Digital Marketing Analytics Report: KPIs You Need (by Channel)

Are you trying to build a digital marketing analytics report, but you're not sure where to get started?. Digital marketing isn't just a world unto itself; it's an entire universe.. There are TONS of moving pieces that all need to work together seamlessly. When your weakest link breaks, the entire chain can crumble.. To stay ahead of any potential problems, you need to keep your eye on the data.. That's why, in today's post, we'll teach you how to create a digital marketing analytics report.. More specifically, we'll look at the most common key performance indicators (KPIs) that you need to track by marketing channel.. Ready to get started? Let's dive into the list.. Digital Marketing Analytics Reports. For today's article, we'll break down our digital marketing KPIs by channel. We'll be looking at:. Organic Content Marketing (via search engines like Google) Social Media Pay-per-Click Email Marketing In total, we'll build our digital marketing analytics report with 11 KPIs. But keep in mind that you can add others to fit your business's unique goals.. Let's start with the KPIs you need for organic content marketing.. Organic Content Marketing. 1. Organic Traffic. The first digital marketing analytics report KPI you need for organic content is your traffic.. This metric will tell you how much website, blog, or social media visits are coming from organic search engine results (i.e., Google). If the number isn't high enough, then it might be time to improve on-page SEO factors like meta descriptions or page titles.. If you're getting a good amount of organic traffic, then this KPI can help you identify which pages are converting best for your site.. This ultimately helps you brainstorm better content that your target audience finds more attractive for future campaigns.. 2. Keyword Rankings. Keyword rankings are important to understand how many opportunities your target audience has to discover your brand through search engines (ok... Google).. If you're ranking first for popular keywords, then that's great. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that the traffic is converting into sales or leads at a high rate.. Instead, you want to make sure you're ranking for keywords that are relevant to your niche and bringing in the RIGHT kind of traffic.. While you can invest in lots of different keyword tracking tools, you can get this information for free from Google Search Console.. 3. New vs. Returning Visitors. When it comes to digital marketing analytics, new and returning visitors can give you a lot of insight into your target audience.. For example, if an overwhelming number of people are coming back for more content over multiple times per month, then that's great news.. It means they're really connecting with the material that you publish on a regular basis.. On the other hand, if you're only getting a small number of new visitors each month and your returning visitor count is low, then it may be time to pause on publishing certain pieces or rethink your digital marketing strategy as a whole.. There just isn't enough interest in what you have to say to convince readers to come back.. Social Media. 4. Follower Rate. Follower rate is a metric that tells you how much your audience trusts and responds to what you have to say.. If someone follows your brand on social media, then it implies that they're interested in being updated about new content or products from you. They also want the opportunity to engage with this material as well.. Even though follower rate is not the most important KPI for a digital marketing analytics report on its own, it can help you better understand your current performance with social media audiences.. 5. Engagement Rate. Engagement rate is a digital marketing analytics report KPI that measures how much people are engaging with your social media content.. In most cases, engagement rates will tell you which posts or tweets were the most popular among followers for any given time frame. You can also see this information from Facebook Insights and Instagram Analytics.. By learning about engagement rate, you can spend more time creating popular content for social media that your target audience will truly love.. 6. Conversions from Social Media. Once you've figured out which social media posts are performing the best, then it's time to measure concrete conversions.. Put simply, this one lets you understand how much your audience is clicking on links in each post to visit a website or download an asset.. For example, if someone clicks on your link to check out a post that you published and then buys the product right afterward, then that counts as a conversion from social media traffic.. You can use UTMs in all of your social postsG to track this more accurately in Google Analytics.. Pay-per-Click. 