Ever feel like you’re clutching at proverbial data straws to justify marketing spends? Welcome to the wonderful world of digital marketing.

Juggling data on conversions versus clicks versus impressions from marketing automation software can feel like you’re doing everything and nothing all at once. But fear not, intrepid marketer! Understanding digital marketing KPIs is your life raft in this data deluge.

We’ll give you the rundown on which KPIs matter most, offer best practice insights, and help you navigate the software tools you need to conquer the market. So, grab your metaphorical floaties, and let’s dive in!

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Article Roadmap

• What Are Digital Marketing KPIs?
• Essential KPIs
  • Website Traffic and Acquisition Metrics
  • Engagement Metrics
  • Conversions and Lead Generation Metrics
  • Sales and Revenue Metrics
  • Additional KPIs
• Best Practices
• Helpful Tools and Resources
• Next Steps

What Are Digital Marketing KPIs?

Digital marketing KPIs are metrics used to measure and optimize your marketing team’s performance by tracking campaigns and actions. According to Patrick Herbert, Founder and Director of Singularity Digital, most KPIs are linked to revenue.

“Effective marketing KPIs for marketing connect to dollars almost always,” he explains. “Dollars gained, dollars lost or dollar efficiency.

There are three tiers of KPIs:

Direct Dollar KPIs: These KPIs measure direct revenue or spends connected to KPIs – there’s no ambiguity in how they affect a bottom line. Examples are revenue, cost and cost per result.

Intent KPIs: This tier is somewhat influenced by the first tier as they incur costs or imply an intent for a person to be a customer. Cost isn’t included in the name or calculation – clicks are the best example. Other examples may be conversions (like downloading a PDF when the goal is a booked meeting or sale). Other examples are engagement, social media post shares or even email forwards.

Vanity KPIs: Unlike the first two, these are not directly connected to dollars but can be useful as a leading factor of success or failure for broader KPIs – views of display ads are an example, as are social post views and comments.”

Essential Digital Marketing KPIs

Unlike the jeans from the “Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants,” KPIs are not one-size-fits-all. Depending on your marketing goals, you’ll need to measure different, or even multiple, KPIs to ensure you succeed.

Website Traffic and Acquisition Metrics

The first step toward optimizing your online presence is understanding your website’s traffic and the source of your clicks.

1.Organic Traffic

Teresha Aird, Co-founder and CMO of Offices.net, refers to organic traffic as the “Authenticity Marker.”

The volume of visitors coming to your site through unpaid search results highlights the natural interest in your brand. It’s a testament to your content’s relevance and your SEO strategy’s effectiveness. Good organic traffic provides a foundation for sustainable growth.”

Common metrics for organic traffic include:

• Sessions: The total number of times users interact with your website within a period of time.
• Users: The number of individual visitors to your website during a set time frame.
• Page Views: The total number of times individual pages on your website are loaded.

Pro Tip: Analyze these metrics with SEO tools to understand how well your website ranks for relevant keywords and optimize content.

Paid Traffic Metrics

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, especially when it comes to driving traffic. Sure, in an ideal world, we’d hope to boost traffic solely organically. But, with Google’s ever-changing SERP criteria and the rise of paid social media content, most strategies involve a combination of paid and organic traffic-driving methods. Paid traffic metrics include:

2. Cost-Per-Click (CPC): Having a “the limit does not exist” attitude about paying for clicks is a good way to enter a bottomless pit of spending. This metric helps you understand the average cost of a click and set measures to control spending per click. For example, if you spend $100 on 1000 clicks your average cost-per-click is ten cents. You can then set upper and lower limits to keep spending per click to those limits.

3. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Joe Karasin, Founder of Karasin PPC finds CTRs help optimize ad performance.

[CTRs] are a good early indicator of your ad performance and can help you isolate where you’re missing opportunities.

For example, if you have a high CTR but a low conversion rate, then you may need to further optimize your landing page. If your click-through rate is low, then you might want to narrow your targeting down a bit, adjust your targets, or look at your ad content and see what can be tweaked.”

