Scrupulously Elaborated KPIs of Digital Marketing

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic on a website is a measure of the number of internet users that land on a website via unpaid search results. The organic (unpaid) traffic on a website is the volume of internet users that discover a website through search engine queries rather than through paid ads or referrals from other websites.

Organic traffic as a KPI

For digital marketers, organic traffic is a very essential KPI to determine if they are able to cater to specific and targeted user queries made on search engines. if lacking expertise in the field, having a dedicated website design and development services provider to build a solid inbound marketing strategy is a wise decision, at least at the first fundamental stages of a new website. Users coming organically to a website are looking for specific solutions and hence the possibility of conversion is high. It is a clear measure of digital marketing success and presence on search engine results pages. In fact, it has greater relevance and significance than any other form of traffic to gauge marketing performance.

2. Keyword Ranking

This key performance indicator in SEO is an evaluation of the positioning of a web page in search engine results pages corresponding to search queries on a specific keyword. For instance, if a user makes a search query for the best cafes in Melbourne with the keyword being cafes in Melbourne, the position of a particular web page in search results containing this keyword will be its keyword ranking.

Keyword ranking as a KPI

Again, keyword ranking is a direct measure of the success of digital marketing and SEO strategies applied by digital marketers. As a KPI, keyword ranking percentage explains in quantitative terms the performance of a domain for a specific keyword. It can also be essentially used to measure the performance of competitors for the same keyword to optimize SEO strategies. It clearly tells the number of keywords a domain is ranking for among the top SERPs.

3. Leads/Conversions

It gives a measure of the SEO leads that a business is able to generate and convert over a period of time. In this digital age, SEO is playing a crucial role for businesses in terms of generating B2B and B2C leads with the aim of attaining higher sales via conversion. SEO helps a great deal in lead generation by attracting potential leads to a website through organic search and target keywords.

Leads/Conversions as a KPI - The rate of converted leads as a KPI directly tells in quantifiable terms the number of leads that have been successfully converted into sales as a proportion of the leads generated by marketing campaigns. Hence, it is one of the most important ways to gauge the success of marketing campaigns in terms of driving sales. If conversions are low, it will hint at the inefficiency in marketing strategies and tactics. Hence, by tracking this KPI, marketers can constantly optimize their marketing efforts for higher conversions.

4. Bounce Rate

In SEO terms, bounce rate is a measure of the proportion of visitors on a website who leave the website without initiating any action such as opening links, subscribing to notifications, making purchases, or filling forms. As per GoRocketFuel, the average bounce rate is usually between 41 percent and 51 percent.

Bounce rate as a KPI

The bounce rate percentage helps marketers to measure how much engagement the content on the webpage is able to create. A high bounce rate percentage will imply that the content on the webpage is not much relevant to the users’ queries and is not able to engage users for long. In that case, users will be visiting the webpage and clicking away in no time. By measuring the bounce rate at regular intervals, marketers can refine their content strategies and plug the gaps in the strategy.

5. Pages per session

Pages per session is a key performance indicator that gives an estimate of the number of page views on a website proportionate to the number of active sessions on the website. In other words, it gives an account of the number of pages a user views during a session on average. It defines the kind of engagement a website is able to create among the visitors on the site compelling them to initiate actions.

Pages per session as a KPI

As a KPI, the pages per session can be an effective and reliable measure of the ease of use, engagement, and design performance of a website. If the number of page views is pretty less as a proportion of the total number of sessions, it hints that users are not further engaging with the website by visiting internal links or other sections of the website. By tracking this metric, marketing strategies can be improved consistently to increase the number of page views during an active session.

6. Page Load Time

In uncomplicated terms, page load time can be defined as the average time that a webpage takes to load or show up on a screen. It is noteworthy that the page load time takes into account the time between a user clicking on a link or typing a web address and the time taken for a page to completely load in the browser.

Page load time as a KPI

Page load time is a very specific and direct measure of a website’s performance with respect to user engagement. If a webpage takes too long to load, users will disengage and will click away from the page. As explained by Google, ideally the page load time should be below 2.5 seconds and in case, it is above 4 seconds then it is considered to be poor.

7. Average Session Duration

In terms of Google Analytics, the average session duration is the measure of the amount of time that each visitor spends on a website as a whole on average inclusive of the time spent on all pages.

Average session duration as a KPI

In quantifiable terms, this KPI helps in tracking data of the time spent by users on a website. This data can be used to measure the website's performance in the context of its user-friendliness, relevance of content, and engagement. Research indicates that an ideal benchmark for a good average session duration is 2 to 3 minutes.

8. Return on investment

Return on investment in terms of SEO or marketing, in general, is a quantitative measure of the returns yielded by the investments made in marketing campaigns, tools, or strategies. This is a measure of the increase in the company’s revenue against the investment in marketing.

Marketing ROI as a KPI

As an essential and realistic metric, ROI gauges the return in terms of revenue for every dollar spent on marketing. Needless to say, the ultimate purpose of marketing is to boost sales and hence revenue. If the ROI is low, the marketing strategies need to be refined and optimized for better results, and higher ROI as a significant part of the organizational budget is allocated to marketing.

9. Average time to new content

Average time to new content is a measure of the average time between successive content (articles, blogs, videos, podcasts) postings on a website. Needless to say, if the average time to new content will be less for a website, it will stand a better chance of greater engagement and attracting greater organic traffic.

