Three Simple Marketing Metrics

From reach to sales conversion, it is very important to track marketing performance. The results of these three simple marketing metrics reveal when the marketing rubber has hit the road. They indicate the effectiveness of your marketing programs. Although leads matter, sales matter a lot more. They validate the quality of what you do. They include top-of-the-sales-funnel oriented metrics that start with consumer reach and wind up with bottom-of-the-sales-funnel metrics measuring prospective sales. Monitoring these metrics helps you achieve the return you expect on your marketing investment.

1. Reach to click-through (site visits) and bounce rates.
2. Product-to-add-to-cart conversion rate.
3. Sales conversion and cart abandonment rates.

 Maximize Click-Through Traffic

 Click-through rate (CTR) measures the ratio of clicks to impressions. Generally, the higher the CTR the more effective marketing programs have been at bridging the gap between your audience and a website. All websites are designed to elicit an action from consumers, whether it is to buy a book, watch a music video, or search for a flight. It is nearly impossible to quantify the emotional reaction to a website and the effect of that website on a brand. However, CTR measures the proportion of visitors who searched the net or encountered an advertisement that redirected them to a page on your website where they might purchase an item, learn more about a product or just bounce.

The bounce rate highlights the percentage of your visitors who engage with your content on your website in relation to those that leave immediately.  Generally, the lower the bounce the more effective marketing programs have been at drivingthe right audience that engage with your content on your website. The longer visitors stay on your site, the greater are the chances that they will take action.

In online marketing, driving and keeping visitors onto websites is crucial, and on average you should obtain a 5% CTR from your reach with 45% bounce rate for B2B (business-to-business) sales. The best way to achieve this first but critical step is to leverage Google search data and develop your SEO (search engine optimization) strategy based on key insights coming from identifying your search terms that drive your consumers from first touch to sales completion.

Perform Product to Add-to-Cart Flow

 We usually minimize the importance of driving visitors to click and view products and underestimate themagnitude of product-to-cart page conversion. As would be expected, the number of sessions with product page views is really a key to turning visitors into purchasers. Sessions with site visits should approach 50 percent of your site visits, although it may vary based on the nature of your business and industry. However, this key metric provides a useful benchmark and prompts marketers to assess website to product page conversion when analyzing the sales funnel.

Also,on average, B2C (business-to-consumer) eCommerce stores typically have a 35% bounce rate. This shows that approximately a third of all of the visitors that hit your home page abandon the website without ever browsing through your inventory of products. Although this ratio is lower compared to the B2B industry average it is still pretty high. On the bright side though, once a consumer clicks to view a product, you increase the likelihood of closing the sale.

Regardless, adding an item to the cart is an important micro-conversion step to measure business performance. Naturally this key metric measures the efficiency of the overall shopping cart process including all the steps leading to checkout. It gives relevant information about how appealing the products are based on the descriptions and visuals on the product pages. And, it shows consumer-intent to purchase by interactions with the website. Product-to-cart conversion rate should be about 12%.Of course, your work is not done yet. You have not yet analyzed data related to sales conversion and cart abandonment.

Optimize Sales Funnel Conversion

Shopping cart abandonment is the single largest obstacle that marketers to have to overcome. Whatever you do, potential sales slip through your fingers every day. Sales conversion reflects the way your marketing investment has worked. Although you may drive highly qualified consumers to your website and get them to click on Add To Cart, they may still leave. Every stage of the checkout process is key, and shopping cart abandonment is quite often very frustrating for marketers, and especially ecommerce stores. That’s why it is important to understand an analyze the reasons of cart abandonment. Cart abandonment on average is 65%.

One of the primary reasons behind abandoned shopping carts is shopper irritation when the ad pricing for an item is different from the checkout pricing for the item, and customers cannot easily find any relevant promotional discount codes. An optimized checkout process should have many payment options available, including Google Checkout, Amazon Pay, and PayPal. In addition, during the checkout process you should keep users at your domain to make them feel more secure. Customers often use shopping carts to gauge the price of a bundle of products.

Marketers must analyze a lot of information to understand all aspects of the sale funnel and adjust accordingly based on these key insights. Sales conversions rates are different based on your business, because average visitor-to-sale conversion rates vary from one industry to another. But, I will argue that the sales conversion rate should vary from 1.5% to 7%.The visitor-to-sale conversion rates are good data points to use in measuring and tuning your marketing efforts.

Marketing metrics most effectively illustrate how marketing efforts are affecting business goals. Looking at key performance indicators (KPIs) and analyzing ROI (return on investment) is key in this business ecosystem. I personally review metrics from top-to-bottom of the sales funnel, and those that show all activities through the sales funnel. Comprehensive marketing metrics typically offer a real-time look at what is happening with ongoing marketing programs, which is useful for improving and optimizing marketing activities.