Generally speaking, whenever marketing strategies , especially online ones, are designed and implemented, certain metrics and analytics are associated with them, which are fundamental for monitoring and/or managing the state of your business model . Therefore, analytics is considered one of the most complex aspects of the marketing world.
In this sense, there is a terminology widely used in business, marketing, and other areas of the company that is basically distinguished by its ability to monitor the strategies, processes, and resources aimed at achieving the objectives of a given business. This terminology is known as "KPIs" and refers to key performance indicators.
Therefore, the term KPI reaches its full potential when digital marketing is linked to Business Intelligence, and given its importance, it's worth understanding its purpose . Furthermore, it's essential to know the different types of KPIs , which ones are the most important, and some tools that allow you to take control of your business and drive growth.
What is a KPI and what are these indicators used for in social media?
The acronym stands for "Key Performance Indicator," which in Spanish means "Key Performance Indicator" or "Key Performance Indicator ." It is defined as a measure that allows you to determine whether an action or set of initiatives is effectively addressing the objectives set by a brand , organization, or company . In other words, it serves to assess the performance level of a process associated with a strategy designed to achieve a goal.
Thanks to this, KPIs can reflect the current state of a business in a specific area , thus enabling corrective action to optimize strategies. Consequently, they are ideal for quantifying the work of business members in order to improve the efficiency and productivity of one or more services.
Consequently, the main objective of a KPI is to cooperate in making better decisions regarding the current state of a process, project, strategy or campaign in order to define a future course of action.
Now, in addition to being characterized as a number or a percentage, it also has the following characteristics:
- It is measurable in units. Therefore, the KPI They are also known as metrics.
- It is quantifiablebecause it can be measured. That is, if it is based on monetary units, it would be quantified in dollars ($) or euros (€).
- It's temporaryThat means they only need to be measured over time (daily, weekly, monthly, or annually).
- It is specificTherefore, a KPI You should always focus on calculating only one aspect at a time.
- The KPI They are only useful for those factors that are relevant to a particular businessThus, they should focus on informing, monitoring, evaluating, and helping to make optimal decisions.
Types of KPIs: How is this data classified?
While it's true that there's a remarkable number of indicators that can be important for a specific strategy, most KPIs only make sense when based on data or daily testing. Therefore, these elements can be classified in several ways . However, it's generally advisable to use different types of indicators depending on the interests of the person analyzing these metrics.
Thus, below we mention three categories that are distinguished by this peculiarity:
Primary KPIs
As their name suggests, these are the main indicators for achieving your goal and allow you to know if you are helping the company or business earn more money, essentially . These are generally known as "Key Performance Indicators" and are undoubtedly the most important for organizational leaders, above all other types.
Thus, it can be known that the primary KPIs of Digital Marketing and Inbound Marketing strategies refer to one of the following alternatives:
- Car Transfers & Spanish DGT (DMV/DVLA).
- Rate Of conversation.
- Leads.
- Cost lead acquisition.
- SIGN IN total.
- SIGN IN per purchase.
Secondary KPIs
These are Key Performance Indicators that focus on reinforcing the primary indicators and explaining their rationale ; in other words, they justify the primary KPIs . In this sense, they demonstrate which indicators and strategies are on the right track to achieve the stated objective.
Therefore, these types of indicators are ideal for managers and/or superiors who have the need and the time to analyze them more deeply, in order to work towards a better development of the strategy and ensure that they obtain optimal results.
As an example, we show some secondary Key Performance Indicators of interest:
- Cost per lead at each level of the funnel.
- Cost per visitor.
- Returning visitors on the blog.
- Subscribers from the blog.
- Subscribers from the newsletter.
- Half price by transition.
- Traffic origin (organic, direct, social media, email, paid, etc.).
Practical KPIs
Simply put, this classification of KPIs brings together a set of tests that must be performed regularly to demonstrate more detailed data about user behavior, acquisition, and characteristics . This means they are essential elements for marketing analysts who manage and administer a campaign.
