Setting the Initial KPIs for your digital marketing campaign

Setting the Initial KPIs for your digital marketing campaign

 

At the beginning of your digital marketing campaigns, it is important to set up common Key -Performance Indicators, KPIs. KPIs enable the monitoring and scoring of your ongoing campaigns and digital marketing efforts. Don’t be worried if you are not exactly sure what indicators to monitor and measure at first. Part of the KPI process is to be agile minded and flexible. Feel confident in the knowledge that no two businesses are 100% alike and they all require different types of measurements.

 

When it comes to digital marketing you need to be a bit split brained in that an entire process is a marathon event during which there will be many sprints. As a starting concept you can track a host of general indicators with the knowledge that to be effective, through trial and error, you will need to boil it all down to only a few key bite-sized elements.

 

This process can take time and will require a commitment from your entire team to focus on the elements that most properly relate to the current progress and stage of your business.

 

Here are some tips to help you in the KPI evaluation process.

 

Ask yourself: What is the single most important thing we should focus on?

 

Here are a couple of common answers:

 

• Having more people on the email list to generate more leads.
• Increase in revenue.
• Increase the click-through-rate.

 

 

Depending on how you answer this question you may want to start tracking:

 

The Creation of new qualified leads

Creating indicators that simply track all leads are important, but you will have to make sure to have controls in place that determine the quality of those leads based on your target market or demographic.

 

For example, if you have a solution that provides a service for teachers you might not want to count the leads that come from plumbers.

 

Once you define what your desired prospects look like you can track them and ultimately build a pipeline that tracks how many of those leads are converted into sales (which are also considered as marketing qualified leads).

 

Amount and Quality of Sales

When asked, we all would say that more sales are better but if you track the performance of your sales you may learn that not all customers are created equally. You may find out that the sales you make in one state are worth twice as much as sales in another state. Or that a customer that participates in “kickoff” call stay engaged twice as long as one that does not participate in a call.

 

In either of these cases it will be important that you are able to track these elements and produce KPIs that include them.

 

Click-through-rate of emails

When you first start building a mailing list it is widely believed that having the largest email list possible is best. Though this is often the case you may find that it is not optimal for you. Maybe, in your case, it is important to take into account the location or the roles of the people you are reaching out to.

 

To make these determinations we like to look at and track the number and demographics of the individuals who open the emails you send. Obviously, to make this metric meaningful you must have a lot of contacts on your email list (list size). However, the most important thing is to maximize the number of users who open the emails. This is called the open rate.

 

Once you determine you starting metrics you need to look at two additional dimensions.

 

1 Are you dealing with a Vanity Metric?

Some KPI numbers you might initially track may perform well and make you feel so good. However, if these metrics do not reflect or indicate the progress of the business, they may be meaningless. We call these, Vanity Metrics.

 

It is important to distinguish the vanity metrics from the Key metrics and then cut them out ASAP.

 

For instance, you might feel so good about website traffic or the size of your email list. But neither of these aspects matter if they do not drive your business. Suppose your site sells solutions to people living in the California desert. What good is it to get traffic from northern Alaska.

 

2 What can you do to impact your selected metrics?

Suppose you have determined that you need to build an email list filled with Real Estate Agents. Once you have made this determination you need to create some performance goals and an action plan to achieve those goals.

 

This action plan can take any shape or form you see fit but it must be measurable over time in such a way that anyone on your team can immediately know if you are on track to hit your goals

 

find new ways to reach out and touch that demographic in a meaningful and measurable way.

 

Defining the right, core, KPIs for your company will take time but when you get them right and manage them properly, they are the best way to track the progress of your company.