Other Traffic Metrics

4. Referral Traffic KPIs: Sometimes, visitors take a scenic route to your website. Use referral metrics for visitors who arrive at your website from links placed on other websites, social media platforms or emails. Identify your top referring domains to understand where your target audience comes from, build helpful partnerships and tweak your messaging.

5. Direct Traffic Percentage: The number of visitors who type your website address directly into their browser bar or access your site through bookmarks can be an important indication of brand awareness. But, take your direct traffic percentage with a grain of salt. Some traffic from unknown sources is lumped into direct traffic metrics.

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Engagement Metrics

Want to understand how users interact with your content and brand? That’s where engagement metrics enter the picture.

6. Social Media Engagement: Keeping your finger on the pulse of user engagement requires keen tracking of social media KPIs. It’s essential to track likes, comments and shares, your follower growth rate and social media traffic.

However, these values don’t exist in a vacuum. For example, if a post has high impressions or views but barely any likes or comments, you may need to change tactics for your content. Alternatively, if your reach is low, you might be shadow-banned or using blacklisted hashtags.

7. Email Engagement: Drip campaigns, welcome emails, re-engagement emails and special deals are staples of a digital marketer’s toolkit. The basic metrics you need to track are your open rate, click-through rate and unsubscribe rate. A healthy email marketing strategy equals high open rates and CTRs with a low unsubscribe rate, indicating that your content is relevant and valuable to your subscribers.

8. Time on Site: While average session duration is a useful metric, analyzing time spent on specific pages provides deeper insights. The longer users spend on a particular page the more valuable and engaging your content is. You can identify high-performing content and recreate it or branch out into related content.

9. Bounce Rate: The visitors who leave are just as important to track as the ones who stay. Lower bounce rates mean visitors are interested in more than one page on your website. A high bounce rate might not just be a content issue. Slow loading times, complicated interfaces and poor graphic design can lead to skyrocketing bounce rates.

10. Average Session Duration: Like its name suggests, it’s the average time users spend on your website during a visit. A longer session duration usually means visitors find your content valuable and are exploring different sections of your site.

Joe Karasin finds this can be more important from a B2B standpoint.

Many B2B campaigns involve longer sales cycles and further educating potential customers. Blog posts are one way to help educate, and if you’re writing compelling content, it will have high retention rates. If not, then you may end up seeing a lower average session duration.”

Conversions and Lead Generation Metrics

We’re finally getting to the stereotypical metrics you’d associate with digital marketing. The bread and butter, the spice melange of marketing.

11. Lead Generation Rate: The heartbeat of any marketing strategy, this metric quantifies how effectively your marketing efforts are turning website visitors into potential leads. Imagine it as a digital fishing net: the more leads you catch relative to your overall website traffic, the better your net is performing. Calculate lead generation rate to gauge the effectiveness of individual campaigns and assess the impact of marketing spends on lead generation.

12. Conversion Rate: Like a jarring plot twist, this metric is the crux point – transforming curious visitors into action-takers. Whether users sign up for your newsletter, make a purchase, or download an eBook, each conversion is a victory. Segment your conversion rate by source or channel for deeper insights into what’s working and what needs improvement.

13. Cost Per Lead (CPL): CPL is the Robin to your Batman of lead generation. It tells you how much you’re spending to acquire each lead. Whether you’re running paid ads, hosting webinars, or attending trade shows, understanding your CPL ensures you’re not unnecessarily burning through cash.

14. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The President of Ascendly Marketing, Marshal Davis is well-acquainted with the importance of customer acquisition cost. “CAC measures the total cost of acquiring a new customer, crucial for evaluating the efficiency of marketing campaigns,” he explains.

By tracking how much is spent on different channels to gain one customer, businesses can pinpoint the most cost-effective strategies. Lowering the CAC while maintaining or increasing the quality of acquisitions is a clear indicator of marketing success and operational efficiency.”

CAC is the ultimate reality check. It considers all marketing efforts, not just lead generation. It answers the question: “What does it cost us to win a new customer?” Knowing your CAC helps you allocate resources wisely and optimize your marketing mix.

