Deciding which metrics you should track and report on can be a bit overwhelming. Each aspect of marketing can have hundreds of different metrics that all seem important. However, when you are reporting the metrics, are the results actionable and valuable or just a dashboard of numbers? A status report should tell you and your team much more than how your marketing is performing. They should also give you more insight into what actions you should take next.

Which KPIs Should I Track?

Before deciding which key performance indicators to track, you should understand what your company’s goals are. Ensuring that the KPIs you are reporting on are in line with your goals is essential to a successful marketing structure. This will also help you weed out KPIs that are unimportant to your company. Once you understand your company goals, you should rank them by their importance to you.

Your goals can range from what your company is trying to achieve, but for this article, we will focus on some of the most popular. These are:

• Revenue
• Quality of leads
• Brand Awareness
• Search Engine Rankings
• Industry Leadership

Revenue

Revenue-based key performance indicators should represent how much money your campaigns are bringing in and their return on investment. Some examples of these KPIs are:

• Cost Per Conversion
• First-time customer purchases
• New quote requests
• PPC ROI
• Total Revenue

Quality of leads

Slightly different from revenue is increasing the quality of your leads. Depending on your company, the number of leads may be less important than the quality of leads you bring in. Some examples of these KPIs would be:

• New Email Subscribers
• Content Downloads
• Customer Testimonials
• New Google Reviews

Brand Awareness

If you are working on expanding people’s knowledge of your brand, you may want to focus on brand awareness. Once you are successful in this area, you can move on to being a leader within your industry. Some KPIs to measure your brand awareness are:

• New Keyword Rankings
• Social Media Followers
• Content Engagement
• Average Time on Site
• Traffic Sources

Search Engine Rankings

SEO is important within every aspect of marketing. If you are trying to rank higher in search engines, there are many factors that come into play. Some of the most important metrics are:

• Existing Keyword Rankings
• Organic Traffic
• Domain Authority
• Website Speed

Industry Leadership

Once you have established good brand awareness, you can start becoming a leader in your industry. Depending on the industry, people will look to you as a standard as well as an information hub. Some KPIs to focus on would be:

• Content Funnel Curation
• Blog Shares
• Backlinks and referring domains
• Brand Mentions

Deciding what KPIs to track and report on is very specific to your company, your goals, and your industry. However, it does not have to be overwhelming! Always remember that outsourcing your marketing can always be a viable and helpful solution!