The Most Important Online Marketing Metrics

Every day there seems to be a new technical term in the world of online marketing managers . Whether KPI, conversion rate, page views or engagement rate – if you want to stay up to date in the online world, it is essential to know the importance and weighting of these online marketing metrics. We bring some light into the darkness and highlight the most important metrics!

First things first

Of all online marketing terms, the abbreviation “KPI” is probably the most legendary. KPI stands for “Key Performance Indicator” and refers to key figures that can be used to measure progress or the degree of fulfillment with regard to relevant objectives. Or to put it quite simply: KPI’s are exactly the values ​​that are important for measuring the success of a company’s marketing activities. Their value, provided it is determined and interpreted correctly, reflects the success or failure of individual campaigns or advertising measures.

In fact, there are so many different KPIs that it often seems difficult to keep track of them. However, it is important to know which online marketing metrics are relevant for your own company and what exactly they mean. So let’s get started.

Social Media Metrics

Reach/ Impressions – describes how often your content was theoretically viewed. Practically speaking, your content can also be seen multiple times by a person and counted as a view once it reappears in their newsfeed . Reach is one of the most important measures of success, but should never be viewed alone and only in connection/interaction with other metrics.

CPC/ CPM – due to the declining organic reach in recent years, the distribution of paid content is an important part of social media. Cost-per-Click (CPC) or Cost-per-Mille (CPM) calculates the costs for one (or 1000) views/clicks of the content, measured against the defined advertising budget. It has been proven that high engagement rates lower CPC/CPM numbers – another indication of why content needs to be as engaging and relevant as possible – it saves money.

Engagement Rate – this shows how much engagement a post generates. There are a number of variables (shares, mentions, likes, comments). While many experts agree that engagement rate is the most important social media metric today (even ahead of reach), to get the most complete picture possible, never analyze engagement rate on its own. Nevertheless, this metric offers a quick, reliable overview of the effectiveness of the respective content.

channel metrics

Channel metrics basically reveal how (through which channel) people get to your website, shop or blog.

• Organic Search – these visitors get to their destination via a search engine
• Direct – these calls cannot be traced specifically, but manual entry of the URL or the call through a bookmark are included here
• Referral – these visitors come to your website from another website, excluding search engines
• Paid Search – these visitors come to you through ads on Search Engine Results Pages (SEA).
• Display – Visitors who clicked on one of your web-based banner ads

consumption metrics

• Page Views – reflects the number of page views, this includes people who have viewed your page multiple times
• Users – the actual number of individuals who have visited a website
• Dwell time – indicates the time visitors spent on a page. If this is very short, this is an indication of a lack of clarity and rapidly growing disinterest.
• Bounce Rate – the percentage of people who bounced straight away after viewing just one page

conversion metrics

Click through rate – How many users actually clicked on one of your ads after seeing it? Easy to calculate with the simple formula: CTR = number of clicks / views

Conversion rate – the number of people who complete the session with the outcome you want (downloads, lead generation, purchase, subscription).

ROI – or Return Of Investment, makes the effectiveness of marketing measures clear from a financial point of view. For the calculation, the sales costs are divided by the costs.  

Finally, it should be mentioned that this is only a small representation of the abundance of the KPI landscape. It is all the more important for companies and their marketing success to identify the most relevant online marketing metrics for the individual case. In addition, it is also important to know how to analyze, compare and combine the results of online marketing metrics. For example, a huge number of page views generated by ads on social channels are worth little if the conversion rate remains low and nobody buys the product.

Also Read : How To Take Advantage Of Voice Searches With Google?