Sales and Revenue Metrics

More sales and revenue can mean more problems if you don’t understand the metrics attached to them, and what they mean.

15. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): The North Star guiding your business decisions, CLTV quantifies the total revenue a single customer account generates throughout the entire relationship with your company. Think of it as nurturing a fruitful orchard, you want the “fruit” each customer brings to your business to grow and increase over time.

16. Average Order Value (AOV): Your AOV is the average amount a customer spends per transaction. Obviously, the higher the AOV, the better, but it’s also crucial to ensure your conversion spends don’t outpace the average order value.

17. Return on Investment (ROI): ROI is the compass for your marketing ship. It gauges how effectively your marketing spend translates into returns. Whether you’re launching ads, expanding factories, or diving into real estate, ROI keeps you on course.

Joe’s career in digital marketing has opened his eyes to the importance of returns on ad spends in an eCommerce setting.

The return on your ad spend [in eCommerce] measures the effectiveness of your ad campaigns. If you are only seeing a one-and-a-half to three-time return on ad spend, you are most likely losing money when you factor in overhead, cost of goods and other factors.”

18. Customer Retention Rate: Repeat customers are the best customers. Hence, retention rate is the glue that holds your customer base together. It measures the percentage of customers who stick around over a specified time frame. Use these metrics to boost customer loyalty, reduce churn and identify valuable customer segments.

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Additional KPIs To Consider

We’ve gone through the nitty gritty of digital marketing KPIs, the basics if you will. But wait, there’s more! Here are some additional KPIs to help boost your marketing efforts.

19. Brand Awareness

Is your brand on your target audience’s radar? Track social media mentions, calculate brand search volume and use brand sentiment analysis to measure customer opinion and brand recall. Brand awareness is like the sun rising over your business — it illuminates your presence in the minds of consumers.

20. Content Marketing Performance

Content is driving the inbound marketing charge! However, endlessly pumping out content no one is interacting with is a great way to waste time and resources. If you’re creating eBooks, whitepapers or guides, make sure you measure downloads, shares or forms filled.

Things are a little different for video content. Mike Vannelli, the Creative Director at Envy Creative shared some tips with us:

In the digital video marketing realm, understanding the right KPIs is crucial to distinguishing signal from noise. One proven KPI I’ve found particularly effective is ‘Engagement Rate.’ This transcends mere views or clicks, focusing on how interactively and deeply the audience is connected with the content.

Why is this significant? Engagement rate encapsulates likes, comments, shares and watch time, offering a comprehensive gauge of content resonance. For instance, a high engagement rate often correlates with increased brand loyalty and higher conversion rates, translating to real-world benefits like repeat customers and word-of-mouth marketing.”

21. SEO Performance

Taking a shot every time someone says SEO performance in a marketing team check-in is a great way to get tipsy in 30 minutes or less. Key metrics to track tie in your organic traffic growth. Track your keyword ranking and work on increasing your organization’s credibility. Remember, SEO isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. You have to keep optimizing and adapting to ever-changing algorithms to stay on top of your game.

22. Social Media ROI

Social media isn’t just about viral reel templates, memes and boomers responding to celebrity photos like they’re friends. Social media ads can translate to revenue and even goodwill. Calculate the actual dollars generated from social media campaigns. Did that Instagram ad lead to sales? How many potential customers did your social channels bring in? Track sign-ups, inquiries and conversions.

23. Mobile-Specific KPIs

The experts haven’t reached a consensus on how much screen-time is too much, but I think we can all agree we skew towards too much. Look for ways to cash in on all that mindless scrolling. If you have an app, measure app downloads and in-app purchases. Check mobile conversion rate to determine how well your mobile site converts visitors into customers, and, of course, keep optimizing!

24. Customer Satisfaction

Happy customers can be your best marketers, while unhappy customers can be your worst detractors. Track your Net Promoter Score (NPS) and conduct customer satisfaction surveys to identify what your customers think of your brand and product or service.

