In a time when almost anything can be measured, there is no dearth of metrics for marketers. But how do we make sense of it all? And how can we measure its impact on the business? This cheat sheet puts together the metrics that matter across four key channels that are most employed by digital marketers today: web, email, ad media and social media. More crucially, it shows how to mine these metrics to extract measurable results for your business.

MARKETING METRICS THAT MATTER

STORY IN FIGURESA glance at surveys conducted on usage of metrics by business.

WEB SOCIAL

MEDIAPERFORMANCE

eDM

Audience

Who makes up your visitors

- Location- Language- Technology & mobile- Recency, frequency, and new vs. returning

Design and develop your site to cater to your target audience profiles.

Behavior

What drives loyalty and engagement

- Bounce rate - % of visitors that see only one page during a visit.

- Time they spend on page/site - for content-oriented sites, tells how interesting your material is.

Content

Content performanceContent that generates the most visits and conversions.

In-page analyticsUsually represented as "heat maps" or "bubbles". Shows you whether your site layout is optimal, where visitors focus on and what they click (whether calls-to-action are motivating or visible enough).

Social Ads - Facebook & LinkedIn

Click-through rate (CTR), Cost-per-click (CPC), Cost per Impression (CPM)

Measure of how your ad performs. CPC is a better metric for action-oriented (e.g., download/sign-up/buy) while CPM is more useful for awareness-oriented campaigns.

Engagement

Forwards tell how many have used the "send to friend" functionality (if available and enabled).

Unsubscribes tell how many have unsubscribed. High rate indicates you may be sending irrelevant and/or unsolicited messages.

Buzz / Share of Voice

Basic

More useful

Sentiment Analysis (% positive, % negative, % neutral)

Relates to Brand Awareness and Reputation

Engagement

Basic

More usefulConversation

Measure of content effectiveness

Thought Leadership: # of best answers in LinkedIn

Customer Service

Applause rate

Social Reach

# of followers across all socialplatforms (Fans, Friends, Followers, etc.)

Measure of marketing program effectiveness.

Conversion

Use tracking links (usually seen as "utm_source" in the URL), generatedby tools like Google to see how many email recipients performed thedesired action (e.g., downloaded white paper, or filled form).

Tells whether your landing pages reflect email campaign promises.

Depth of VisitPercent of email campaign visits that last longer than xx pages.Important when email is meant to drive deeper site engagement.

Conversion

Lead GenerationFor e.g., click-throughs from social posts to form fill-up, newsletter opt-ins

Social sales effectiveness

Revenue Metrics

Measure the aggregate impact oncompany revenue

# of New Names# of Prospects

Contribute to sales pipeline

# Marketing Qualified Leads Reflects the % of wins contributed by marketing

# Sales Accepted Leads

Value of revenue contributed by marketing

# Opportunities# Wins, Losses# Churn (sales renewals/retentions)

Sources

Avinash Kaushik - Analytics SuperguruActionable Social Analytics by Awareness IncCampaign MonitorDefinitive Guide to Marketing Metrics and Analytics by Marketo

Revenue PerformanceManagement

Revenue Engine Effectiveness

Associated metricsAverage selling priceSales cycle timeSales productivityWin ratesTime to ramp a new sales rep

Program Performance

Measure the incremental contributionof individual marketing programs.

Single attribution assigns all value to the first or last touched program (e.g., lead source/product demo).

Single attribution with revenue cycle projections estimates program's long term impact based on historical conversion metrics.

Multiple attribution recognizes contribution of multiple program touches to close a deal. Revenue allocated by time (immediate vs. months ago), by role key decision maker vs. influencers, by program type roundtable event vs. website visit.

Loyalty and Satisfaction

Net Performance Score is based on customer answers to the question, “how likely are you to refer us to friend or colleague?

Tools

Google Analytics, Omniture, Webtrends, etc.

Tools

Campaign Monitor, ExactTarget, MailChimp etc.

Tools

Radian6, MeltwaterBuzz, JamiQ, Brandtology, webfluenz etc.

Traffic Sources

Sources that bring in the most visits

Sources that generate the most conversions

CONVERSION

ROI

Goal Funnels

Track the series of pages visitor is expected to seeen route to a goal.

Multi-channel Funnel

Shows how site sources (marketing channels such as paid/organic search, site referrals, social networks, email newsletters) work together to create conversions, based on sequences of interactions called conversion paths.

Influence

Measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Influence score is counted when you create content or engage others. Measured based on:

True reach: how many people you influenceAmplification: how much you influence themNetwork impact: influence of your network

Essential Metrics

Open rates % of people who opened your email. Not accurate as many email clients don't download images by default.

Click-throughs tells how many times a link or multiple links were clicked.

Click-to-open Ratio tells of those who opened, how many took action.

Bounce ratesHard bounce (non-existent addresses) and soft bounce (temporary issues).

Delivery Rate

Subscriber Retention Rate or Growth Rate

Measures technical effectiveness, relevance and targeting of messages.

Search Ads

Matched SearchTells you what the user searched when your ad was served. Helps you optimize the keywords your bid for to drive better ad performance and lower bounce rate.

Keyword PositionHelps determine which keyword position gets you the most clicks.

Conversion

Set up Goals to determine how well your site meets specific objectives- URL Destination (e.g., from lead gen form page to thank you page). Works well with goal funnels.- Visit Duration- Pages per visit- Event (downloads, Flash/AJAX element interactions)

Segmentation is key to diving deep into specific areas to get insights that can drive meaningful action.

Amplification

total # of industry conversations

# of conversations mentioning your brand

total # of relevant mentions

# of brand mentions by influencers & vocal customers

# of total sales

# of sales coming from social channels

Total Marketing and Sales Investment

Total Revenue or Bookings

# of email campaign visits

# of email campaign visits with a single Page ViewSite Bounce Rate =

+1s per post

# of likes/favourites

week in Google+

# of hangouts

replies per post

# of comments

retweets per post

# of shares

total # of published posts or pieces of content

# of Likes, Shares, Retweets & blog comments

# subscribers

(# subscribers – bounce backs – unsubscribes)

# of emails sent

(# of emails sent - # of bounces)

GO

AdWords

How much of a business priority are the following information requirements?

Cost of acquiring a customer/lead

Impact of content on acquisition

Drop-off across key site processes

Lifetime value of customers

Benchmarking traffic

Customer journey over multiple visits

Performance versus competitors

Relationship between online/offline behavious

Customer behaviour on partner sites

High priority Medium priority Low priority

15%29%57%

17%34%49%

12%39%49%

20%35%45%

18%47%35%

20%46%34%

23%44%33%

30%45%26%

46%40%15%

How does your organisation measure online reputation and social media activity?

2010 2011

Paid-for reputationmonitoring tools

40%

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10% 9%12%

21% 22%

19%

12%

24%

33%

27%

21%

5%

0%Free tools / our

own customisedfeeds and

dashboards

Web analyticstool

A combinationof the above

We don’t measure

Do you integrate web analytics with data from other sources?

59%

41%Yes

No

Does your organisation have a framework for analysing customer journeys that cross online and offline?

Yes

No

Don’t know