Originally featured on the Creare Advice Centre.

Everyone knows online marketing is essential nowadays but how do you measure how successful a given campaign is?

It’s crucial to measure the return you’re getting on marketing to optimise your methods and maximise chances of success.

Using metrics to determine how much you get from online marketing is the best way to tell whether you’re getting your money’s worth. Start by familiarising yourself with these metrics and use them to calculate whether the amount you’re spending on online marketing is justifiable from the extra business you’re winning.

TOTAL VISITS

Your main website will usually be the primary target for customers and potential customers, but you can measure total visits to any location relevant to your strategy.

Measuring your total number of visits gives you a broad idea of how well your campaign is driving traffic. If your numbers drop from one month to the next, you’ll know to investigate one of your marketing channels to understand why. During a healthy, steady campaign, your total number of visits should steadily grow.

CHANNEL-SPECIFIC TRAFFIC

Use this metric to discover which channels are outperforming others in your digital marketing campaign. You can find it in the acquisition section of Google Analytics. Keep an eye on each of the four main channels: direct (how many people visited your site directly), referrals (how many people visited via external links from other sites), organic (this includes those who found you via search) and social (how many visitors discovered you through social media).

CUSTOMER RETENTION RATE

Subscription-based services, e-commerce platforms and many conventional businesses can measure customer retention by calculating what percentage of customers return to your business to buy again. Low customer retention metric can be an indication of deficient outreach programs, so will help you to shape future marketing campaigns.

COST PER LEAD

To calculate your cost per lead, look at the average monthly cost of your chosen campaign and compare it to the total number of leads you generated with that specific channel over the same period. Make sure you take “invisible” costs such as management time, startup costs, and peripheral expenses into account.

PROJECTED ROI

Your ROI is the single most important factor demonstrates your campaign’s profitability, so is an incredibly important metric. To calculate the ROI for your campaign, you’ll compare your cost per lead against your lead to close ratio, and compare that figure against your average customer value.

By checking these metrics regularly, you’ll be able to refine your tactics, determine which strategies work best and end up with a steady marketing rhythm that can generate more than enough leads to cover your marketing costs and deliver the profit you’re ultimately aiming for.

 

By Hannah Green, Marketing Manager at Creare.

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