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Best Practices

Tracking 24 different KPIs is a Sisyphian task by any measure. You don’t need to add ineffective KPIs to your plate. Here are some tips to help meet your marketing goals more efficiently.

1. Set “SMART” Goals

The first step is to clearly define your marketing goals. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, generate more leads or drive sales? Using the SMART goal framework ensures your KPIs are clear, actionable and measurable. Here’s an example to follow:

• Specific: Clearly define what you want to measure. The more specific, the better. Really get into the weeds with it and so you don’t end up with vague goals like, “improve website traffic.” Set a goal with specific benchmarks. So instead of “Improve website traffic,” try, “Increase organic traffic by 20% next quarter.”
• Measurable: Ensure your KPIs can be easily tracked and quantified. Use business analytics tools, social media insights dashboards or marketing automation software to collect and analyze data.
• Achievable: Set ambitious but realistic goals. Consider industry benchmarks and your past and current performance to set achievable targets.
• Relevant: Your goals should directly relate to your overall business objectives. Don’t waste time tracking vanity metrics.
• Time-Bound: Establish a timeframe for achieving your KPI goals. Even if you don’t meet your time goals to the T, you’ll create a sense of urgency and (hopefully) won’t fall victim to the planning fallacy.

2. Align KPIs with Overall Digital Marketing Goals

Once you have these goals in mind, select the KPIs that align with each goal. For example, if your goal is brand awareness, relevant KPIs may include social media mentions, brand search volume or website traffic growth. Or, if your focus is lead generation, you might track website form submissions, email signups or downloads.

3. Consider Industry Benchmarks and Competitor Analysis

Setting targets without an understanding of industry benchmarks is like judging a 400 meter race by 100 meter timings. Using industry reports and past performance to analyze benchmarks. Peep competitor performance with tools like SEMrush or Similarweb for insights into their website traffic sources, social media engagement and top keywords.

4. Track a Manageable Set of KPIs

It’s tempting to track every available metric, but focusing on too many KPIs can lead to a data overload and make it difficult to identify actionable insights. Choose the most relevant KPIs that directly align with your goals. Regularly review and refine your KPIs as your marketing strategy evolves.

5. Use Marketing Automation Tools To Track KPIs

If you’re not the Einstein of spreadsheets (and most of us aren’t), marketing automation tools can help you track and analyze KPIs more effectively. The right tool will combine the campaign bits with the tracking bits and allow you to create and track personalized KPIs. Accessing and analyzing centralized and historical data will also help you continually optimize your process.

If you want to know more about the marketing automation tools that meet your business needs, check out our free requirements template.

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Next Steps

Balancing ROI, reach and lead conversions without clear digital marketing KPIs doesn’t make for smooth sailing. We hope this article acts as a compass, guiding you through the storms on your voyage toward greater visibility, lead conversion and sales.

Just remember, all the KPIs in the world are ineffective if you can’t track and compare your data against past performance and industry benchmarks with the right marketing automation tools. Check out our free comparison report to steer you in the right direction. Anchors away!

What digital marketing KPIs are essential to your business? Let us know in the comments below!

SME Contributors

Joe Karasin has nearly a decade of experience in digital marketing. After a stint at CircleIt as Chief Marketing Officer, he branched out on his own to found Karasin PPC.

Teresha is the Marketing Director and Owner of Infoactive Media Ltd and Infoactive Media Pty Ltd. She also co-owns, partners with, and consults for several web properties and e-commerce start-ups including (but not limited to) Custom Neon, Offices.net, and Music Critic.

Marshal leads Ascendly Marketing, a digital marketing agency and consultancy. He leverages his expertise in strategy, financial planning, and investments to help clients achieve their goals and optimize their performance.

Mike is no stranger to the film and TV industry,where he has produced TV shows and music videos for hundreds of clients, including Mcdonald’s, Warner Bros, USAA, Costco, and more. As the Creative Director of Envy Creative he oversees the creation and direction of all commercial ads and company communication including client relations, video production, online ads and marketing.