You have taken the time to build out a great website, you are now advertising, either digitally, with traditional media or both, and you want to see if it will help your business’ bottom line. How do you measure that? What are the indicators that measure whether or not a prospect is on the path to becoming a customer? And which metrics matter most?
It is easy to look at all of the numbers and get excited by what looks to be growth. But if these numbers don’t equate to increased sales, it’s a game changer. KPI’s vary somewhat by industry, but the following are some general guidelines to consider, starting at the top of the funnel and working down:
How many site visits did you receive in your measuring period and what was the cost per visit. The more visits and lower the cost, the greater your chances for success.
Click through Rates are essential for paid ad campaigns and email. A higher CTR in paid search can drive down your cost per click while a poor CTR will raise the cost per click.
What channels are driving your traffic? Is there a specific advertising channel that gets the most people to your site? If so, that may be a source that should receive more budget.
How much time was spent on site? It is great if an advertising channel drives a lot of traffic to your site but if people leave quickly (a corollary metric is Bounce Rate) then you are not reaching an engaged audience and they probably will not become customers.
Website interactions are a good indicator of the engagement of your audience. Did they watch a video, download a white paper, look at product detail pages or take some other action that indicates interest? For some businesses, especially brick and mortar, visits to the Hours and Directions page can be telling. For professional services the Contact Us page is a valued engagement.
Ultimately, we want our advertising to make money. So what are the factors that indicate we are increasing our leads and sales, while reaching people further down the buying funnel.
Start by measuring the number of direct contacts you had with potential customers. How many people filled out a form on your site asking for more information or looking to schedule an appointment. If you have a click to chat or text option are you increasing the prospects you engage with.
Phone calls have a great value to all kinds of business. A phone call is an action that indicates interest and needs to be carefully tracked. Using a service that tracks calls can deliver vital information such as the lead source, the time most people call, keywords they used to find you and more. If you run a lead generation campaign, call tracking is a must.
And if you are a retailer, counting store visits is essential. Were those visits appointments set from phone calls or other leads, or were they walk-ins? How many of each did you close? Once you know how many people became customers and what they actually purchased, you can start to to calculate return on investment(ROI) for each lead source and begin to understand the lifetime value of a customer.
Measuring KPI’s requires some planning and then careful execution. It takes time and effort. But with accurate reporting, and careful analyzation, KPI’s will put you on the path to success.
