Marketing KPIs, help you understand the success of your website.
Below is our top 3 marketing KPIs to obsess over:
Volume: How many people are visiting your website. Visitor growth is the fuel to grow your leads or revenue.
Conversion rate: How many people are taking action on your website.
Cost per acquisition: How much it costs (in for paid media) for each visitor to take action on your website.
The above marketing KPIs are the topline metrics which can be applied to any website. However not all KPIs are the same. Here is a run down of why Business to Business (B2B) differs from Business to Consumer (B2C) KPIs.
Key takeaways- Marketing KPIs
Top 3 tips for Marketing KPIs
See our checklist
1. Know the outcome you are measuring success against, Leads, revenue or another goal
2. Create goals on your website to ensure you can measure 2 of the 3 critical marketing KPIs (conversion rate, cost per acquisition/lead).
3. Measure your performance over time to understand if your marketing KPIs are improving or declining
The 3 Killer KPIs
Visitors, Conversion Rate and Cost per acquisition
Visitors
Website visitors is the growth Marketing KPI for understanding the increase in volume, in attracting people to your website. This is different from sessions or visits, which is the total number of times each person has visited your website.
Understanding the engagement of these visitors is crucial. Using metrics such as bounce rate will help you monitor the quality of this traffic.
In general the more growth you have in visitors, the lower quality your traffic will be.
Typically as you attract newer audiences they will be less familiar with your brand/website and a higher number are likely to not engage with your website.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the single Marketing KPI for defining the effectiveness of your website.
It allows you to understand the number of visitors, who have arrived on your website, who have gone on to take action on your website.
Conversion rate is an easy metric to understand, however it is not helpful in understanding why there has been a drop in conversions.
For this you will need to use metrics such as bounce rate, Add to cart rate, cart completion rate or page load time.
These metrics will help diagnose why there has been an increase or decrease in conversions.
Cost per Acquisition
Cost per Acquisition is the single Marketing KPI for understanding if your website is delivering revenue or leads in a cost efficient manner.
Your paid traffic/visitors, will have a cost. Therefore you need to ensure this traffic is converting at the lowest cost as possible.
Typically cost per acquisition is higher when you have a lower conversion rate.
Looking at the cost per acquisition by campaign will allow you to understand those which are underperforming so you can reallocate your budget.
For Ecommerce, profitable marketing (cost of sale) is where you have a clear understanding of your cost of sale, by ensuring the Average order value is more than the Cost per acquisition.
What B2B Marketing KPIs should I focus on?
Your B2B Marketing KPIs
Outlined are the top digital Marketing KPIs for Business to Business (B2B) organisations. In the digram we have looked at the year on year change to illustrate where the focus needs to be to drive leads.
1
The total number of leads that were generated. The comparison shows an increase in leads, although this was due to the marked investment in driving new traffic to the website.
2
The amount of visitors who came to the website. Overall this has increased dramatically, most likely due to the increased investment in media (ad costs).
3
The conversion rate, those who took action on the website and became a lead. Due to big increase in traffic a drop in conversion is common. It would be best to look at if this drop was only for new visitors or those coming from paid media channels.
4
The amount of money spent on Ads driving traffic to the website. This increase has been effective at driving leads although the jump in CPA/CPL should be investigated and monitored so it does not continue to increase.
Where can I see my Business to Business (B2B) Marketing KPIs?
The screenshot is from Google Analytics to highlight where you can find each of the Marketing KPIs. This example is for a Google Ads campaign.
You’ll see visitors/sessions, conversion, completions and costs.
In this example completions are leads. To work out your cost per lead, take to the total cost and divide this by the number of completions.
1
The total number of people who visited the website in a given period of time, broken down by campaign.
2
The total number of leads/actions which were performed by visitors to the website.
3
The lead conversion rate of those who took action, broken down by campaign.
4
The cost of the campaigns, which is useful to help calculate the cost per lead.
5
The list of the paid for campaigns which are being used to create leads.
How can I diagnose my B2B campaign performance?
In the graphic we took the conversion data for desktop across our lead generation campaigns, broken down by campaign name.
This allowed us to understand our B2B marketing kpis by campaign. We could diagnose which of the campaigns were effective (the green bar is higher than than red bar). The USA campaign is working really well, due to the very low cost and high share of leads.
On the other hand the software trial campaign is completely ineffective, with a huge cost and no conversions.
1
The brand awareness campaign shows opportunity. The red bar (visitors) is below the green (converted leads). Although it has a high cost, there is further opportunity to invest in this campaign.
2
The Italy campaign has generated a large amount of interest, shown as blue bar. As this is higher than the red bar, there is opportunity to drive more traffic for this campaign, especially give its low cost (yellow bar).
3
This software trial campaign is the worst performer here. It had a lot of the media spend (yellow bar), but there were no conversions (no green bar). Given smaller amount of traffic (red bar), this traffic is expensive, but traffic is not converting.
4
The software webinar campaign attracted a lot of interest (red bar). It also had reasonable share of leads (green bar). It is worth investigating why this campaign didn’t get more sign ups/leads. However with the low cost (yellow bar) this campaign was very cost effective in driving traffic and leads.
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What B2C Marketing KPIs should I focus on?
Your B2C Marketing KPIs
Outlined are the top digital marketing KPIs for Business to Consumer (B2C) organisations.
