Digital marketing is dominated by those with foresight and the ability to adjust to trends before they become commonplace. Online and digital marketing campaigns are destined to fail if you don’t track the metrics that show how your campaigns are performing. Depending upon the systems you use and the distribution partners you work with, data metrics will vary in terms of insight, but if you take the time to look for the following digital marketing metrics you’ll increase the efficiency and productivity of your digital marketing efforts.
Channel-Specific Traffic
This measures the path that customers took to arrive at your site, showing you where they were before arriving and what marketing channel filtered them to your website. It’s important to watch because it allows you to see where drop-in visits come from, so you can alter your campaigns if you’re noticing a dip in overall generic traffic to your site. There are 4 points to watch in channel-specific traffic:
- Direct: When people type your business URL directly into a browser.
- Referral: Individuals who come to your site directly from another site.
- Organic: These individuals performed a search on Google or Bing and found your website link.
- Social: Viewers directed to your site from social media platforms.
Total Conversions
Conversion used to refer to anyone who came to your site and was converted to a paying customer. In the digital world, tracking engagement and customer behavior allows you to funnel them deeper into your marketing efforts.
Conversions today can be viewed as the completion of any desired action, from filling out a lead form to downloading an ebook or signing up for a free trial of your service.
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Bounce Rate
As the name might suggest, the bounce rate is the number of visitors who came to your website but left after viewing only one page. This is most often the entrance page, and indicates that your brand failed to attract them in the first few seconds. However, each page on your site can have a bounce rate, and provide relevant information.
Bounce rate is important to follow because it can tell you whether or not your site content is relevant to your viewers, or if you are using the right landing pages for your paid search campaigns.
Search Trends
Taking the time to look at search trends can help you better understand the concepts you don’t have a lot of control over in marketing.
For example, if you run a small landscaping business you are bound to notice a dip in searches for “landscapers near me” during the winter months compared to the summer months. Beyond the factors you can’t control, following search trends allows you to decipher whether or not you are using the right keywords to target consumers for your campaigns.
New vs. Returning Visitors
To be clear, all visitors should be welcome on your website. However, understanding the difference in traffic between a slew of new visitors and a steady stream of returning visitors is important.
New visitors can be the result of recent mentions on popular blogs or social media, or even a fresh press release. On the other hand, a strong flow of returning visitors tells you that the content on your website is high enough in quality to encourage repeat visits and business from consumers.
User Demographics
Google Analytics gives you the power to view demographic information on your visitors, including age, gender, location, and in some cases even their interests.
As an example, a useful demogrpahic to keep tabs on is the user’s geolocation information. If you can see where users are coming from to view your site, you’ll be able to determine with greater accuracy whether your digital marketing campaigns are providing relevant information to the right people.
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There are countless metrics to follow in digital marketing, and all of them give you the power to make necessary adjustments to ensure you’re getting the most bang for your buck. The metrics above represent some of the most important to follow.