5 important digital marketing KPIs to track

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India is seeing rapid increases in both internet and smartphone usage. IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) produced a survey estimating that 346 million Indians engage in electronic transactions and use digital payments for online shopping. Numerous brands and products are offered on internet platforms to meet the needs of netizens. But the effective application of the right marketing plan sets them apart from a successful brand.

The effectiveness of a marketing strategy is determined by the output it produces and the amount of time it takes to present the results. To gain insight into a strategy’s market viability, it is vital to follow the execution of the plan. The indications used to gauge the success of a campaign are often the sales and leads generated. However, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) must be used as a tool to assess business performance for data-driven decisions to be effective.

Moving across digital platforms, customers undergo a complex process in their journey from identifying a product of interest to eventually making a purchase. By the virtue of KPIs, modern-day marketers are leveraging vital information to enhance customer experience and, in turn, boost conversions. KPIs make sure for the digital marketers that the businesses stay upright toward their goals and that the customers have a rich experience. While the content can be creative and crisp, indicator tools are necessary to outline the audience’s engagement into a measurable number and hence need to be tracked. 

Since the beginning of online campaigning, CPM has been a crucial metric to monitor ad spend. The automatic bidding technique known as CPM (Cost per Mile) calculates the total cost of a video ad for every thousand impressions. Impressions or displays, which are defined as the number of times the user views the advertising, end up being a crucial parameter. The formula, which accurately calculates CPM, involves dividing the entire cost of an advertising campaign by the number of impressions (1000). The cost of this KPI varies depending on several variables, including the demographics of the target population and the size, placement, and type of the advertisement. In addition to CPM, there is a concept of Viewable CPM that only charges when the user actually sees the ad for at least 1 second. 

Average Session Duration to know the prospective customer’s interest

When consumers enter a keyword into a search engine, they click on the websites to access the pertinent information. But if they can’t discover the data they were looking for, they move on to another website. An indicator that can gauge how long a user spends on a page from landing to session termination is the average session duration. According to Google Analytics benchmarking, 2-4 minutes of session duration is relevant for marketers to know that users are interested in the website. The customer journey can begin on the landing page and proceed to the category, product, shopping cart, and finally checkout pages. This number can genuinely assist businesses to observe consumer behaviour and devise improvements that will encourage users to stay on the website longer.

CTR is one of the numerous qualitative measures on the market that can be used to gauge how well a firm is doing overall. The percentage of people who saw the ad and clicked on them is the CTR. To get a correct CTR, the formula suggests dividing the user’s clicks by the total number of impressions. A metric with a higher intensity indicates that the advertisement is specifically aimed at the desired audience. Additionally, this KPI correlates exactly with the browser’s quality rating. The business can advertise at a significantly reduced cost because of the higher quality score. Furthermore, for PPC (Pay-per-Click), the number should be on the positive side to encourage qualified keyword targeting because it ensures the customers are seeing what they intend to according to their search intent. 

The success rate of a campaign depends on the action of the customer. If the conversion rate of an advertisement is higher, it indicates affluent marketing and design. According to Gartner, the most effective metric for measuring PPC campaign performance is conversion rate. After clicking on a targeted ad, the results of this metric display whether the user ended up buying the product. It is not about clicking the ad in this KPI but what the customer decided to do with the information given. A lower CVR indicates issues in the landing page or the audience is not able to take value out of the advertisement. From this metric, companies can know if a customer can communicate with them or not. The conversion rate varies highly across industries and is directly proportional to the ROI. 

A bounce occurs when a user visits a single page on a website and then leaves without spending a considerable amount of time. This KPI shows that users did not find anything relevant to their needs on the landing pages or website. This factor accurately describes the campaign data and strategies’ need for improvement. Higher bounce rates indicate that users found the advertisement interesting, but the content on the pages was inconvenient for them. Companies can recognize the information they provide to their customers and then work on measures to reduce bounce rates. For example, informative blogs are prone to bounce because customers tend to leave the page once they have received the information they are looking for. Therefore the content must be scattered evenly, and the UI must be interactive to keep the visitor engaged. 

Measuring the progress of the marketing campaign while setting clear goals and objectives must be an integral part of the strategy. The need of the hour is to take an analytical approach to gain key insights into strategic efforts and predict future outcomes. Indicators for KPIs provide information that is useful for making data-driven decisions. These five indicators mentioned above can be used together or individually to achieve precise results based on the organization’s objectives. However, businesses must recognize that simply measuring the elements is insufficient. To achieve greater ROI on Digital Marketing strategies and organizational success, the end goal should be to optimize the approach for delivering content to customers.