It’s not all about the initial clicks.

When it comes to digital marketing, most of your campaigns wouldn’t mean a thing unless you’ve been actively measuring your successes. At their core, most social media ads, Google Search Ads, display advertising (and more) all have one shared goal in mind: clicks to your website. You want to reach the right audiences at the right time and introduce yourself, so driving them to an app or website is step one. What happens after that, though? It’s at this point in the marketing funnel that we turn to measure KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators.

A Key Performance Indicator is a defined action or activity completed by a user on your website that your company deems as valuable.

This value can be monetary, such as a purchase, or a bit more abstract, such as time spent on a page. Whatever it is you’re measuring, once a user clicks on an ad and completes one of these KPIs, we know the campaign is working.

What a company measures as a KPI can be as varied as their services and clientele, and it’s determined on a case-by-case basis, depending on the goals of a campaign. For those just getting started, we’ve come to identify a select few.

HERE’S A FEW DIGITAL MARKETING KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIS) WE THINK YOU SHOULD CONSIDER:

Purchases

If you’re an eCommerce business, this is what it’s all about. If a user clicks on your ad, lands on your site, and doesn’t make a purchase, the only thing you gained was awareness. In some cases, that’s not the end of the world. But a sale would be nice, wouldn’t it? At Deep Fried, all e-commerce campaigns are all tagged to track sales and revenue directly back to the individual ad served, so we know which ones are delivering value and which ones aren’t. This data is particularly helpful as we A/B test our creative to continue moving the needle and making the most out of each dollar spent. Most analytics platforms can track this one automatically, but sometimes you’ll want to tag purchase buttons and checkout page URLs.

Downloads

If your company sells services or offers resources, tracking downloads can be a great way to measure success. Whether you’re offering whitepapers, guides, or simply a brochure, adding tracking to a download button is an easy way to see which ads are working. This KPI can also be beneficial to SAAS businesses offering free trials.

Form Fills

Form fills are one of the most common KPIs we track, both for B2B and B2C clients. Forms are added to sites for a variety of purposes, from contacting the company to requesting a quote. Completions of this KPI are easily tracked through submit button clicks, or by landing on a thank you page. PRO TIP: We recommend including the least amount of form fields as possible to ensure your potential customers don’t abandon the form midway through! 

Email Signups

Email marketing remains one of the most effective methods of digital marketing, so garnering email signups and growing your customer database can be a powerful KPI to track. Signup strategies may include sharing proprietary information or offering a discount, but generally will always provide some unique value to the customer. Measuring this KPI can be as simple as button or landing page tracking.

Ticket Sales & Event Signups

Much like an eCommerce business, events-based companies, bands, festivals and the like can track these sales as purchases either through button or URL tracking. Event Signups can work in the same way, or they can be tracked as form fills.

Clicks On Site

This KPI is a little vague, and entirely depends on what you want to track; but the end goal of it remains the same – users clicking to somewhere on your site. Whether that’s a Learn More button or clicking to contact your business, these KPIs are easily tracked through destination/landing pages or button tracking.

Actions On Site

Much like Clicks on Site, this KPI is determined by what you want to track. Tracking Time on Site measures how long users spend on your website and is usually used if you want to track users who read your content. Tracking behavior paths measures users who land on one page and navigate through a set number of pages. These are tracked by setting parameters in your analytics platform.

Page Depth

Tracking this KPI is similar to tracking Time on Site or another action on site, but dives a little deeper into your users navigating around your website. Typically, we deem users who navigate only to the landing page as unqualified leads. Tracking Page Depth, or the number of pages an individual user visits, helps weed out those unqualified clicks and measures how many users are genuinely interested in your company.

Page Time

This KPI tracks time spent on individual pages, and much like page depth, helps weed out unqualified users. Depending on what content is on the landing page, this KPI can be measured in seconds, minutes, etc. to ensure the users landing are engaged with the content and may be a qualified lead.

Bounce Rate

Whether it’s accidental clicks, robots, or some other unexplained phenomenon, nobody likes when users (or…robots) immediately leave your site after clicking an ad. Much like the previous two KPIs, measuring your bounce rate helps keep track of qualified clicks, ensuring your ads’ success. This means building creative that is clear and attracts the right user, and then delivering them content on the landing page that speaks to their needs and expectations.

While this list is not comprehensive, we believe most digital marketing KPIs can fall under one of these categories. Whatever you’re trying to achieve and measure, Deep Fried is here to help. We’re well versed in planning and running digital marketing campaigns for a wide range of businesses, and can help advise you on what KPIs should matter for your company. Contact us today to find out!