All marketing efforts should have some sort of ROI. Calculating the ROI will help you budget for new campaigns and decide if your marketing goals have been met.
There are a number of ways to measure the performance of your digital marketing efforts, but some of the most common include website traffic, conversion rates, and social media
engagement.
There are many ways to measure website traffic. One common method is to use web analytics software to track page views, unique visitors, and other metrics. Google Analytics is by far the most common; it's a website analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, compiles powerful metrics about visitors and how they've interacted with your site, and provides reporting that ranges from user-friendly, simple metrics to advanced analytics of the most minute detail. There's no easy answer if you're wondering how much traffic a website should have, though, because it's extremely dependent on your goals and brand. If your strategy involves a small number of high-value sales, your traffic goals will naturally be lower than those of a site that aims to sell huge quantities of a product or service. However, we've found that a successful site typically has a minum of 10,000 pageviews per month.
Just like a retail conversion rate, a website's conversion rate refers to the percentage of visitors who ultimately take a desired action--whether that's making a purchase, subscribing to your channel, or signing a petition. Conversion rates are the product of a variety of factors, ranging from the design of your website to the quality of your product/service. When we design a site, however, the conversion rate should always be in mind. In particular, consider:
- Websites should always ensure that it's easy to navigate to the desired action and complete the process. Adding extra pages, unecessary fields, too much information, or slow load times can all make a potential customer less likely to follow through.
- Showcase the value and quality of your products or services. While web design can set the mood and make the process easy, customers are ultimately there for the end result. Ensuring that your customers can quickly and easily understand the purpose, quality, and value of your products should always be key. Information that isn't likely to affect their decision should be placed further down the page. Again, the goal should always be to make it easy for the customer to complete the full process. If the customer has to read through a full manual and technical information before they're able to complete a purchase, it's very likely that they'll move on.
- If your budget allows, conduct testing on various design elements. Websites can be versatile, and even display different information to different visitors. While this can be used to target specific audiences, it can also be used to test the effectiveness of your design and methods. If there isn't a lot of research around how to attract visitors in your market, it's sometimes useful to have two different versions of a page and compare the conversion rates before ultimately settling on a final design.
- Utilize marketing automation tools to follow up with visitors who don't convert immediately. Your digital marketing can continue beyond the first chance. Using current technology, we can offer discounts or other incentives specifically to customers who didn't follow through with the initial purchase, potentially recapturing a lost sale. While this must be done tactfully, to avoid feeling intrusive, it's a great way to boost your conversion rate--and bottom line!
Finally, social media engagement is an easy way to measure the success of your campaigns. Metrics like the number of likes, comments, and shares for posts (or your page as a whole) are excellent ways to see how your social media channels and overall online presence is being received. Most social networks also show business owners metrics on the number of times a post was viewed, the number of times visitors clicked their post, or the number of new followers a page received. All of this can be combined as an overall indicator of your digital marketing.
No matter what your goal is, ask to see numbers when you adverstise online or pay someone else to do it for you. One of the biggest advantages of digital advertising is that it's often possible to tell exactly what steps led a customer or client to follow through with your service. Analyzing this data can lead to increasingly-successful strategies, or be an early indicator that your efforts aren't landing the way they were intended.