Confused About Marketing Metrics and Analytics? Let This Be Your Guide
Tracking marketing metrics and assessing your marketing analytics can be confusing and complicated -- but it’s not something that can be skipped.
Understanding your marketing numbers is how you:
- Gauge your success
- Identify campaigns that are working
- Discard strategies that aren’t working
- Get better results from your efforts
- Show marketing results to decision makers
When tracking the right metrics, you can get more out of your marketing dollars, avoid spending money on things that aren’t producing results, and get insights that drive you forward in the right direction.
To help you learn what you need to track and regularly assess, we created this guide of top marketing metrics and terms you need to know. Knowing what metrics are and why they are important will help you put together a stronger marketing analytics tracking system for your business and marketing campaigns.
First, What’s the Difference Between Metrics and Analytics?
You probably hear both “marketing metrics” and “marketing analytics” get tossed around quite a bit. The two terms do seem to overlap, but let’s see if we can set the record straight.
- Marketing Metrics are individual, defined pieces of data that you collect to measure marketing-related platforms and activities.
- Marketing Analytics is the process of tracking, measuring, and assessing the marketing metrics you collect.
To engage in marketing analytics, you need to track the right marketing metrics. So let’s start there.
19 Top Marketing Metrics to Track
Here are the top marketing metrics to track if you want to engage in marketing analytics.
- Page/Profile Views: Number of times a page has been viewed online (counts multiple views by the same user)
- Visitors/Users: Total number of unique people who view a site or profile
- Number of Followers/Fans: Total number of unique people who have opted in to follow, friend, or like a brand
- New/Returning Visitors: Percentage of people who are new to your site or have visited in the past
- Referral Source: A page or source that led users to a page/profile
- Time on Page: Amount of time a user spends on a page
- Page Views Per Session: Number of pages a user visited during their website visit
- Bounce Rate: Percentage of users who land on a page and quickly exit
- Impressions: Number of users who saw an ad, page, etc.
- Clicks: Number of users who clicked on a link on an ad, page, etc.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of people who saw an ad or page and clicked a link on it
- Engagement Rate: Percentage of people who saw a piece of content and engaged with it by liking, commenting, or sharing
- Redemption Rate: Percentage of people who received a coupon and redeemed it
- Conversions: Number times users saw a call-to-action and took the recommended action
- Conversion Rate: Percentage of people exposed to a call-to-action and took the recommended action
- Cost Per Conversion: The amount of money spent to drive a conversion
- Cost Per Lead: The amount of money spent to acquire a new lead
- Cost Per Customer Acquisition: The amount of money spent to acquire a new customer
- Return on Investment (ROI): The amount of money made through a marketing campaign less the cost of running the campaign
It's worth noting that many of these metrics can be broken down into two categories.
- Organic: Results that are produced naturally, not paid for
- Paid: Results that are paid for
Turning Marketing Metrics Into Analytics
Once you know what marketing metrics are available to track, choose the metrics that work best for your campaign. Consider your goals, and choose metrics that will show progress for your objectives.
For example, if you're running brand awareness campaigns, track marketing metrics that reflect visibility such as impressions, time on page, and profile views. If you're running lead generation campaigns, track metrics that show funnel effectiveness such as click-through rate, conversions, and cost per lead.
Need Help Making Sense of Your Business Data and Analytics? We Can Help.
A New Dashboard to Monitor Your Marketing Analytics
Once you know the difference between marketing metrics and analytics and can identify the marketing metrics that are important to your goals, you can begin creating a marketing analytics plan for your business. Start tracking important metrics and regularly assessing your data to identify trends for your business and campaigns.
One way to set up your system is by signing up for a free mySuite account.
With mySuite, you can track many of your marketing metrics from one place. View your MyArea profile metrics as well as your Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram data all from one dashboard.
You can also set up marketing campaigns and track your results within mySuite. The platform makes it easy to launch campaigns and measure your metrics all from one place.
Whether you run a geofencing advertising campaign for brand awareness or a text marketing campaign for lead generation -- you can set up, manage, and track all of your work with only one login.
Creating your account is free -- and it comes with free business profile for your brand.
Your business profile will appear in neighborhood and business listings all across your local Area site -- introducing your brand to thousands of local readers.
So, start putting your marketing in motion. Create a free mySuite account today to organize your data and use it to optimize your marketing strategies.
And if you still aren't sure you know what steps to take or metrics to track to get the most out of your marketing efforts -- let's talk. The team at MyArea Network loves helping businesses launch and optimize marketing campaigns that build their brand and help them connect with more local customers. If you aren't sure how to get started -- schedule a free consultation with our team.
We'll get to know your brand, give you a tour of mySuite, and drive you toward the marketing strategies most likely to create positive results for your business
