Guest blogger: Mitch Dupuis – Digital Marketing Specialist, Klipfolio
We know you don’t have time to read a never-ending article about the value of managing metrics for your marketing team’s performance. We know this because you are leading a team of marketers whose roles are unique but also far reaching, so your position often feels like you’re a juggler in the circus.
We also know this because in today’s data-driven economy you are probably already tracking various dimensions of performance on a long list of platforms designed for specific marketing practices. You use one platform because you want to track how your marketing efforts impact, say, lead generation, and another platform to drill down into the organic impressions for particular keywords you’re tracking.
But consider this for a moment:
How much time do you spend connecting all those dots? And are the metrics you’re currently reporting on actually the ones that tell you the most about your audience?
The problem you are likely facing is that when it’s time (and as a manager it’s always time) to either adapt or develop strategy, it feels like the heat is on trying to create a cohesive image of how all the moving pieces of your department fit together within the bigger picture. Sure, many of you are analyzing and focusing on many of the same metrics; however marketers are like snowflakes – we all have similarities yet are unique in what we actually need to succeed.
Individually, the following metrics tell short stories of their own. As a marketing manager, though, you know that no team’s efforts are complete without overarching departmental and company goals in mind. Those individual short stories must fuse into a novel that’s pertinent to you and your business. Taken together, these metrics will give you a purposeful glimpse into your team’s everyday consolidated performance, so you’ll feel stable and ready when a fireball is thrown into your juggling routine.
The 5 marketing metrics every digital marketer needs
- Return on Marketing Investment
- Incremental Sales
- Cost per Lead
- Social Traffic and Conversion
- Web Traffic Targets (This Month)
These metrics, to varying degrees, are critical to the success of most marketing teams with defined KPIs. But in addition to monitoring these metrics, you’re likely managing multiple tasks and, depending on the size of your company, multiple teams of people. This is why I break down the 5 marketing metrics in its simplest form. To save you any time that you can possibly save.
Return on Marketing Investment
This may be the most important metric that marketing managers need to track. ROI demonstrates how the department’s time, energy and spend are contributing to company growth. This metric breaks down marketing ROI into campaigns and reveals what’s working and what’s not.
Many marketing ROI efforts focus on the ROI of particular campaigns. This is of course critical to optimizing campaign performance, but so too is it important to measure the true Return on Marketing Investment—and this demands taking stock of all marketing spend (including salaries) and comparing it across, for example, quarterly results.
Incremental Sales
Segueing from ROI, Incremental Sales asks a question fundamental to every company: Are marketing efforts increasing sales revenue? This metric communicates the success of your targeting strategy. High engagement but low Incremental Sales indicates a problem that must immediately be addressed. Reflectively reporting on this metric isn’t enough; you need to monitor it so your team keeps on track for baseline sales.
Cost per Lead
This metric gives managers monetary insight into the success of lead generation campaigns, and starts a conversation about what’s working and what’s not. It’s crucial to track this metric alongside the other two, because lead quality and conversion rate are the backbone of what your team does and ultimately what it will be judged by.
I got a fever. And the only prescription is more… metrics!
Your company’s marketing strategy includes different campaigns, on different platforms, executed by different people, all for the same purpose: generate leads and improve ROI. The following metrics are a few to keep at the top of your list when either optimizing or building out a diversified marketing strategy.
Social Traffic and Conversion
This social media marketing metric connects your team’s social media performance on different platforms to your goal conversion rate. Looking at this metric tells you which social media platforms are performing best for your team; you may be surprised once you dig in! Use this insight to inform your strategy, allocate budget and see if your marketing objectives are meeting intended goals.
Web Traffic Targets (This Month)
As this metric looks at all your team’s efforts and allows you to monitor areas of success and for improvement, it’s perhaps the ultimate metric for a marketing manager who needs a glimpse at the big picture. Again, this is a great metric to pull up in a meeting with your team to start a productive discussion.
Now the metrics that make you a marketing snowflake
I can’t sit here and say for certain that I know every nuanced and unique metric that makes your marketing engine as powerful as possible. What I can say, though, is that you need to spend time investigating what metrics will move the needle beyond the ones that I outlined above.
VuPulse, one of our newer Klipfolio customers, has technology that is a rare breed. Their intelligent links segment, optimize, and personalize the click-to-conversion path post click. We see a lot of interesting companies come through the Klipfolio doors, but this one is unique.
Everything in adtech has been focused on pre click. Finally, there’s an adtech company focusing on everything post click. As you can expect, the metrics they produce are unique and incredibly valuable to their clients. They can now connect the digital dots from beginning to end, with metrics that ACTUALLY matter to them. That’s something we can get behind.
A final word on tracking your team’s marketing metrics
One is the loneliest number.
The most important takeaway from this post is that you can’t just monitor one metric and understand your team’s performance. The beauty of marketing metrics is that they give you a deeper understanding of your team’s efforts and capabilities, while allowing you to leverage insights into your existing and potential customers.
The most effective way to manage marketing performance is to make clear associations between the dots I mentioned earlier. This allows you to at once see the many moving parts while driving your team toward the larger goal. A great way to do this, and it’s a way we’ve used diligently over the years, is to create marketing dashboards which can be designed and customized both for your specific needs as a marketing manager and for the needs of your various teams.
Lastly, monitoring performance is the job of your team as much as it is for you as a manager. Learn more about how Klipfolio can help you with its Facebook Analytics reporting tool. When you have metrics such as the ones above that make it easy for everyone to understand and evaluate direction, the energy you spend juggling is virtually cut in half. Utilizing the strengths of your team and identifying areas of improvement makes it easier for everyone to know what they need to focus on, and then to put their head down to do it.
If you’d like to learn more about Klipfolio or VuPulse metrics, drop us a note.