Talking about measuring results through the observation of strategic indicators is very common at present; however, it is unclear what performance indicators are, and even to understand the main characteristics of these in depth, to know which to use to monitor digital marketing processes. Therefore, this article is designed to give a context to the definition of indicators. By clarifying these terms, we can give recommendations for a layer of performance indicators for your website.
An indicator becomes data or information which serve to describe and value the characteristics of a fact and/or provide information on future behavior.
These in turn translate into definitions that underlie an objective being pursued by a business unit, particularly, in Digital Marketing, we talk about the macro and micro interactions that we expect the user to make with my brand so that it can be consumed. Let’s look at it in the following diagram:
Now, taking into consideration that there more than one layer of indicators can exist in a business process, we will differentiate between a strategic indicator and one for performance. When we refer to the first, these will be the actions that contribute and directly affect the business objective, that is to say, this strategic indicator encompasses all the processes and therefore the performance indicators of each process, this means that on many occasions the strategic indicators are obtained through the integration of various performance indicators.
This is why it is important, and within digital marketing it become vitally important, to have the definition or at least an axis of performance indicators which provide sufficient information if the actions that have been taken in the operation of processes involved in the business unit are effective, if they need optimizing or even modifying. Therefore, the performance indicators based on the theoretical path that a user could follow on a website are shown below:
Traffic:
Traffic sources: information on the traffic sources by which users enter the site
Traffic obtained: quantity of traffic received in a given period of time. Combining all traffic sources
Rebound Rate: measures sessions where only one hit was registered. One interpretation is the percentage of visitors that enter the site and then leave rather than continue to view other pages on the same site.
New vs Recurring Visitors: number of incoming users categorized as new or recurring in a given period of time. A user is considered new if they enter with a device+browser for the first time. If the cookies for the session are not saved, then the next entry would be considered new. Recurring users can b
Behavior
Average page views: average of page views by users
Average Time on Site: average time that the user is on the site
Number of Pages per Visit: the number of different pages that received attention during the same user session
Click-Through Rate: measures the quantity of clicks that the link received divided by the quantity of views that the same link had
Search terms in the site’s internal search engine: the terms used by the users on the site
Download time for the site: refers to the time that a website takes to download all its content, functionalities and resources form the moment that the user enters the site.
Entry Pages: refers to the page by which the user enters the website
Exit Pages: refers to the page by which the user enters the website
Pages per Session: the quantity of pages between total user sessions
Device category: device by which the users enter the site
Interests: identification of the type of interests and segments according to the classification of the tool by its search history algorithm
Interaction Events: micro or macro actions that the user is expected to make in the site (for example, subscriptions, register, add to the basket, submitting a form, etc.)
Conversions
Maximum action that the user is expected to make on the site (call to action).
Conversions (Concrete objectives/actions that the user is expected to make on the site)
- Lead generation
- Paid subscriptions
- Purchases
