None of your marketing strategies are set in stone. You want to constantly evaluate them to ensure they deliver the desired results. This way, you can determine if you need to make changes or are on the right track. But what data should you be collecting to track your digital marketing success?
Engagement Data – Including Likes, Shares, Comments, and Mentions
One of the most important pieces of data to track is the overall engagement level. Higher engagement typically leads to improved sales and brand loyalty, so this is important. It includes several main elements, although there are also other types of engagement.
- Likes: Having many likes not only shows engagement but also encourages others to look at your content, as people tend to search out popular ideas.
- Shares: Shares are an excellent indicator of brand loyalty. They also help you extend your reach.
- Comments: Comments show a higher level of engagement. More importantly, you can glean information from the comments, such as what your audience likes or doesn’t like.
- Mentions: Mentions help track how many people are talking about you.
When tracking this type of engagement data, your goal is to look for overall trends. Ideally, your engagement should increase or at least stay the same.
Website-related Data
One of the most important data points to track in digital advertising is your website traffic. But you will want to go beyond just the site traffic itself. You also want to track what people do on your website. Specifically, look at:
- Website traffic: This lets you know how many people have visited your website.
- Bounce rate: How many people visit your website only to leave within seconds. A higher number indicates either your website doesn’t appeal to your audience or your ads are attracting the wrong audience.
- Time spent on website: This gives you a better idea of how long you have to convert a website visitor.
Important Conversion Metrics
Yet another category of data that helps you track your digital marketing is conversions. This is especially important as conversions are your end goal. Remember that a conversion refers to someone buying your product or service. Some of the most important of these data points include:
- Lead conversion rate: This rate shows how many of the people you consider to be qualified leads become clients or customers.
- Cost per lead: Combine your data on how much you spend per lead with your data on the lead conversion rate to see how much you pay per converted lead on average. Then, compare this to your revenue per lead to see if your marketing strategies are delivering an ROI.
- ROI: Return on investment compares the amount of money that you invest into a campaign to the amount you receive from it. It is one of the most important measurements of customer success.
- Lifetime value of customers: figuring out the average lifetime value of each successfully converted customer gives you a better idea of your ROI, or at least another way of looking at it.
- Sales revenue: Tracking the sales revenue for various campaigns will give you a better idea of which ones are performing the best.
Bonus: Customer Data to Track to Improve Marketing Content
The above pieces of data focus on measuring the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaign. But you will also want to collect data on customers and potential customers. This will help you better target your advertising, boosting results. These include:
- Demographic data
- Contact information
- IP address information
- Behavioral data
How to Collect the Data
Collecting some of the data is as simple as using a program like Google Analytics. Every business should be using Google Analytics, thanks to its impressive insights. You can also supplement it with other analytic programs. You can use programs that track transactional data in addition to webpage activity. For consumer data, surveys are a great option, as is collecting some data at the point of sale, whether online or in-store.
Conclusion
Tracking data helps ensure that your digital marketing efforts are on track. You should track overall data as well as campaign-specific data. This will let you better allocate your marketing budget to have the largest impact.
