Digital marketing analytics is the practice of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data from digital marketing campaigns and strategies. It involves using various tools and techniques to track and measure the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts, such as website traffic, email open rates, social media engagement, and conversion rates.
The data collected through digital marketing analytics can provide valuable insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends, which can inform future marketing strategies and tactics. By analyzing and understanding the data, digital marketers can optimize their campaigns to reach their target audience more effectively and improve overall performance.
Some common tools used for digital marketing analytics include Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and Facebook Analytics. These tools provide a range of metrics and reports that can help marketers evaluate the success of their digital marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
Why do we need digital marketing Analytics?
Every business intends to make profits at the end of the day, with whatever they may be selling. To make decent revenue you need figures. If you do not keep track of numbers when launching a marketing campaign then, it could be that
you tend to lose a lot of money, even if the marketing funnel, strategy, campaigns, or all of them are set right. There are a few important metrics used to measure the success of each level of the campaign and also metrics to check the overall performance of the digital marketing funnel.
These measurements vary depending on the marketing channel, audience, campaign type, and the time and season of the campaign launch. With the right kind of metric, you could reach the right specific type of audience for your campaign and also, decide if you should run the campaign in the first place.
You can also perform comparisons to choose the right marketing channel or platform for getting a higher return. When the acquisition cost is lesser than the customer value then there is always scope for scaling your business while being profitable.
Which Digital Marketing Metrics should we consider?
The above image shows important metrics used to measure each stage of the digital marketing funnel which is described in detail below.
As you may already know, the digital marketing funnel has 4 stages that lead to customer acquisition and the next stage are for retaining these customers to increase return on investment(ROI). The funnel can be further classified into three areas TOFU, BOFU, and MOFU depending on the buyer's journey.
Awareness
Since this forms the "Top of the funnel" (TOFU) it mainly caters to viewership metrics. Website traffic, Returning Traffic, Organic Reach, Bounce Rates, Referral Traffic, Social and Direct traffic, CPM, CPV, VCR, and Impressions are a few relevant metrics to measure market reach for your brand.
Traffic
Website Traffic is usually referred to the number of visitors to your website which is measured through users, page views, and sessions. Users are the actual number of people who visited your website. While page views give a count of the number of times the page was viewed, the session gives the number of times people visited your website. Website traffic can be from different channels like social media being social traffic, through referrals which are referral traffic, from search engines which are organic traffic, or direct visits which are direct traffic.
Social traffic on social media obtained through post engagement is different from "Reach".
Returning Users are those users who visited your website more than once, while unique users are those users who visited your website once, it is their first time.
Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors leaving a website page without taking any action.
Organic Reach is the count of unpaid views by unique accounts for a given content on social media when the goal is to generate more eyeballs through SMM. While Paid Reach is when the count of views is got through paid mediums could be sponsored ads or paid promotions. While reach measures no of users reached social traffic measures engagement on social media posts.
Impressions are the number of times the content was displayed to the target audience. It is used in both web and social media analytics.
Cost per Mille (CPM) is an advertising metric that measures the cost of every 1000 impressions.
Cost per view (CPV) is a metric used for video campaigns that measure the cost per video view. This pricing model is also used in mobile user acquisition and brand awareness campaigns.
Video Completion Rate (VCR) is again a metric used in video campaigns that measure the percentage of viewers watching a video from start to finish.
Interest
This stage deals with audience engagement. The people who were attracted through steps taken in the first stage will turn leads at this point when they download a lead magnet or agree to share their email or become followers and subscribers. The stronger their engagement with the brand the more they turn to Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) and the metrics used here are a part of engagement metrics. Leads, CPL, Opt-In Rates, CTR, Open Rates, Sentiment Score, and Net Promoter Score are a few relevant engagement metrics. This forms a part of the "Middle of the Funnel" (MOFU).
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) is the number of leads who showed interest in your brand service or product.
Cost per Lead (CPL) is a pricing model where the advertisers pay a price for each lead generated.
Opt-In Rate is a metric related to email marketing that calculates the percentage of visitors who subscribed to the email list.
Click Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of clicks your ad receives to that of ad impressions.
Open Rates is an email marketing metric that measures the percentage of open emails.
Sentiment Score is a score that analyses the customer sentiment to be positive negative or neutral in terms of their feedback and reviews
Net Promoter Score is a metric that is a part of customer experience programs that measures the loyalty and satisfaction of the customer towards the brand.
Desire
This is where the Marketing Qualified Lead turns into a prospective customer. At this stage, the Sales team starts to pitch in depending on the desire expressed by the MQL. The stronger the consideration to make a purchase the lead turns to a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). Funnel Drop Offs, Lead scores, and Conversion Rates are a few relevant lead-based metrics for measuring this part of the funnel. This stage also forms a part of the "Middle of the Funnel" (MOFU).
Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) are the number of leads who have moved from MQL to SQL in their sales journey and have been identified by the sales team to be prospective customers.
Funnel Drop-Offs are the number of visitors who left the funnel without completing the purchase. It is usually calculated at different stages of the purchase funnel and is of relevance when the stage is Desire.
Lead Scores are a score given to your leads to rate them according to their closeness to your buyer persona.
Conversion Rate is the percentage of converted customers to the total visitors.
Action
This is the stage where a prospect turns into a customer. This means after exhibiting a strong desire to make a purchase the prospect actually makes a buy. There may be drop-offs at this point of the funnel which is usually followed through retargeting. At this point, the customer acquisition has materialized and the marketing cycle is mostly completed. The campaign can be termed successful if the revenue generated is profitable. This stage forms the part of the "Bottom of the Funnel" (BOFU). CAC, CPS, CPA, LTV, ROAS, Sales Velocity, and ROI are a few relevant sales metrics.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the cost required to acquire a customer.
Cost per Sale (CPS) is an advertising metric that is used to measure the cost required by the advertisement to generate a sale.
Cost per Acquisition (CPA) is the cost required to acquire a customer through an advertising campaign or a channel.
Lifetime Value (LTV) measures the average revenue the customers will generate throughout their relationships with the brand. It is an aggregate metric, unlike CLV.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is the revenue earned for every dollar spent on an ad campaign.
Sales Velocity is the measurement of how quickly revenue gets generated from the sales funnel.
Return on Investment (ROI) is the revenue generated against the marketing spend. The calculated value will include ROAS.
Retention
This is the stage where you make sure your customers don't leave you. The brands take appropriate measures to retain these customers as their leaving can create a loss. Firstly it is important to know the reasons a customer may leave your brand before you can take up customer retention strategies. Customer churn means either a customer closed a subscription, canceled a contract, or decided not to shop online from your store. The churn could also affect your ROI. Customer Loyalty Programs and Customer Relationship Management are a few techniques for retaining valuable customers depending on CLV.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a prediction of the amount the company can earn from an individual customer in the lifetime of their relationship.
If you find this article helpful, don't forget to read other posts on digital marketing.
