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9 Must-Have Marketing Measures for 2020

For every marketing department, it’s vital that you’re tracking impact so that you know what’s working and what’s not. It can be easy to rely on so-called “vanity” metrics that make you think you’re doing well when, in reality, you aren’t. Replacing these with measures that give you a more in-depth insight into how your…

For every marketing department, it’s vital that you’re tracking impact so that you know what’s working and what’s not. It can be easy to rely on so-called “vanity” metrics that make you think you’re doing well when, in reality, you aren’t. Replacing these with measures that give you a more in-depth insight into how your latest campaign is performing will help boost your effectiveness and increase your ROI.

The last four (6-9) ideas listed below are a bit more advanced marketing measures. They give you a deeper understanding of what’s happening with customers. If you’re a marketing manager and interested in learning more about these, you could look to take a professional marketing course or complete an online marketing masters degree. It takes a little more time to understand and work these out, but once you do they’ll be a valuable source of actionable data.

So without further ado, here are all nine critical measures that you must put in place today to help you track your campaign performance in 2020. I’ve also included four advanced measures that will help you interrupt “marketing as usual” and take your impact to the next level. 

  1. Impressions and Reach

If you have a social media strategy in place, then you will want to be looking at the reach of your posts whether on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. On its own, this metric might be considered a vanity metric as it will not give you an accurate view of how your strategy is really performing. However, when it’s combined with parameters that look at your advertising costs for cost per thousand views (CPMV) and the click-through rate to your website, it can be a useful metric to have in the mix. Do more impressions and a bigger reach necessarily mean more clicks through to your website and ultimately more purchases or sign-ups?

  1. Engagement

Your level of real engagement can give you an indication of how good your content really is. It’s all well and good paying for ads so thousands of people will see your posts, but if people aren’t engaging with them then they probably aren’t truly effective. For social media posts in particular, you will want to be looking at likes, shares, retweets, and clicks to see how well your stuff is doing. For adverts, you will want to focus on the click-through rate (CTR). And be patient, rustling up real engagement may take time and it certainly takes top-notch strategy. Don’t just start posting and expect people to respond—you have to plan and be ruthlessly consistent in how you drive engagement.

  1. Organic Website Traffic

Measuring the number of people that have found you on a search engine offers a clearer-than-average indication of the quality of your on-site search engine optimization. To get found on search engines, there are several factors that you need to consider including keywords, your amount of content, and the layout of your pages. Investing in good search engine optimization is a great way to drive continual traffic to your website.

  1. Direct Website Traffic

If you’re doing any kind of branding campaign, then measuring how many people come to your website directly can be a good indication of how it’s working. Another metric is how many people have come to your website using a branded search on a search engine. It means how many people have typed your brand name into Google and clicked through to your homepage.

  1. Conversion Rate

This is probably the most critical metric to track on an eCommerce website. It will tell you how many people have come to your site and the percentage that actually went on to make a purchase. The conversion rate calculation is simple: divide the number of unique orders or actions by the number of visitors to your website. The average e-commerce conversation rate is about 3%, although this can vary among different industries and different types of websites.

  1. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

It’s generally said that it costs up to five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. With that in mind, you will want to keep a close eye on how much you spend to get a new customer through the door. The costs can quickly spiral out of control when a lot is being spent on marketing and no sales are coming in.

  1. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The lifetime value of a customer is important to track, because you need to make sure that you don’t spend more to acquire a new customer than they will spend on you. This is where from a customer service standpoint, it’s not just about customer support, but also customer success.  For example, if you spend $1,000 on digital advertising and get 10 customers, it has cost you $100 to get each of those customers. If you sell a low-value product like pens for $5, a customer will have to buy 21 pens before they even become profitable for you.

  1. Customer Churn Rate

A good way to try and gauge customer satisfaction is by calculating the number of customers who end their relationship with your brand. Calculating the churn rate will help you understand generally whether customers are happy with the product or service that you offer. Usually, you want a low churn rate or to be losing customers that aren’t profitable and retaining ones that are.

  1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Another way to measure customer satisfaction is by asking them to complete a net promoter score (NPS). This asks people how likely they are to recommend your business to family or friends. Its worked out on a scale of one to ten and there are various labels for people who give certain scores. Although the use of NPS can be effective, the arguments against it are that it doesn’t give a clear picture of where problems occur and that people tend to give feedback only when they’ve had a really good experience or a really bad experience.

It’s important to remember that none of these metrics should be used in isolation. You need to find the best mix that works for your business so you can determine the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Used smartly, these nine key marketing measures will help you win in 2020. If you start formulating your approach to measurement  now, then the New Year promises to be a prosperous one! With marketing, you always get what you measure! If you’d like to receive a steady flow of insights related to marketing measurement heading into next year, please follow me @TopRightPartner, connect with me on LinkedInsubscribe to our blog, or buy a copy of my latest book, Marketing, Interrupted.

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