B2B Marketing Analytics: Metrics to Focus On (Part 4)
In this post we continue the discussion about analyzing your B2B marketing analytics. As we mentioned in Metrics to Focus On (Part 3), your B2B marketing strategy should be analyzed for each marketing practice you employ. These days marketing automation platforms are available that provide executives with granular views of how effective their marketing activities have been. Here are a few key metrics that should be analyzed for your PPC and email marketing practices.
Pay-Per-Click
Click-through rate (CTR)
On the surface this metric is pretty obvious but, in this case, we recommend going beyond counting how many clicks resulted from each marketing asset. Focus on the resulting activity. What occurred after the link was clicked? Did your lead bounce from your landing page? Analyzing the activity after you earned the click reveals messaging effectiveness and indicates whether leads are being advanced through the marketing pipeline.
Cost per click (CPC)
Certainly, “how many sales resulted from our PPC campaign?” is an important question but there are additional metrics that can also be measured from a paid campaign. For example, one way to fully capture the ROI is to calculate how many repeat sales resulted following an initial paid click. Did a PPC buyer return to buy again? Consider returns other than financial ones from your CTR; metrics such as new email subscribers from a paid campaign may be worth analyzing as well.
Landing page
They’ve clicked your ad and viewed your landing page. What happens next? If a click-through bounces quickly from a landing page, for instance, it can be a good indicator of the ad’s messaging effectiveness. As mentioned before, measuring activity following a paid click is important. In this case, look at your landing page conversion rate as a ratio against your CTR – that can tell you whether sales are resulting from ads or your landing pages.
Click-through rate
Our view for this metric is the same as for PPC assets: look beyond the number of click-throughs and examine what happened after the click. Analytics tools can evaluate email ROI so you can determine how effective your email messaging is at converting sales. Remember to look beyond financial returns. For example, measuring the number of leads that have shared an email after clicking embedded links can reveal message effectiveness and brand advocacy, and contribute to better lead profiling.
Subscribers
It is important to evaluate your subscriber base for patterns and trends. Segment email subscribers by title, industry, or budget to evaluate what lead profiles are interested in your messages and where messaging can be improved. Don’t forget that your subscriber base can provide an opportunity to expand your reach through message sharing or forwarding.
Sharing/Forwarding
Whether an email asset is shared through an embedded Twitter button or via traditional forwarding this activity, which is recognized as being social in nature, should be analyzed to evaluate message effectiveness and develop lead profiles. Which method was used to share your message? How often are recipients sharing your email messages? Examine which messages are being shared and who is sharing messages to get a feel for how effective your email campaigns are at developing brand advocates.
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