Track these 6 Marketing KPIs to Avoid Throwing Money Away

How much of your time — and marketing budget — is spent tracking marketing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that don’t provide the data you need for measurable business growth?

In this article, we identify and define six of the most vital marketing KPIs. While you’ll likely identify other helpful KPIs to track as you pinpoint the unique goals of your marketing strategies, these six are a great place to start.

Tracking the following marketing KPIs will ensure that you have a way to concretely evaluate the efficacy of your marketing campaigns, and continue to improve your methods as you grow. Sticking to the right marketing KPIs will ensure you won’t be overwhelmed with metrics. They’ll allow you to quantify your goals, identify areas of success, and illuminate where campaigns should be tweaked to generate a greater return on investment.

Let’s dig in! 

1. ROMI

ROMI, or Return on Marketing Investment, allows you to determine if your marketing expenses have contributed to the company’s returns.

Tracking this KPI is especially helpful when you have multiple campaigns running. If one of your campaigns brings in 70% of the returns and the other only contributes 15%, it’s a no-brainer to decide where the bulk of your marketing budget should go.

How to calculate:

With your short-term ROMI, you are only looking at your company’s profits against the amount spent on marketing. You will subtract the amount spent on marketing from your overall profits, then divide by the amount spent on marketing. Multiply that number by 100%.

With your long-term ROMI, you are quantifying other ways in which a campaign might have been effective. Here you’ll be considering the effect of a campaign on brand awareness or lead generation. 

2. ROAS

ROAS, or Return on Ad Spend, measures the revenue generated by your company per dollar spent on advertising.

This KPI excludes any cost of a marketing campaign that is unrelated to ads. It’s an especially useful figure for figuring out elements of an ad campaign to use,  such as ad platforms or structure. 

How to calculate:

Subtract the amount spent on ads from your company’s overall profits, then divide by the amount spent on ads. Multiply that number by 100%. This calculation should feel familiar! 

3. Lead Conversion Rate

The lead conversion rate shows the percentage of leads that were interested in purchasing your product or service and actually followed through. 

This KPI complements what you’ll find with your ROMI. There’s further insight here on which marketing channel was most effective for your company. Both KPIs will show you where your marketing budget should be spent.

How to calculate:

Divide your number of conversions by the number of leads who visited your site.

4. Cost Per Lead & Cost Per Conversion

Cost per lead measures the amount spent to acquire a potential new client through advertising. This KPI is especially useful when considering where to put your company’s advertising budget.

Cost per conversion evaluates the amount spent to convert a lead.

How to calculate:

To find your cost per lead, divide the amount spent on a lead generation campaign by the amount of leads generated.

To find your cost per conversion, divide your company’s budget by the number of conversions. 

5. Site Traffic

• Organic Traffic: Usually making up half of your site traffic, organic traffic measures the amount of people visiting your site through a free search engine like Google.
• Referral Traffic: This KPI tracks the traffic to your website via links on other websites.
• Social Traffic: This metric tracks the traffic sent to your websites through social media sites. Referral Traffic and Social Traffic can be useful metrics to track when evaluating brand awareness.

6. Email Open, Click-Through, & Unsubscribe Rates

Your email open rate tracks the amount of people who opened your marketing emails. This KPI is an indicator of how well your subject lines grab attention. Are they clear and compelling enough? This metric will tell you.

With the click-through rate, you’ll see how many people clicked on a link within your email. If this figure isn’t quite what you hoped for, it might be a good time to consider the scannability of your email. Is your information organized in a readable way? Are your asks crystal clear, and your links easy to spot?

The unsubscribe rate, of course, is the percentage of people on your mailing list who no longer wish to receive emails from you. If this KPI is poor, you should take a moment to ensure that you are still delivering content that is relevant to and valuable for your audience. 

How to calculate:

To find your email open rate, divide the number of opened emails by the number of emails sent. Multiply this number by 100%.

To find your click-through rate, divide the number of clicks on email links by the number of emails delivered. Multiply this number by 100%.

To find your unsubscribe rate, divide the number of unsubscribes by the number of people on your mailing list. Multiply this number by 100%.

Looking for more specialized recommendations?

While these six KPIs are a great place to start for your business, we know how important it is to track performance indicators relevant to your unique goals. That’s why Vye meticulously researches and crafts marketing campaigns for each individual client. Together, we discover how you define success, and how to get there together.

Don’t just throw money down the drain hoping your marketing works. At Vye, we partner with you to develop personalized marketing strategies and measurable plans. We’re here to help you grow.

Interested? Connect with our team today.