As a business owner or C-Suite executive, you have access to an endless collection of data, statistics, and numbers. If you really want to uncover the truth behind a particular action, outcome, or problem, you can find metrics that’ll shed light on the issue at hand. When it comes to marketing in particular, digital marketing analytics play a significant role in a business’ ability to maximize returns, and increase customer engagement.

Value of Digital Marketing Analytics

The issue with digital marketing is that it’s so complex. You can’t simply look at your campaign and say, “We saw a 145 percent return on investment this year.” When you’re spending thousands of dollars on content marketing, social media, radio spots, PPC advertising, and dozens of other channels, it’s never that simple.

That’s where digital marketing analytics come into play. By leveraging analytics tools, and studying the correct metrics, you can begin to dissect the intricacies of your overarching marketing campaign. You can get a better grasp of how each individual channel is performing, which channels demand more attention, and which channels are holding you back.

Three Metrics Worth Tracking

When it comes to digital marketing analytics, there are hundreds of different metrics available at your disposal. The key is blocking out the useless ones, and focusing on the metrics that matter. Here are a few ones worth tracking:

• Conversion rates. Whether it’s visibly apparent or not, every marketing message has a call-to-action (CTA). As a marketer, the most important thing that you can do is to track conversion rates. How frequently are customers following through with the actions that you’re encouraging them to complete? By understanding this, you can make simple tweaks, and optimize your efforts continuously.
• Velocity. A major challenge for businesses of all sizes is accurately forecasting sales numbers. Thankfully, you can add some clarity to this issue by tracking velocity. This is essentially the speed at which the average lead moves from stage to stage through your sales funnel. In other words, velocity tells you how long it takes for a lead to become a sale.
• Close rate per channel. While everyone calls it something different, the close rate per channel essentially tells marketers which channels are best for closing generated leads. A high close rate indicates that you should increase spend in a particular area, while a low close rates tells you that something’s wrong.

Good Digital Marketing Analytics Tools

The question you’re probably asking is, “How do I track and uncover these metrics?” Well, you have a number of choices, but these are a handful of the top digital marketing analytics tools on the market:

• Kapost Content Auditor. The Kapost Content Auditor tool allows you to self-analyze your own content marketing efforts to determine what’s effective, what’s failing, and where the gaps exist. It’s a simple tool to use, and the audit can be performed for free in the matter of a few seconds.
• Marketing Evolution. Designed to give marketers the tools and insights they need to do plan, launch, and measure campaigns, Marketing Evolution is one of the premier digital marketing analytics tools available.
• Google Analytics. You obviously can’t discuss marketing analytics without mentioning Google analytics. While it’s designed to measure website statistics, it also doubles as an effective marketing tool. By setting up goals, and tracking conversions related to those goals, you can gain a lot of insight into your marketing campaign’s effectiveness.

The Bottom Line

With a little effort, you can greatly improve the clarity and efficacy of your digital marketing campaign moving forward. By focusing on the metrics mentioned in this article, and leveraging the appropriate tools, your company’s marketing efforts will be in a much better position by this time next year.