Average time to new content as a KPI

With this KPI, marketers can quantifiably measure their effectiveness in terms of posting new content on the website with the idea of getting more backlinks, traffic, and hence leads. If the average time to new content is too high, it means that a website is not performing well with respect to posting engaging and relevant content regularly.

10. Branded organic Traffic

Branded traffic measures the volume of website traffic that a website is able to attract through branded keywords, for instance, the name of the brand or the niche of the brand. It helps a business in measuring and evaluating the success of its advance digital marketing campaigns facilitated by SEO strategies. Examples of branded keywords include ‘Samsung Smartphones’, ‘Microsoft Solutions’, and so on.

Branded Traffic as a KPI

This metric can be highly useful in measuring the performance of branded keywords in getting higher conversion rates, higher CTR, organic backlinks, and more direct traffic. Also, branded traffic is important for measuring the effectiveness of SEO strategies in responding to local branded queries.

11. Non branded organic traffic

In contrast to the branded traffic on a website, non-branded traffic is a measure of the website traffic coming from keywords that do not include the name of the brand. Non-branded traffic is a measure of how successful a company’s content marketing strategies prove to be in terms of fetching website traffic.

Non branded traffic as a KPI

This is a direct measure of the content marketing strategies of a company or website to attract traffic to the website. It gives a clear insight into the performance of content and technical SEO tactics. When a website is providing informative content to users and is implementing effective SEO strategies, the traffic will be high even without branded keywords.

12. Backlinks

Backlinks are also known as inbound links or incoming links in terms of SEO and affect the ranking of a webpage. In the easiest terms, backlinks can be explained as links from a given website to a webpage on a different website. Here is notable that a higher number of backlinks on pages make the pages rank high in the search engine results.

Backlinks as a KPI

In terms of SEO success, inbound links have great importance for a website as they bring traffic from other websites. A high number of qualitative backlinks will help a website rank higher and will have a huge impact on getting higher leads. Tracking the number of acquired backlinks will be a relevant measure of a company’s strategy to get more traffic and inbound links from other websites.

13. Click-through rate

The Click-through rate is a measure of the number of people who open the links contained on a web page, sent to them in marketing emails, or links contained in different advertisements of a brand. It is the proportion of the people who click on these links to the number of viewers of emails, advertisements, or web pages.

CTR as a KPI

CTR can be an essential KPI to measure the performance of keywords, ads, and free listings. All the keywords, listings, and ads have their respective CTR which can be tracked to measure their performance in real-time. A good CTR will indicate that users are associating with the ads and listings as they find them helpful and relevant. On the contrary, a low CTR will mean that the audience being targeted is wrong or the ads and listings are convincing enough to make users click. To add, by gauging the CTR, marketers can identify which ads and listings are getting the most clicks and which ones need to be refined.

14. Cost per lead

The cost per lead is the average cost incurred by marketers or companies to acquire each new lead. It is a measure of the cost-effectiveness of marketing campaigns with respect to winning new leads which can be converted further to drive sales.

Cost per lead as a KPI

With this KPI, marketers can measure how cost-effective their marketing efforts are proving to be to acquire new leads. A good marketing campaign will be the one in which the cost per lead is low and a considerable number of leads are acquired. In terms of dollars, this KPI gives marketing teams a clear idea of how much they are spending for each lead and how it compares with the ideal cost per lead.

15. Gross Rating Point

Gross Rating Point is a widely used performance metric that is used to gauge the impact of marketing and advertisement campaigns. It gives a measure of the number of people in the specified target audience who would have likely viewed the marketing advertisements of a company.

Gross Rating Point as a KPI

Gauging the GRP at regular intervals plays a key role in marketing planning. It gives a quantifiable measure of the impact and the success of advertisements in reaching their target audience. If the GRP is low, marketers can improvise and look for ways to expand the outreach of advertisements with respect to the target audience.

16. Target Rating Point

Target Rating Point, better known as TRP is one of the most basic and significant measures to track marketing and advertising performance. The Target Rating Point enables a quantifiable evaluation of the proportion of the target marketing audience of a company that views marketing commercials and advertisements of the company.

TRP as a KPI

By measuring the TRP, companies can easily evaluate and track the viewership of their marketing advertisements. A low TRP will mean that the company has not been able to get the kind of viewership and engagement it aims for within its target audience. By constantly tracking the TRP, marketing teams can work effectively to increase the viewership among the target audience.

17. Return on advertising spend (ROAS)

ROAS gives a clear value of the profit that the marketing team is able to make from advertising. With this KPI, marketers assess the financial performance of advertising campaigns in terms of their profitability for the business. ROAS gives a monetary value earned against each dollar spent on advertising.

ROAS as a KPI

As mentioned above, ROAS is a very critical metric to gauge the financial performance of advertising campaigns. It gives a clear picture in monetary terms with respect to which campaigns have offered high returns and the campaigns that did not live up to the expectations. Subsequently, marketing teams can boost campaigns offering high ROI and discontinue the campaigns that resulted in losses.

18. Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Lifetime Value is a salient metric that gives a measure of the economic value (in monetary terms) that a customer holds for business. It is a metric associated with the long-term association of the customer with the business. To explain, it measures the economic value brought by an individual till the time that individual remains a customer of a business. What is important here is that this metric is applied to measure the value of customers across all marketing channels.

CLV as a KPI

CLV is an effective KPI to ascertain the long-term value of a marketing channel. By using this KPI, marketers can effectively and accurately determine which marketing channels offer a high customer lifetime value and hence, can further boost those channels for drawing greater value. Having said that, it is an important metric to gauge the success of a company’s long-term marketing vision and strategic plans.