7. Impressions. Impressions measure how often people saw an ad for your brand on search engines or social media.. If you're paying for digital marketing campaigns, then this KPI is important to track.. This information tells you exactly how much it costs to advertise with each platform and whether or not your campaigns are actually working.. For example, if impressions went up but there was no corresponding increase in new leads generated, then the ads might be too expensive.. By tracking impressions, you'll know exactly how much money to invest in digital marketing campaigns for your brand over time.. 8. Cost-per-Click (CPC). Cost-per-click (CPC) digital marketing analytics report KPI measures how much you're spending to advertise on platforms like Google Adwords and Facebook Ads for any given time frame.. Essentially, this shows what each click is costing your brand so that you can adjust your budget (and ad copy) accordingly.. 9. Cost-per-Conversion. Cost-per-conversion (also known as "cost per acquisition" or "CPA") measures how much you're spending to get a lead or sale from one of your digital campaigns.. It's very similar to CPC, but instead of just looking at clicks, it looks at what each action costs in terms of payment for the product.. By tracking CPA, you'll know exactly how much digital marketing campaigns are costing your business.. Then you can double down on ads that are bringing in money and you can tweak the ones that aren't gaining any traction.. At the end of the day, this is likely the most important PPC metric to add to your digital marketing analytics report.. Email Marketing. 10. Open/Click-through Rates. Open and click-through rates help you figure out how interested your audience is in the emails that you send.. This measures how many people open (or view) an email versus clicking on links inside of it.. Open rates are important to track because they highly affect deliverability. If your open rates are too low, your emails could end up in your recipients' SPAM folders.. To fix low open rates, focus on writing better and more engaging subject lines.. Click-through rates (CTR) look at who clicked your call to action (CTA).. If this is low, then you might need to reformat your emails or work on writing more engaging email copy.. 11. Conversions. Conversions indicate how much digital leads and sales your email campaigns are generating.. This is really important because it gets away from any "vanity metrics" and lets you focus on what counts: are your email campaigns moving the needle for your business in the right direction?. If so, great!. If not, it's time to get back to the drawing board.. The point is that you need this data in order to understand if there's a problem that needs to be fixed OR if things are running as they should.. And that's all for today! Before wrapping up, let's quickly look at 2 different ways you can build custom digital marketing analytics reports.. How to Build Digital Marketing Analytics Reports. When you really break things down, there are only 2 ways to build a marketing report:. By hand (by you or an employee) With a report-building software That said, I always recommend AGAINST creating reports manually.. I know what you're thinking, "Well, obviously. You own a report-building software.". But hear me out.... I'm not saying to avoid creating reports by hand because I own a report-builder. In fact, it's the opposite.. I created a report-builder because I saw how inefficient building reports by hand actually is.. Think about it. When you build reports manually, you're vulnerable to the following:. Inaccurate data coming from sloppy data input Lost hours as you tediously poor over data from multiple channels Organizational stress as you create separate reports for different parts of your team (or clientele) At the end of the day, you're looking at spending MORE money to have LESS accurate data.. Again, that's why I always recommend going with a tool like Metrics Watch:. While you have many options, I specifically built Metrics Watch to be useful for ANYONE.. There's zero coding skills required, and you don't need any technical knowledge to get things set up FAST.. That's because Metrics Watch has a drag and drop report builder that connects to your favorite channels, including:. Google Analytics Google Search Console Google Ads Facebook (organic and paid) Instagram (organic and paid) LinkedIn (organic and paid) Mailchimp You can determine which KPIs you need and automatically pull the data on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.. From there, you can send reports automatically to your key decision-makers.. But the best part is that there is ZERO friction when it comes to sharing this data. This is really the key advantage of using Metrics Watch.. It's the only tool that allows you to send reports directly to your recipient's inbox. Not as a PDF attachment and not as a link to a 3rd-party dashboard.. Instead, you send the data people need in a format they already know and love.. Want to see it in action for yourself? Just click below to start your 100% risk-free Metrics Watch trial (no credit card required):. Build Automated Digital Marketing Reports Today! And that's all for today! These have been 11 KPIs for your digital marketing analytics report.. I hope you found this post helpful. If you did, then you'll definitely want to check out the following resources:. Google Analytics 101: How to Find and Fix Your Real Problem 3 Ways to Create Marketing Reports for Funnel Tracking The Best Marketing Analytics Tools to Ensure Your Company's Growth These articles will have even more information that you can use to create more data-driven (and profitable) reports.

Still puzzling over something?