other sales platforms
Customer surveys / feedback / reviews
SEMrush / UberSuggest / Moz / other SEO platforms
