The Top Marketing Metrics to Measure

Ecommerce SEOSEO ReportingMarketing Metrics

Oct 19

There’s a lot of information out there about marketing metrics. Sometimes it can feel like there’s so much we’re supposed to be looking at. In this post, I will tell you which metrics matter most and how often to check them.

We’ll be covering…

Types of metrics and what they mean
Metrics to check every month
Vanity metrics that you can put on the backburner

What Metrics You Should Check Every Month

So you’ve got Google Analytics, and Google Search Console installed… But now what?

You need to keep an eye on your monthly metrics to track your business performance! But which ones?!

Here are the main metrics you should check on the reg…

1. Conversion Rate

This is the number of people who perform a desired action on your website. It will vary depending on your business type.

2. Traffic Sources

Where are your website visitors coming from? Go a little bit extra and keep an eye on which traffic sources are giving you the highest conversion rate.

3. Average Session Duration

How long are people spending on your website? The answer must be "as long as possible" here for Google to be happy with you. Whatever your number is, try to increase it by at least a few seconds a month.

4. Average Order Value

We’ve looked at Lifetime Customer Value in a previous episode, but we want to keep an eye on Average Order Value as there may be opportunities to increase it.

5. New vs Returning Visitors

Returning visitors indicate a high-quality website, so try to aim for 20-30% of your website visitors to return. Any higher than that, and it’s a sign you need to get in front of more people!

6. Bounce Rate

This is the percentage of people who “bounce” off your web page without going further. We want it to be 40-60% - if it’s higher than 60%, there’s a problem with our marketing.

7. Profit

We want our revenue to go up. But we want our profit to increase so that we're making the most efficient amount of money for each transaction.

Vanity Metrics

Vanity metrics won't get you a single potato (unless you're a full-time influencer).

So what are they? And why do we care about them so much?

Vanity metrics are things you can measure in your business and marketing that don’t impact your business’s success. They are easily changed and manipulated, so can’t be used as reliable measures of success.

People will talk about vanity metrics because they sound impressive, but big numbers shouldn’t fool us!

I know several people in agencies where campaigns have underperformed, and it’s standard practice only to share these vanity metrics with clients to avoid looking like the campaign has been a failure. Dodgy or what!

Instead of vanity metrics, we want to use actionable metrics - numbers that will help us make impactful decisions. Let’s look at some examples.

Vanity metric 1: Social media followers

The number of social media followers you have does not translate into business growth. Instead, look at an actionable metric like social engagement or traffic & conversions from social media.

Vanity metric 2: Email subscribers

Having a mailing list of 10,000 doesn’t mean you’re going to make regular sales from it, even though it sounds impressive. Instead of the number of subscribers, look at the open rate and click-through rate of your emails. It’s also a vanity metric if you never email them.

Vanity metric 3: Website traffic & page visits

This is a bit controversial - an SEO telling you that the number of people visiting your website means literally nothing?

Correct! If you have people visiting your website who aren't making purchases or signing up to work with you in some way, then they aren't moving your business's bottom line. Lots of SEO services will promise things like “more traffic” and “greater visibility”, - but how is that beneficial unless you’re also seeing things like a high conversion rate & good engagement?

That’s why, when I talk about SEO, it’s about growing traffic and sales.

Unless the actionable metrics are performing well for us, the benefit to our business of these vanity metrics will be minimal. Always look at both sides of the story!

I’d love to know which metrics you’ve been tracking (if any so far!). Where you surprised about the vanity metrics? Tell me in the comments!