Digital marketing metrics: What really matters for your business?

August 13, 2020

Michael Jackson

There are a multitude of metrics for measuring the effectiveness of your well thought out marketing campaign or marketing activities that make oh so much sense in theory. Without the help of a multi-disciplined marketing agency with a skilled digital marketing team, it can be hard to know which are the best metrics to measure yourself against.


The trick is knowing which marketing metrics matter the most. But can we let you in on a little secret about marketing metrics? They all matter. Yes, all marketing metrics matter – but it’s how you use them that matters the most.

Marketing metrics matter – all of them

Some marketing metrics are more important than others, but none of them should be cast aside altogether. It’s how you use them that makes all the difference. Being able to pick the right metrics to measure the effectiveness of your marketing can be the difference between gaining true clarity and heading down the rabbit hole in the wrong direction.

To throw a spanner in the works, some marketing metrics may be fantastic for measuring success sometimes and not so fantastic at other times. It all depends on your platform and the intent of your marketing campaign.

For example, fast food restaurants don’t spend huge amounts of their marketing budget on display advertising to increases conversions on their website. They do it to raise awareness of their brand and increase brand recognition, which then makes the activities they invest in at the bottom of the marketing funnel more effective.

A quick word on conversions

A conversion is the end goal for all marketing. Typically, “conversion” is defined as when your marketing moves someone from being an observer or follower of your business to being a customer of your business. But it’s murkier than that, and that’s where a skilled marketing agency can work with you to provide the right pathway to grow your business.


If you’re going to invest in marketing, you need to know that everything can be a conversion. It all depends on the goal of your campaign. For example, a page view can be a conversion – if the campaign is Display – because the goal of a Display campaign is to increase page views on your website. Display campaigns are not about driving new sales enquiries, so measuring them in terms of sales is missing the point.


How to segment your marketing metrics

Digital marketing metrics can generally be grouped into five channels. Each channel has its own key value metrics and secondary value metrics for gauging effectiveness. Let’s take a look at each channel and look at how to measure the effectiveness of your marketing in each.

Electronic Direct
Mail (EDM)

Electronic Direct Mail, or eDM, is the modern-day mainstay of direct marketing that removes the middleman and connects brands directly to their audience via email promotions.
  • Key value metrics: Click-Through-Rate, Conversion Rate, Unsubscribe Rate
  • Secondary value metrics: Open-Rate, Bounce Rate

Programmatic Display Advertising

Display marketing is the advertising we get served when surfing the internet on our smartphones, tablets and computers – still images, videos, animations, text links are the media used. Its success is measured in impressions: how many times your ad is served to someone browsing the internet.

  • Key value metrics: Viewable Impressions, CPM, Click-Through-Rate.
  • Secondary value metrics: Sessions, Bounce Rate.


Search Advertising (PPC)

Search Advertising, or PPC (Pay-Per-Click), is digital advertising designed for search networks. Its success is measured in a different manner to Display – i.e., by the amount of times viewers click on your ad, not how many they see your ad. You also don’t pay until someone clicks on your ad, hence the name Pay-Per-Click, because you only pay if people click. This can be one of the most cost-effective forms of digital advertising.

  • Key value metrics: Conversions, CTR (Click-Through-Rate), CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition).
  • Secondary value metrics: CPC, Quality Score


Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing offers plenty of avenues for further engaging with your target audience, provided it’s guided by a strategy. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN all offer opportunities to connect with your audience, as do newer social media platforms like TikTok.

  • Key value metrics: Sessions, Conversions, Frequency.
  • Secondary value metrics: CTR (Click-Through-Rate), Post/Page Likes/Follows.

Organic Search

Organic search is the unpaid results (i.e. excludes advertisements) we get presented with when we type something into a search engine, such as Google. A search engine presents results ranked based on their relevance to the search term entered. Relevance is determined by SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and keywords, the algorithm Google uses is based on 200 known ranking factors – but these can change at any time.
  • Key value metrics: Conversations, Session Duration Time, Bounce Rate.
  • Secondary value metrics: Keyword Rankings

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