In that sense, they refer to a much longer and more specific list of indicators, which we reveal below:
- Car Transfers & Spanish DGT (DMV/DVLA).
- Pages per visit.
- Page views.
- Page Rank.
- Best landing pages.
- Social interactions.
- Most searched keywords.
- Bounce rate.
- Visitors (New vs. Recurring).
- Content most read and/or visited.
On the other hand, an additional classification of KPIs is also used to check the progress of achieving objectives in different areas of a company.
Some of the most important examples are:
Sales KPIs
- Share market share.
- SEO in the market.
- Level billing.
- Rental income and margin of each product.
- Rental income average sales.
- Table of Contents loyalty.
- Ribs by conversion.
- Volume purchases per customer.
- Views Of customers.
- Ratios Of conversation.
Financial KPIs
- Efficiency of costs.
- ROCE (Return on capital employed).
- ROI (Return on investment).
- Margin useful.
- Table of Contents cost reduction.
- Grade of liquidity.
- Training of the sales force.
- Rental income.
- Leverage financial.
- Ratio autonomy.
- Ratio self-financing.
- Ratio of coverage.
Logistics KPIs
- Out of stock product.
- Out of stock of raw materials.
- Inventory rotation product.
- Inventory rotation of raw materials.
- Medium term of payment.
- Supply period or “Lead Time”.
- Margin between the cost of raw materials and total sales.
- Average cost of unit transport.
- Ribs transportation on sales.
- Ribs per kilometer
- Errors billing.
Retail KPIs
- Frequency of visits.
- Sales per visit.
- Sales per square meter.
- Hours with higher traffic.
- Rate conversion by category.
- Sales by category.
- Margin net.
- Loyalty.
- Returns.
- Rotation of stocks.
- Ticket average.
Why is it important to pay attention to performance KPIs in marketing?
The primary importance of KPIs in marketing lies in their ability to allow for adjustments to the plan if results don't align with expectations . They enable the monitoring of the marketing plan's progress, ensuring the achievement of sales cycle objectives.
Therefore, it is essential that companies get used to measuring the results of their marketing strategies using these indicators . This way, those responsible for all these business activities can obtain relevant information based on the campaign and make the most appropriate decisions . Otherwise, they would be proceeding blindly and, of course, wasting considerable resources.
In addition, KPIs reveal optimal advantages that brands and companies should take into account to achieve their profitable goals , which is another relevant point to justify the importance of these indicators in digital marketing actions.
Below, we list those benefits:
- Un KPI offers the possibility of Perform constant measurements to act flexibly and quickly in optimizing the process to be performed.
- They allow you to redirect your strategy, as they are ideal for Learn what works and what doesn't with real data.Also, check if your forecasts are being met or determine which other areas are performing better so you can invest in them.
- Elements adaptable to any business and its continuous changes in the market, with respect to its competition and its customers, as well as regarding any new opportunities that may arise.
- They provide a high level of motivation in work teams to achieve the set objectivesTaking into account that, if they are considered your comments and your decisions In this regard, they will be able to feel involved with the digital workplace strategy.
- They have the Global necessary to reduce your campaign costsSince, for example, values like cost per conversion They allow you to fully understand the benefits you aspire to and how to achieve them without much effort.
- Issuer greater speed, better compression, and total transparency when communicating results. Therefore, they provide complete accuracy in decision-making.
What are the most important KPIs I should be paying attention to?
It's no secret that when selecting KPIs for a business, it's essential to consider what truly influences them . In other words, the importance of such an indicator lies in the aspirations for a particular marketing campaign. However, there are some generally important KPIs that everyone using these tools should keep in mind and monitor closely.
Below, we list what they are:
- Sales increaseIts main objective is to demonstrate that your marketing campaign is incurring an absolute increase in sales.
