Inbound marketing is all about the data. There’s nothing more important than your sales, leads, and revenue. But at the same time, it can be tough to know what exactly makes a metric meaningful.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at 34 of the most significant inbound marketing metrics that you should be paying attention to and why each one matters for your business.
| Takeaways |
|---|
| 1. Understanding the key metrics in inbound marketing is essential for optimizing strategies. |
| 2. These metrics provide insights into the effectiveness of various aspects of inbound campaigns. |
| 3. Metrics like website traffic, conversion rates, and lead generation help measure success. |
| 4. Tracking customer engagement, content reach, and social media interactions informs strategy adjustments. |
| 5. Analyzing these 12 significant metrics can guide decision-making and drive business growth. |
1. Visitor Goal Conversion Rate
The final metric to consider is the visitor goal conversion rate, which is simply a measure of how many visitors reach a specific goal on your website.
For example, if you’re selling something online and have set up an online checkout process for purchases, then a visitor’s goal would be to purchase something from your site.
In this case, the number of people who complete their purchase (the total number divided by the total number of visitors) could be considered your visitor goal conversion rate.
If you sell high-end items or services that require longer sales cycles before someone will buy them from you, then it may take multiple visits before they make a purchase.
You can use this metric by breaking down each visit into its parts: what type of traffic was received, how long users stayed on the page and so forth and then combining all these figures into one average value over time.
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2. Inbound Marketing ROI
Now that you’ve got a good idea of how to measure inbound marketing, let’s talk about what to do with the results.
First off, if your inbound marketing is not giving you positive ROI, then stop focusing on it and focus on something else! If something isn’t working for you, then don’t worry about it.
The next most important thing is to make sure that your measurement strategy includes a way to identify when an action has been completed by someone who comes from an inbound channel (i.e., they clicked through from one of your blog posts).
This can be tricky because many companies have multiple touch points before they complete a conversion or purchase–including search engines and paid advertising channels like Facebook Ads and Google Ads.
But identifying this last step will help ensure accuracy for measuring conversion rate over time as well as attribution modeling
3. Monthly Unique Website Visitors
This metric measures the number of unique visitors to your website. Measuring this is important because it’s an indication that you’re getting traffic from people who are interested in what you have to offer.
It can also be used as a measurement for success when it comes to content marketing, social media marketing, and other tactics that bring in targeted traffic from search engines.
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4. Traffic-To-Lead Ratio
This metric is calculated by dividing the total number of leads you generated by the total number of visitors. For example, if you had 100 visitors and 10 leads, your traffic-to-lead ratio would be 10%.
If you have a low traffic-to-lead ratio, this could mean that your website isn’t getting enough people to visit it.
A good way to increase this figure is by boosting your traffic. You can do this in a variety of ways: creating more relevant content or increasing the quality of existing content so more people will want to read it and convert it into leads.
5. Total Number Of Contacts
The total number of contacts is the sum of all users in your database.
It’s important to note that this metric refers to any contact with your brand, including those who are not currently customers and may never become customers.
The total number of contacts should be used as a benchmark for measuring the effectiveness of inbound marketing campaigns, but it should not be used as a goal because it will likely increase over time with natural growth and acquisition efforts.
A contact is defined as an individual who has engaged with your brand online via email, social media platforms (Facebook/Twitter), blog comments, or other methods.*
6. Lead-To-Opportunity Conversion Rate
The lead-to-opportunity conversion rate is the number of leads that become opportunities. It’s calculated by dividing the number of opportunities by the total number of leads or contacts and multiplying that result by 100 to get a percentage.
For example, if you had 100 leads and 50 opportunities, your lead-to-opportunity conversion rate would be 50%.
If you want to see how well you’re converting leads into opportunities, this is an important metric to track!
Curious about what inbound marketing is all about? Delve into the world of inbound marketing by understanding its core concepts in our post, Exploring the What & Why of Inbound Marketing.
7. Average Number Of Page Views Per Visit
The average number of page views per visit is a key metric for measuring the effectiveness of your content. This metric shows you how many pages on your website a visitor is viewing, and it’s useful for understanding how engaged their overall experience is with your brand.
To calculate this metric, add up all of your page views in a given period and divide them by the total number of visits that occurred during that same period.
So if you have 150 page views over 10 days (1,500 minutes), and 100 users visited during that same 10-day period (1,000 minutes), then you would calculate:
150 / 1,000 = 0.15 or 15%
8. Average Time On Site
Average time on site is an important metric to track and can be measured by dividing the total number of minutes spent on your website by the number of unique visitors.
The average time that people stay on your website is a key indicator of how engaging your content is to them.
