As a marketing consultant I have worked with small companies, just starting out, companies that are growing, those that are established and big corporates. The marketing metrics that matter are dependent on the type of business, the maturity and the scale of the organization. It’s also important to understand who is receiving the metrics, a CEO wants to know the metrics that demonstrate the marketing strategy is increasing the bottom line ‘Big Goals’. A marketer needs to know the ‘Big Goal’ metrics as well as the tactical metrics which support them – the data that identifies potential issues, how to fix them and ensure that you’re on the right path for ‘Big Goal’ success.
Customer acquisition is key when a business is starting out, if there is a low budget a small business will need to focus on the customer acquisition cost (CAC). Tactical metrics such as; traffic, click- through-rate (CTR), bounce and page impression, while these are great indicators of where people are interacting within the marketing funnel – they are not directly revenue, lead or enquiry-based conversions, which are key to ‘Big Goals’ e.g. revenue and sales generation. In addition to CAC, e-commerce and membership sites need to track and optimize their cart and sign up process to ensure they fully understand where a person is dropping out and not completing a purchase or sign up.
As a company becomes more established the CTR becomes a stronger focus, a marketing qualified lead, an e-commerce purchase or an online membership sign up isn’t something that just happens overnight, the customer buying process is made up of lots of interactions which generally supports the ‘Big Goal’ conversion (e.g. a sale). Tactical metrics such as CTR and bounce influence the quality and relevance of paid adverts, website content, targeted buyer messaging and advertising platforms. Google Analytics data also helps with market and buyer segmentation, enabling targeted efforts to source channels, locations, returning visitors and much more – because nurturing current customers is a lot easier than acquiring new ones!
More established and larger organizations fine tune the customer buying process, homing in on what converts when within the buying process, reducing the time to purchase or the sales buying cycle. Segmentation supported by nurture initiatives are key to identifying the channels and buyers that take the least time to purchase.
We are in a digital world, tracking the tactical and ‘Big Goal’ metrics at the right time allows businesses to be dynamic, learn and pivot and allocate resource and budget where they see success.
Author: Leanne Freshwater
