How to Measure Your Small Business Marketing Efforts

So, you run a small to medium-sized business. You are probably using a number of different marketing tools to reach your current and potential customers. But how do you know if your efforts are working? Are you directing your resources into the right channels and at the right frequency? Which metrics do you use to set goals and evaluate tactics?

The area of marketing analytics can be overwhelming and, frankly, confusing. It’s especially challenging for small business owners who don’t have the luxury of a marketing department to rely on. But measuring marketing success can actually be quite simple if you know what to look for.

Here are some of the top marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are relevant (and helpful) to small businesses:

Website KPIs:

Is your website effective? Are you attracting new customers? How do users find their way to your site? All of these questions (and more) can be answered with some simple metrics found in your Google Analytics account:

Website Visits: This tells you how many times your site was visited within a specific period. This is the total number of visits, so if customers are visiting your site repeatedly, each time they “stop by,” it counts as a visit. Unique Visits only counts an individual once. Are these numbers growing or declining month-over-month? And what marketing efforts did you employ during the period to direct people to your site? Where your efforts successful?

New vs. Returning Visitors: You can break down your visits into new vs. returning visitors. Are you marketing to new customers or trying to grow your relationship with current customers? What changes in marketing tactics could you make to reach your desire audience?

Visits by Channel: How are users coming to your site? There are a few different options. Direct tells you how many visits resulted from visitors typing your URL into the search bar. Organic Search represents the number of visits that resulted from specific keywords being entered into a search engine like Google or Bing. This metric can help you determine if your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts are working. Paid Search refers to visits that were directed to your site from a paid ad on a search engine results page (SERP). (Major search engines allow advertisers to show ads on their SERPs.) Referral tells you how many visits came from a source outside of a search engine. For example, another website or blog could include a link to your website. Social means the number of visits that occurred through a link in a social media page, post or ad. Email explains how many visits to your site were a result of a clicked link in an email. Understanding how visitors arrive at your website can help you to see if the efforts you are making in particular channels are working.

Downloads: Do you have downloadable coupons or other materials that are accessible from your website? How many downloads are occurring in a specific time period? Are your goals being met?

Social Media KPIs:

Is social media one of the tools in your marketing toolbox? If so, is it working for you? Here are a few metrics to help you measure your social media success:

Follower Growth: Is the size of your social audience increasing? When customers follow you on social media they are more likely to recommend your products or services to others. So tracking increases or decreases in your audience size can be meaningful.

Social Media Engagement: Are people interacting with your posts? These interactions are known as engagement. Are followers “liking,” “commenting,” or “sharing” what you have to say? What kinds of posts do your followers most engage with? Understanding engagement is key to knowing what content to share.

Leads: Are you getting direct messages or comments through your social media pages that you can follow up on? Do you consider these to be quality leads for your business? Leads can come from a variety of sources and social media could be a valuable one.

Email KPIs:

What is the goal of your email campaign? Are you trying to grow your subscriber database? Generate more leads? Here are some metrics to help you determine if your email efforts are working for you:

Email List Size: Is the number of people on your email subscriber list growing or shrinking? Are you undertaking efforts to grow your list, and if so, are those efforts paying off?

Email Open Rate: This metric tells you the percentage of the total number of subscribers who opened a specific email. If specific emails have higher open rates than others, take a look at the subject line and relevancy to your audience. What kinds of emails are your subscribers reacting to?

Click Through Rate (CTR): This is the percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links in a specific email. It’s the total clicks divided by number of delivered emails. Are you trying to direct your email subscribers to your website? Is it working? CTR helps you track these efforts.

Conversion Rate: Your conversion rate is the percentage of email recipients who completed a desired action, for example filling out a form or downloading a coupon. It’s the number of people who completed the action divide by the total number of emails delivered.

Ecommerce KPIs:

Does your business sell products or services online? If so, there are some metrics specific to ecommerce that may be helpful to you. You can track these in your Google Analytics account:

Average Order Value (AOV): What is the average size of an online order? The higher your AOV, the more income you generate with each order. Are you trying to increase the revenue you generate from your online store? This is a valuable metric to help you track this over time.

Ecommerce Conversion Rate: This number tells you the percentage of visitors who took a desired action. Conversions can be broken into micro conversions, which are actions like email signups and downloads that will ultimately lead to a macro conversion, which is typically a sale or donation, either new or repeating.

These are just a few of the KPIs that will help you to evaluate and improve your marketing efforts.

Have you discovered that your website needs a transformation to attract and maintain visitors? Do you need help with creating effective social media or email marketing campaigns? Are your SEO efforts in need of a boost? Or maybe you simply need help determining which KPIs are right for your business? Infinite Web Designs can help. With over 18 years of experience in website design and digital marketing specific to small and medium-sized businesses, our team of professionals understands your unique needs and is here to help. Give us a shout. Let’s talk about how IWD can help your business.

Infinite Web Designs is an innovative CT website design and digital marketing company located in Fairfield, CT.

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