- Return of investment: A KPI also known as “ROI” in which the income generated by a given campaign must be calculated and compared with the expenditure they claim.
- sales funnel: It allows Understand the process of how you acquire customers or sales in order to optimize it.Considering that this KPI It analyzes the customer acquisition process (in depth) and therefore divides it into five stages (awareness, interest, consideration, preference and purchase).
- Measuring the success rateIts main purpose is, to assess the effectiveness of all actions that help you achieve the defined objectivesTherefore, it is responsible for calculating the number of users who complete a specific marketing objective (such as subscribing to an email list).
- Traffic sources: A KPI that deals with Evaluate each and every one of the means by which you manage to attract visits to your business or company websiteThere are three types: direct traffic (writing the URL ), referral traffic (through links on other websites) and organic traffic (users discover the site on their own).
- Cost per leadIt calculates the effectiveness of your marketing campaign and is extremely relevant for quantifying the cost or expense of your actions in order to divide it into total leads and to know how much that cost per lead will reach. This KPI It can be measured in two ways (general or specific).
- Keyword performanceIt is ideal for analyze the ranking of your business's keywords, in order to estimate the effectiveness of your strategy SEO and thus, specify the traffic it brings. To do this, it is essential to study keyword lists, increase the CTR and increase the average visit time.
- Visits from mobile devicesFrom this point on KPIYou'll be able to see how many users are viewing and accessing your content via mobile devices. From this, you can deduce... if your website has an optimal responsive design.
- Rate and range of the final action: It consists of an indicator KPI that has the ability to evaluate the efficiency of your campaign, based on the last action taken by the user who enters your websiteThese actions include: exit, bounce, social, contact, lead, and purchase.
- Email Marketing EngagementIt is a type of KPI what achieves Calculate the impact of your email marketing strategyBasically. It's even useful for measuring the ROIIn many cases, this allows for the analysis of click-through rates, open rates, leads acquired, and completed purchases.
List of the best social media performance measurement tools
When implementing social media marketing strategies, that is, on social media platforms, the goals are usually linked to measuring the impact of the actions carried out on the brand's different profiles on those sites . This will help determine which actions have had the greatest impact and which aspects of the campaign need improvement.
But, in addition to considering the correct KPIs , you can also get help directly from tools designed to facilitate the measurement of performance of activities on social networks.
Although there are many solutions available, here are three of the best:
HowSociable.com
Primarily, it's a free tool that offers valuable information about your brand or company's standing in the social media landscape , revealing this through a photograph. Additionally, it includes numerous tools to help you gain more online followers and increase your social media presence.
In that sense, HowSociable keeps you up-to-date with helpful guides and tips that will significantly increase the value of your social media profile . It even offers training courses, conferences, and certifications to boost your online influence. Among the metrics they estimate are: Feature Score, Support Score, Trust Score, and more.
SproutSocial.com
It's a tool that compares your brand's social media performance against your competitors, particularly on Instagram and Facebook . It provides detailed reports and includes metrics on audience growth , top posts and hashtags, and Instagram engagement.
In addition, Facebook allows you to study your follower growth day by day, by post, and overall engagement . It also provides various charts, displays trends and growth patterns, and identifies new followers to understand which posts generated that growth. Due to its effectiveness, more than 20.000 brands already use its services.
FollowerWonk.com
This is an online tool that focuses exclusively on conducting studies based on followers . Therefore, through Followerwonk , you can analyze your audience, understanding who they follow and their typical activity on Twitter . You can also monitor your competitors' activity using demographic data obtained from their profiles.
It's worth noting that Followerwonk reveals all this crucial information for your social media performance through graphs . These graphs are also ideal for understanding where your followers are located, their age, their total number, when they are online, and how many you gain or lose each day.
Therefore, it is an effective tool for comparing Twitter accounts , analyzing your followers, and optimizing your social traffic , matching your activities with gains and losses, with the goal of perfecting all your moves on Twitter.
