Just as in other areas of a company, the metrics and KPIs are also extremely important data for the development of digital marketing strategies.
Since everything is measurable online, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or Key Performance Indicators are an essential starting point for defining more effective actions, just like metrics.
What, then, differentiates one criterion from the other? And how can each of them assist in achieving my business’s objectives?
In this article, we have gathered everything you need to know about metrics and KPIs, as well as some practical examples within marketing for your project. Let’s take a look.
Metrics and KPIs: what is the difference?
Before we discuss the definition of KPIs and metrics to monitor in your digital marketing strategy, we need to differentiate these two terms.
The confusion is normal, but it’s important to know that they are not the same thing. Metrics are the raw performance data of your project, showing everything that happened across your different channels over a certain period.
When some of these metrics become important for your business development and achieving set objectives, they can become Key Performance Indicators.
In other words, KPIs are more related to specific company results and are essential for the decision-making process.
They help redefine new paths and goals that lead to achieving the primary objective. Below, we provide some examples of indicators focused on digital marketing.
How to choose the right KPIs for my business
If you have an online business, such as an ecommerce, or use the Inbound Marketing strategy to attract new clients, defining the right indicators makes all the difference for your success.
First of all, KPIs must be tied to your objectives, and of course, this will depend on which growth stage your company is. Are you just starting and need to attract potential consumers, or are you already established in the market and need to retain them?
For those who have just started an Inbound strategy, for example, it is important to pay attention to metrics related to attraction, such as
- Number of Email Subscribers
- Visitor to Lead Conversion Rate
- Cost per Lead (CPL).
As the strategy develops and the focus shifts to the bottom of the funnel with increasing sales, it is possible to focus on KPIs such as
- Number of Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
- Cost per Lead at each funnel stage
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- Customer Growth Rate.
Meanwhile, in an ecommerce, you can guide yourself by important indicators for selling your products, such as
- Number of Sales
- Conversion Rate
- Average Ticket.
In all these examples, we can see the importance of having this focused view on your objective. It is what helps define more effective marketing strategies that indeed yield results.
So, let’s go to a quick practical example: if you have an online store, monitor the Average Ticket and wish to increase it, you can structure promotions with discounts or free shipping starting from a certain amount, encouraging customers to pay more for greater benefits.
And which metrics should I monitor in the digital marketing strategy?
It is worth emphasizing here that the importance of KPIs for business development does not rule out the role of general metrics in a digital marketing project.
Closely monitoring this data is essential to rethink your actions and get insights for more effective campaigns.
Reflecting again on the ecommerce example, even if the objective is to increase the Average Ticket and your strategies are directed towards this, it is necessary to measure everything that generates the expected result.
In other words, if you take your promotional campaign to social networks, ads, and emails, you should closely analyze the performance of each defined action and the potential use of these channels to achieve your goals.
But be careful not to focus only on vanity metrics. Likes, shares, and comments are good engagement data, but alone, they do not show all the results of your actions for the audience.
Here at Reportei, we understand the importance of these specific analyses for the development of both projects and business.
That’s why our main goal is always to help marketing professionals collect this data in a simpler way, so that they have more availability to focus on the overall project performance and the most important indicators.
In seconds, you have all the metrics from the main social media platforms at your fingertips and can analyze and customize the report with the most relevant information for your team and decision-makers.
Are you curious about how to monitor metrics and KPIs with Reportei? Then sign up and test for free for three days to explore all of our features.