In the digram we have looked at the year on year change to illustrate where the focus needs to be to generate revenue.
1
The overall revenue generated in sales from the Ecommerce website. There has been a big jump in revenue, but with a decrease in conversion rate and flat traffic. The only reason appears to be a big increase in spend per customer (RPU or Revenue per user).
2
The number of visitors to the website. In this example traffic overall is flat with a slight drop in traffic.
3
The number of visitors to the website who made a purchase. In this example there has been a drop in purchasers which is a concern, given the traffic on the website has also decreased. However this could be the case due to the increase in spend.
4
The spend on attracting visitors to the website through paid media adverts. The overall spend was down but cost per acquisition was up. This could be down to the lower conversion rate, but there is headroom to drive more traffic given the low cost per acquisition against the revenue per user (RPU).
5
The revenue per user is the total spend of an individual over a fix moment in time. The large increase in RPU is promising but this has had a big impact on conversion. Conversion rate needs to be investigated to understand if the increase in RPU was the cause.
Where can I see my Business to Consumer (B2C) Marketing KPIs?
The screenshot is from Google Analytics it shows the Marketing KPIs important for Ecommerce. This example is looking at a set of Ecommerce campaigns running in Google Ads.
This example looks the key metrics: Visitors/sessions, transactions, conversion rate, revenue and cost. To calculate your cost per acquisition take your total cost and divide this by the number of transactions.
1
The list of paid campaigns from Google ads.
2
The total number of visitors who came from paid for campaigns.
3
The total number of visitors who made a purchase on the Ecommerce website.
4
The total amount of revenue generated by campaign. This will help you understand the spend per user.
5
The conversion rate for each of the campaigns, those visitors who came to the website, who then went on to make a purchase.
6
The total amount of money spend by campaign. This helps you calculate the Cost per Acquisition and therefore the marketing profitability of each campaign.
How can I diagnose my B2C campaign performance?
In the analysis here, we looked at the marketing KPIs for mobile, based on a set of Google Ads campaigns.
We could see which campaign were effective, where the yellow bar is higher than the red bar. The kitchen and bedroom campaigns are effective so would invest further and increase these campaigns budget.
On the other hand, the accessories and garden campaign need looking into, as they are underperforming. It could be an out of stock, targeting or page conversion problem. Either way both need resolving, and would recommend taking budget away from these campaign until they are resolved.
1
The search brand campaign has been effective at driving traffic (red bar) which has made a purchase (yellow bar) on the website. The yellow bar been bigger than the green bar shows a higher average order value too.
2
The bedroom campaign was also effective although given the volume of traffic (red bar) against the cost (teal bar) it shows this is an expensive campaign.
3
The kitchen campaigns is very effective. The very low media spend (teal bar) against the revenue generated (yellow bar) indicate there is room for further investment in this campaign.
4
The Google shopping campaign has generated revenue (yellow bar) but it need immediate investigation due to the high cost (teal bar). Look at the Cost per Acquisition (CPA) against the Revenue per user/Average order value to ensure the campaign is profitable.
5
The garden campaign has a high amount of cost (teal bar). The traffic however isn’t too expensive, given the red bar. The issue with this campaign is conversion so investigate why users are not taking action (blue bar) and then going on to make a purchase (green bar).
People also ask . . .
Are the marketing KPIs for B2B with B2C the same?
The overall marketing KPIs are very similar although you will be measuring different outcomes.
- B2B (Business to Business): You will be aiming to engage you audience with the outcome being a lead (known as lead generation), whereby the person gives you there data.
- B2C (Business to Consumer): The focus here, is getting your audience to make a purchase and therefore the outcome is revenue.
The overall marketing KPI’s are the same though with a focus on Conversion rate, visitors and Cost per acquisition sometimes called Cost per lead for B2B brands.
How do I get my marketing KPIs for my business?
To capture this information the easiest way to do this is to use Google Analytics or your web analytics tool.
The data available in this tool will allow you to grab you visitors AND if you have set up you outcomes or goals (revenue or leads) then the conversion rate.
Once you have this information you can see the results inside Google analytics, export the results for analysis or use in your presentation.
Alternatively we can help you extract and interpret the information for you and understand why things are improving or declining.
I cannot see Cost per acquisition/lead, where is this?
Great question!
Cost per acquisition or cost per lead is one of the more tricky marketing KPIs to get. This is not a single number inside your google analytics/web analytics tool.
To understand how this is calculated go here.
However if you need the answer, you will need to capture your total leads or transactions/sales and divide this by your total media spend.
This will give you your cost per acquisition or lead.
Recommended Reading
Below is some recommended content, we have picked out. This content below is focused on the Marketing KPIs above and how to learn more about the 3 killer KPIs.
Define: Website visitors – Learn the truth about what a website visitor is. Understand quickly, how this marketing KPI can be diagnosed to understand the quality of your traffic, see which sources are impacting your marketing budget and where you need to focus your effort.
Define: Conversion Rate – Read about a critical metric for measuring the number of people who take action on your website. Learn how to diagnose this crucial marketing KPI, conversion rate, and understand how it can impact your cost per acquisition.
Define: Cost per Acquisition (CPA) – Read about one of the most important marketing KPIs when setting your marketing budget. Understand how to calculate it, if your website traffic is profitable and how to diagnose the unprofitable channels.
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