It can also help you identify whether people are reading through all of the content on your site, which gives you insight into whether or not they feel it’s worth spending more than a few seconds per page.
This metric can be used in two ways: first, as an indicator of how well optimized your website is for conversions;
Second, as a benchmark against which other metrics can be compared (i.e., “our bounce rate was higher than average this month but our pages-per-visit metric was high too; therefore, we have reason to believe that these factors might be related).
9. Social Media Shares By Type (Facebook Shares, Twitter Tweets, Linkedin Shares)
Social media shares are a great way to see how many people are talking about your content. The three most popular social networks for sharing are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Once you’ve set up tracking for each of these channels, you can start seeing how many people share your content daily by the week or by month.
This metric gives you real-time data about how much engagement your content is getting across all three networks.
This makes it easy to spot trends in what types of posts generate the most shares from which platforms and then use that information to increase engagement with future posts.
For example, if one type of post generates more likes than another, it might be because people don’t agree with the message or have difficulty understanding it so in this case, it may be best not to create more similar posts unless you want them ignored as well!
However, if another type consistently generates more comments than others then perhaps that’s something worth continuing doing as well.”
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10. Total Number Of Keywords Ranking In Google’s Top 10
The total number of keywords that rank in the top 10, 5, and 3 are important because they’re a reflection of how well you’re doing at driving traffic from Google.
Let’s say that your business has three keywords ranking in the top 3, but no other keywords are scoring any positions for you.
That means that all the organic traffic coming from Google is coming through those three pages (the first page). It also means that if those pages were to be removed or deindexed by Google, then you’d lose all your search visibility overnight without any warning whatsoever.
11. Blog Subscribers & Email Subscribers
Blog subscribers and email subscribers are the most important inbound marketing metrics, as they directly reflect how many people are interested in your content. Blog subscribers are people who have subscribed to your blog via an email newsletter or RSS feed.
Email subscribers are generally more valuable than blog subscribers because you can send them specific offers and emails without having to worry about whether they’ve seen the message before the email is a one-to-one medium.
Social media followers don’t mean much unless those followers are engaging with your brand online, liking or sharing your posts, or interacting with other users on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
12. Use These Key Metrics To Measure The Progress Of Your Inbound Marketing Efforts
These are the key metrics to measure your inbound marketing efforts.
Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who take a specific action, such as signing up for an email list or buying a product.
Average conversion rate: The average conversion rate over time, or how well you convert visitors into customers over time. This can be especially useful when comparing different campaigns or strategies.
Clicks vs conversions: How many clicks does it take to get a conversion? You can use this metric to see which keywords are bringing in the most valuable traffic and then optimize for those keywords going forward.
Cost per lead/sale/download: These costs should be as low as possible so long as they’re still profitable!
You’ll want to keep an eye on how much money you’re spending on advertising and make sure it’s worth it the higher these numbers go, the more likely you’ll need to figure out ways of lowering them (for example by using better targeting techniques).
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Conclusion
We hope that this article has helped you get a grasp of the most important metrics for measuring your inbound marketing success.
Remember, these metrics should be used to measure the progress of your digital marketing efforts and not as a gauge for whether or not you’re doing something right or wrong.
We have just covered some of the most critical inbound marketing metrics that every marketer needs to track with their team. Take some time out today to go through each one of them and see how they can help improve your business strategy!
Further Reading
3 Must-Measure Inbound Marketing Metrics That Matter to Every Business Short Description: Learn about the essential inbound marketing metrics that can have a significant impact on any business’s success.
Seven Key Metrics to Measure the Success of Your Inbound Marketing Strategy Short Description: Discover seven crucial metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your inbound marketing strategy and make informed decisions.
Insights into Inbound Marketing Metrics Short Description: Gain valuable insights into measuring and analyzing inbound marketing metrics to enhance your campaigns.
And here’s the “FAQs” section using Markdown:
FAQs
What are the primary inbound marketing metrics to track?
Inbound marketing metrics can vary, but common ones include website traffic, conversion rates, lead generation, and customer engagement.
How do I measure the success of my inbound marketing strategy?
To measure your strategy’s success, monitor metrics like website traffic growth, lead conversion rates, social media engagement, and content reach.
What role do inbound marketing metrics play in optimizing campaigns?
Inbound marketing metrics provide valuable data that helps you understand what’s working and what needs improvement in your campaigns, leading to better optimization.
How can I effectively analyze inbound marketing metrics?
Start by setting clear goals, then use analytics tools to track and interpret metrics. Regularly review the data to make informed adjustments to your strategy.
Why are inbound marketing metrics important for business growth?
Inbound marketing metrics offer insights into audience behavior and campaign performance, guiding strategic decisions that contribute to business growth and success.
Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.