Digital marketing is a complicated and extensive process for any company. Social media, website upkeep, blogging, advertisements, etc. Really, it can be overwhelming. With so many moving pieces, it’s also easy to lose track of how your business is performing online.
Every business must take the time to evaluate its digital marketing metrics. This may look like tracking analytics, conversions, or engagement on social media. Whatever it looks like, it’s important to do this regularly. We recommend doing it every month or at minimum every quarter.
To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of our top 5 questions you should evaluate about your digital marketing. No matter if you’ve hired this out to another company, have someone on staff, or you’re a do-it-yourself kind of person, these will help.
How Much Business Are You Getting?
The end goal of all digital marketing is ultimately to increase your revenue and sales. You must keep track of your online sales, calls, and inquiries for future use. Knowing how well you’re performing in these areas will help you in a multitude of ways. It is important to make sure you’re using concrete numbers and actual stats versus broader analytics that are more difficult to measure.
First, it helps you track your long-term progress. You’ll be able to compare your sales and call rates year over year and month over month. You can also see what digital marketing campaigns actually worked well, changes that need to be made, and more.
Second, it helps you to know where your digital marketing efforts are best invested. Did you provide you with a lot of sales? Did you get more calls from Google My Business? Did a LinkedIn campaign get more people to reach out to you? Once you know what is driving the most business to you, you can invest more time, money, and talent into working best for your business
How is Your Website Performance?
One great way to track your website analytics is Google Analytics. If you haven’t heard of it before, run, don’t walk, and get your free account. It allows you to track your website users, bounce rate, how long they’re spending on your site, and even your conversion and sales rates. It really is the best tool to help you know how your website is performing
Knowing these numbers will help you find out how your website is serving you. You’ll be able to see your top-performing pages, what users are actually coming to your site for, and even problem areas or broken links. You can even learn more about your website’s visitors, like their demographics and where most of them live (in a broad sense, not their actual address)
How is Your Google My Business Listing Doing?
You’ll see a trend here; Google offers some of the best free digital marketing tools available! Google My Business (GMB) is another great, free way to interact with your customers. It’s similar to an old-school Yellow Pages or Yelp listing but online. You can list your business hours, inform customers of new updates, and provide key contact information.
Google allows GMB users to track analytics within the tool itself. You can see how many people saw your listing, how many got directions to your business (for brick and mortar locations), how many people left reviews, and how many people called from that listing. It’s important to keep track of your listing, know the stats, and keep it as up-to-date as possible
How is Your Engagement?
No matter what platform you are marketing on, from Facebook to GMB and even on your own website, engagement is key. Engagement is simply how many people are interacting with your content. Most social media platforms and search engines prioritize businesses and pages that have high engagement rates. It shows them that you’re providing useful content for their users, and you’ll find your page reaching more and more people.
Most social media platforms have built-in insights so you can track views, interactions (like comments, likes, and saves) and see what days and times are the best to post. These numbers will likely change constantly depending on several variables. Knowing your audience and engagement rates will help you fine-tune your digital marketing strategies.
How are Your Paid Campaigns Performing?
If you’re doing any paid online marketing, be it Facebook ads, Youtube ads, LinkedIn ads, or Pay Per Click ads on Google, this is key. You need to know the click-through rate, conversions, how many times people see your ads. This is important for multiple reasons.
One main reason is to see if they’re actually bringing about the end you wanted to see. You may have wanted to see X amount of new people land on your website. Or, perhaps you had a specific sales/call quota you wanted to reach. Knowing if your ads are actually producing the results you wanted can save you a lot of time and money.
Two is so you can fine-tune your ads. Maybe they are working, but you realize if you made one or two small changes, they’d work even better. An example of this will be if your target customer is a woman in her 30s-40s. If you’re reaching women, but it’s not the right age range, you can take a step back and make any necessary changes to reach them.
Three is that you want to make sure your money is going to the best possible resources. Knowing which platforms are performing best for you may mean you can cut back and invest more in higher returns. You’ll be able to see which platforms help you reach your ultimate goal.
No matter where, how, or who is doing your digital marketing, knowing your metrics is essential. Each statistic and analytic you can track gives you knowledge and insights into the health of your business. As they say, knowledge is power, and knowing these numbers is the power you need to take your business to the next level. Your business will reach more people and achieve its goals when your marketing strategies are actually working for you