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7 digital marketing metrics every marketer should be measuring

If you're stuck in a rut of measuring the same old metrics, it might be time to review what you're monitoring, says guest contributor Jericho Gonzales.

Tami Iseli

By Tami Iseli, 5 April 20195 minute read

This is a guest post authored by Jericho Gonzales, a Content Marketing Specialist at Campaign Monitor

Marketing is an ever-evolving world, so you always have to be attuned to new information, trends, and practices. Metrics that were important one or two years ago may no longer be considered that way today. If you want to stay up to date on the latest analytics trends and amp up your marketing, here are seven digital marketing metrics you should be measuring.

1. Mobile traffic

Now more than ever, users spend a great deal of time on their mobile devices and phones. In fact, as of 2018, more than 52% of all website traffic worldwide was generated through smartphones.

People do everything on their smartphones and tablets, whether it’s buying groceries, ordering take-away, or shopping for shoes and clothes. This is why it's important for you to track your mobile traffic: the percentage of your total web traffic that originates from mobile devices.

If your website is generating low mobile traffic, one possible reason may be that your website isn’t optimised for mobile or mobile-friendly. If that’s the case, you’d need to sit down with your development team and identify areas of your website that can be improved.

2. Cost per lead

This is how much a lead that was generated from a specific campaign costs. Determining your cost per lead for any one of your campaigns involves some simple maths. Cost per lead is essentially the total amount you spent on a lead generation campaign for a period of time, divided by the number of leads that campaign generated in the same period.

$ Cost of campaign ÷ Number of leads = $ Cost per lead

Knowing the cost per lead of your campaign allows you to measure its effectiveness. The lower the cost per lead is, the more effective the campaign. 

3. Close ratio

Another way to assess the performance of your lead generation campaigns is to calculate their close ratios. The difference is that, with this metric, you are tracking conversions instead of leads.

To calculate a campaign’s close ratio, take the total number of conversions (or successful sales) from that campaign, then divide it by that campaign’s total number of leads generated. Finally, multiply the result you get by 100 to view the ratio as a percentage.

Number of conversions or sales ÷ Number of leads x 100 = % Close

4. Channel-specific traffic

Your website traffic originates from a wide variety of sources that include the following:

  • Direct traffic – when users visit your website directly without clicking on a link from an external website
  • Referral traffic – when users click on a link leading to your website from a different site
  • Organic search – when users find your website via a search engine
  • Social media – when users click on links in social media posts that take them to either your homepage or a specific page on your site
  • Email – when users click links embedded in your email messages
  • Paid search – when users click links on paid ads and sponsored listings.

By monitoring the traffic you get from various channels, you can determine where your audience is coming from, and which channels are the most valuable. You can then allocate more of your resources to this channel in order to maximise traffic.

5. Exit rate

This is the percentage of your visitors who exit from a specific page after visiting several other pages on your website. Exits should never be confused with bounces. A bounce occurs when a user exits your website after viewing only a single page. Exits, on the other hand, are only counted after a user views more than one page in a session before choosing to exit from a specific page. A good way to learn which pages on your website need some work is by keeping an eye on their exit rates. 

6. Conversion funnel rates

Regardless of what product or service your brand offers, you most likely have a conversion funnel. This is the journey by which you transform potential customers into leads, and then convert these leads into paying customers.

Always pay attention to how users behave at every stage of your conversion funnel. This way, you’re on top of any possible problem before it gets worse. For instance, if you noticed that you’re capturing very few leads through a certain landing page, there’s likely a problem (or problems) with the landing page that you need to deal with. It could be that the design is too complicated, it could be that the headline doesn’t grab attention, or it could be the benefit for the potential customer is unclear.

7. Top landing pages

Your landing pages drive traffic and generate leads at the same time. They are a critical component of your entire marketing strategy, so you need to analyse which landing pages are effective at capturing leads (top landing pages) and which ones are not. Once you know your top landing pages, you can make more improvements to them. Doing so enables you to maximise their performance so they generate more leads.

Wrap up

One of the keys to your success as a marketer in 2019 is refreshing your marketing analytics. Take the time to review the metrics you are measuring. If you want to ensure that your analytics strategy remains effective in the future, consider incorporating these seven digital marketing metrics into your analytics toolbox.


About the author
After seven years of feeling empty and dissatisfied with his career in the financial industry, Jericho Gonzales decided to follow his dreams and become a writer. When not busy with wordcraft, he immerses himself in the worlds of fantasy and science fiction, whether it be in the form of novels, video games, or movies.

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