Patience and commitment can take months to see significant gains, and good decision making because without the analytical part we cannot maximize the efforts and resources of the campaign, and for more patience and commitment we have, it will take us much longer to see some type of positive result. In this scenario, the question arises, what to measure in Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing Analytics: metrics to measure
Growth in sales and profitability
At the end of all, the best way to measure the success of an Inbound Marketing campaign is through the growth in sales revenue, from which we get the final profitability of the campaign.
Measuring sales growth is important for both the long-term health of a company and the campaign because they not only serve as a good strategic planning KPI but also allows us to anticipate trends.
Leads
It is pure mathematics. The companies that generate more leads are the ones with the greatest sales opportunities. However, not all leads are the same. There is a big difference between Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQL).
We could summarize them in that the former is a contact that we have identified as part of our target audience and that has the possibility to become a customer and the latter, a lead that has already made the decision to value our products or services to meet their need.
Customer Life Value – Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV)
The idea of determining what is the benefit of the customer in all the time he spends with us seems complicated but still, there is no excuse for not knowing. It is similar to determining how many of the users we have in our database open our emails.
It is a very important metric to measure the ROI of the company and is a great starting point in which to start developing future business strategies.
Acquisition Cost – Cost of Customer Acquisition (COCA)
The cost of customer acquisition is the associated cost of convincing a user that we are the best option for him. This helps us set goals for the number of clients we need in a year and to allocate the appropriate campaign budget.
Traffic Conversions to Leads
This is simple of all visits to your website. How many become leads? This metric measures two very interesting things:
- Traffic quality
- Conversion rate
What is really interesting here is to see the leakage points of the conversion funnel, because many times we focus on capturing traffic when we really need to improve a checkout process.
Leads that can be converted into Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)
Consumers are increasingly sophisticated. Whether you are in a B2B or B2C sales environment, the funnels are getting bigger and more complex processes and it is essential that all the pieces work in unison or you will end up wasting time and money.
That is why it is essential that you have clear the basic aspects of a funnel and today I will take the opportunity to talk about the key differences between a MQL vs SQL.
Of all the leads generated, how many would you put the MQL condition on? The answer will help us meet the quality of the leads we are generating. If you have a low proportion, you should look at the quality of your web traffic.
MQLs to SQL
Same dynamic as the previous one. Of all the MQL, how many could we place in SQL? This is a metric in cooperation between SQL vs MQL or what we also know as S-Marketing. If communication and understanding between teams is good it will be a high coefficient.
SQL in sales
A direct reflection of the ability of the sales team to move potential customers in the last stage of the purchase cycle. Why do some do it and others don’t? It may be due to different factors such as the analyzed timeline, budget, competition, customization, etc.
Traffic
We analyze the users who visit our website because they are the ones who could become leads.
Getting to know the traffic on our website, which they are, where they come from and what they did will allow us to determine a very important piece of information: what they expect from us. This information helps us anticipate what users need. Basic Metrics:
- Sessions
- Users
- Page views
- Pages per session
- Average session duration
- Bounce Rat
Engagement in social networks
The social media strategy is part of the important efforts we have to make in Inbound Marketing with B2B strategy as it allows us to distribute our content and interact with current users and potential customers.
Email marketing results
In addition to social networks, the strategy in email marketing is essentially our lifeline with the user. As such, each campaign has to be analyzed in a multifaceted way, according to the objectives of the inbound campaign
Inbound Links
Link-building has to be the cornerstone of each SEO strategy. When someone links our site it means we are creating familiarity. And the more people we link, in theory, the more authority we will have, the better our search rankings will be and the more traffic we will receive.
Blog visits
Knowing how blog posts are working is a good way to measure what users like to read. This, as a result, is our brand value, allowing us to create even more content related to a segment that is better working.
Conclusion
However, if you want to start at some point, do it to be clear about your objectives, specific to each Inbound Marketing activity you do, and then find the appropriate metrics to tell the story.
