10 + Metrics to Measure Marketing Success

What are the best metrics that measure marketing success?

 

While there’s no hard and fast rule, here are 10+ metrics you can’t go wrong with today. 

 

• How Do You Define Marketing Success?
• How to Measure Marketing Success: 10+ Metrics
• - Return on Investment
• - Customer Lifetime Value
• - Overall Website Traffic (+ Traffic Source)
• - Average Session Duration (+ Time on Page)
• - Bounce Rate
• - Click-Through Rate
• - Conversion Rate (+ Rate of Conversion)
• - Social Reach & Social Impressions
• - Social Engagement
• - Email Open Rate
• Automate it!

 

How Do You Define Marketing Success?

Here at DashThis, we define marketing success as "a marketing campaign that accomplishes business goals with an ROI that exceeds the total marketing spend."

 

Depending on your competition, resources, and business model, these marketing goals can range from traffic and rankings to the number of sales-qualified leads and rocketing revenue.

 

Everyone should measure marketing effectiveness to identify revenue gaps and improve their bottom line. 

 

Take this ecommerce dashboard, for instance.

Grab this ecommerce report with your own data!

 

On their own, these ecommerce metrics might not reveal a lot about your store. But when you compare them side by side, you unearth valuable insights.

 

For starters, the concerning product checkouts might inspire an abandoned cart email sequence to engage customers and increase recovered revenue.

 

On a deeper level, measuring marketing success also: 

 

• Eliminates siloed data: The marketing team and sales team are better aligned and can agree on the key performance indicators (e.g., number of leads generated) to stay accountable. No more vanity metrics!
• Optimizes marketing strategy: Make the most of your marketing budget and opportunities even when selling a new product in a unique category.
• Maximizes profits: Identify where revenue is coming from and replicate its success. For example, you can determine which influencers bring in the biggest sales in a referrals program or affiliate marketing initiatives.

 

How to Measure Marketing Success: 10+ Metrics 

Return on Investment

ROI helps us gauge marketing’s impact on growth.

 

Based on the business executive report below, the ROI has dropped significantly compared to the previous year. 

 

Grab this business executive report with your own data!

 

Thanks to the easy-to-digest graphs, it's straightforward to analyze what caused the drop in ROMI. 

 

The report breaks down the marketing cost and revenue for the year (not pictured), where most of the revenue came from, and whether the revenue makes the marketing investment worth it.

 

Customer Lifetime Value

Not all customers are equal.

 

The lifetime value of a customer, when measured with other bottom-of-the-funnel metrics, gives you a clear picture of your customer journey.

 

 

CLTV determines recurring revenue and product-market fit. 

 

Start tracking it with retention, average order value, and revenue to drive actual business results.

 

Overall Website Traffic (+ Traffic Source)

Look at a site’s traffic and source to dig deep into user behavior.

 

Note the Google Analytics report below that examines where the website visitors come from.

 

 

Grab this Google Analytics report with your own data!

 

No doubt it’s helpful for multi-location brands that want to develop location-specific promotional campaigns!

 

Once you figure out your most valuable traffic, focus more on doing what works.

 

Average Session Duration (+ Time on Page)

The average session duration is a favorite metric among marketers. 

 

The longer visitors stay on your site, the more they’ll engage with your content and convert to customers. (Note: Average session duration is often confused with time on page, which refers to the duration of time for a page view until the next).

 

Pro Tip: Track average session duration with referral traffic on Google Analytics to identify where your potential customers often hang out.

 

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate may not be a direct ranking factor on the search engine, but it’s nonetheless a helpful metric when it comes to engaging your audience through paid traffic. 

 

For example, if you’re seeing a high bounce rate for your landing page despite driving traffic to it, that could indicate a disconnect between the ad and landing page.

 

Click-Through-Rate

Ah, the metric that plagues the mind of all PPC marketers. 

 

A high click-through rate is a dream of many, as it shows your content is grabbing attention from the right audience. 

 

Note how the CTR fares in the Facebook campaign report below. 

 

Grab this advertising campaign report with your own data!

 

To boost CTR for your Facebook Ads, consider targeting a niche audience, using compelling visuals, or displaying your hard-won social proof.

 

Conversion Rate (+ Rate of Conversion)

It’s dangerous if high traffic doesn’t translate into business results. 

 

Whether it’s attracting new email subscribers or converting sales-qualified leads into new customers, you can’t deny that the conversion rate is an unskippable KPI for all things customer acquisition.

 

Note the content marketing report below.  

 

Grab this SEO and backlinks report with your own data!

 

The unusually high conversions in May and June might probe you to examine the marketing touchpoints, so that you can identify your best channels and replicate the most effective strategies in the next quarter.

 

Social Reach & Social Impressions

Organic social reach is more complicated than it used to be. 

 

That’s all the more reason we should create hyper-quality content. 

 

Take your pick from these social media KPIs below. 

 

  

Grab this social media report with your own data!

 

Loaded with social media analytics spanning across channels like Twitter and Facebook, it’s only a matter of time before you find the perfect channel and content that drives the biggest results.

 

Social Engagement

High engagement with sales is priceless. 

 

It boosts brand awareness and recognition—two ingredients in unwavering customer loyalty.

 

Note the social media report template below that shows how users interact with the posts on Instagram. 

 

Grab this social media report with your own data!

 

These metrics are immensely helpful for quickly identifying specific themes that resonate with your target audience.

 

Email Open Rate

A high email open rate might mean a myriad of things, such as persuasive subject line, great timing, or targeted email segmentation.  

 

Check out this email marketing report. 

 

Grab this email analytics report with your own data!

 

Based on the high email open and click rate, we can deduce that the segmentation and targeted copy in the body and call-to-action are working.

 

Remember to use benchmarks as reference points. According to MailChimp, the average open rate for creative services or agencies is 21.39%. 

 

As a marketing manager working in an agency, you wear multiple hats. 

 

On top of executing strategies and maximizing profits, you also need to create reports on all digital marketing activities for all clients. 

 

If you’re looking for a reporting tool that keeps you on top of all marketing channels, you’re in the right place.  

 

DashThis automatically pulls data from all your channels in a beautiful report. 

 

Here’s a local service business marketing dashboard that combines marketing metrics from Google Analytics, Google My Business, Google Ads, and more.

 

Grab this local service business marketing report with your own data!

 

To get started:

 

1. Select a dashboard from 40+ templates
2. Connect your favorite data sources 
3. Choose your marketing KPI and other metrics in Preset Widgets

 

Hover over the widgets to edit them.

 

Drag and drop to move them around, resize them to draw attention, or even add a note for reporting benchmarks for clients

 

Send the report automatically to internal account managers, clients, and other stakeholders. 

 

PDF, email, or URL link, you can get your reporting done in a matter of seconds.

 

Automate it!

Now that you’ve learned how to measure success in marketing, create reports in seconds with DashThis.

 

Our reporting tool combines data from multiple sources and turns them into one beautiful dashboard. 

 

Pick a template, select your metrics from the preset widgets, and let DashThis do the rest.

 

Start your free 15-day trial on DashThis to maximize your marketing efforts and get on the fast track to marketing success today.