Key KPIs for digital marketing

If you are carrying out an online marketing strategy, read on!

In this post you will learn all about KPIs, including a list of the main ones, those that cannot be missing under any circumstances in your strategy. First of all, let's define the term.

what is a KPI?

A KPI, which stands for Key Performance Indicator, is a set of metrics that are used to calculate the effectiveness and productivity of the actions within a business or marketing strategy, in order to make more effective decisions and to know if we are meeting the objectives set. KPIs can be applied to any type of business or sector, although they are most commonly used in online marketing.

Advantages of KPIs

1. With them you get a lot of information that will be very valuable and useful to optimise your marketing strategy, reach your goals and correct previous mistakes.
2. It also allows you to analyse your results numerically, that is, it transforms certain variables into metrics, so it will be much more useful to analyse the results if they are measurable.
3. By having different parameters, it will be possible to analyse all the information by comparing them with each other and thus be able to propose strategies to improve several parameters at the same time, joint strategies that, if done well, will lead to effective results.
4. With the KPIs we can analyse the strategies as a whole, that is to say, we do not only analyse parameters separately, but analysing strategies as a whole will help you to know if they are being carried out effectively or if there is some point that is failing.
5. The measurement of these parameters is much simpler and more reliable than the metrics that were carried out before the new technologies, so the margin of error is almost non-existent and you will not have any surprises or mistakes.
6. Thanks to all this, KPIs provide greater precision when making decisions that affect our marketing strategy.

Characteristics of KPIs:

For a KPI to be optimal and work properly it must be SMART, which means it must have the following characteristics:

S: Specific: Solves the 4 unknowns, we must know what we are measuring, how we are measuring it, where, and finally, when.

M: Measurable: It must be measurable, otherwise it would not be a KPI, it measures various aspects, including the expected benefits.

A: Attainable: The indicators must be realistic; if we choose goals that are impossible to achieve, the KPIs will be of no use.

R: Relevant: We must first see what the objectives are in order to analyse which metric is best suited to them.

T: Time-bound: For a performance indicator to be effective, it must be limited to a specific period of time.

what are the main KPIs in digital marketing?

There are a large number of KPIs with which to measure your campaigns, the most important thing is that they are effective and for this they have to be accompanied by a value. For this the most important thing is to be very clear about what you want to achieve, only then can you analyse which KPIs are appropriate within your strategy.

Here is a list of the main KPIs that you should take into account.

1. Page views: This is an essential metric, the most basic one that cannot be missing in your strategy, to know the total number of visits your website receives, so you can know, first of all, how many people you are getting to your website, which allows you to know where they come from and, most importantly, what their needs are.
   
   
2. Users: This is also a basic metric, it indicates the number of different users that have entered your website, so the number obtained in this metric will always be less than or equal to the number of page views. Since it measures the people you have reached, you can have 100 visits to your page and they are from the same user, so this KPI is more accurate in terms of the target audience.
   
   
3. Time: The permanence of the user within the website is one of the KPIs that provide more value within our digital marketing strategy, since with this parameter you can check how long users are interested in your page, that is, you will know if your content is interesting or not.
   
   
4. Bounce rate: With the time we measured the interest, and with the bounce rate the same, only in this case, it is analysed in percentage the amount of users who, after having entered your page, leave without interacting with it in any way, that is, those to whom your content has not been interesting and have decided to go to another page.
   
   
5. Followers: Within the metrics in social networks, your followers are a perfect indicator to know if your content and your brand are interesting and to know the reach of your profile in networks. A good way to measure it is by setting goals to get a certain number of followers before a specific time. This way you can measure if you are meeting your goals within your profile in networks.
   
   
6. Comments: This is a very important data, with this we focus on the value of the content. It tells us if the content is important enough for your audience to invest their time in talking about it, with this we can observe the debate that is generated and if the public is happy or not with our brand.
   
   
7. Emails: One of the most important metrics within your mailing campaign is to know how many users who have received the email, have opened it and have shown interest in the content. This metric is not entirely reliable as there are users who open the message but do not read the content or are interested in the brand in any way.
   
   
8. Email clicks: Knowing where it is most common for your users to click within the email you have sent, you will be able to understand which points move the interest of your target customers. This metric helps to counteract the error of the previous one, seeing which ones really opened the message to interact with it.
   
   
9. Forms: Every time a complete form is filled out, what we are getting is a conversion, we go from having a simple user on our website to having a lead. Thus, seeing the number of users who complete the form, we will have the key data to know if our form is too extensive.

These are the main KPIs for our marketing strategy, but there are many more, discover them by optimising your digital marketing strategy. Remember, if it is not measurable, it is not effective.