1 / 9

Vanity Metrics vs Actionable Metrics

Read about these metrics

rebeccafantl
Download Presentation

Vanity Metrics vs Actionable Metrics

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. VANITY METRICS VS. ACTIONABLE METRICS

  2. There’s one good read about marketing that I came across with that gives that “makes-sense-to-me” in the thought bubble. I can go over the post a few times and nod with satisfaction. The post from Hubspot discusses being critical of which metrics are measuring your marketing campaigns performance vis-a-vis your marketing goals and which ones are just cake toppers. Actionable is the keyword. We are all familiar with social media followers, page views, and subscribers. At first glance, they make your performance look promising, but whether they are giving you the real deal is what you are yet to find out. These metrics are what termed as “vanity metrics.” They make you look good but aren’t really moving the needle when it comes to the context of your business goals; neither do they have a bearing on your marketing decisions. Marketers should not be blinded by their glossy surface but instead, focus their resources on working on and measuring metrics that are actionable.

  3. Janet rounds up the five vanity metrics that should be avoided and the actionable metrics that should be tracked and measured instead. Facebook Fans – There has been a decline of 20% on the engagement rates for branded Facebook Pages in the last year. This can be attributed to the saturation of companies who’ve posted on Facebook that share the space on users’ newsfeeds. This results in fewer instances that users see or read content from one company. For all we know, there may be other intent for clicking “Like”, and there is a likelihood that they never return to the Page or read the content on their newsfeed. A more actionable metric is to measure the Engagement Rate by using Facebook Insights. This free analytics tool analyses which posts have the highest engagement (shares and comments) and impressions. A high engagement level is indicative of a high EdgeRank score (EdgeRank is equivalent to SEO for Facebook newsfeeds.) Once you have identified your high-performing posts, then you can replicate it with other posts.

  4. Twitter Followers – This time, we debunk the saying, “There is strength in numbers” because it doesn’t mean anything, regardless how many followers you have. People follow you even if they do not know you. They may have other reasons other than being interested in your business, or they just want to be followed back. Janet shared the following tips: By adding a “+” to the end of any bit.ly link or using WhoTweetedMe.com, you can see who retweets your content and identify influential followers. You can also check out their most shared links by using Cadmus. A more actionable metric is to check who are your competitor’s followers. By comparing followers of your competitor with yours, you can see who aren’t following you yet and check which type of content they are following. Also, don’t be left out, follow and participate in conversations within your industry. Lastly, you can tap competitor followers and show them what value following you can benefit them.

  5. Blog Page Views – Without knowing what happens after a visitor lands on site, blog page views do not really mean anything, especially if your campaign goal is conversion. A more actionable metric is determined by bounce rate and social shares. Bounce rate is the percentage of people who enter your site, made no clicks, impression or engagement of whatsoever and leaves. If you have a high bounce rate, that is bad for your site. On the one hand, you need to be careful what behaviour should be considered as bounce rate. For example, a visitor lands on your site and the content satisfies what she’s is looking for; she may leave the site without having to visit another page on the site. Be reminded that our main focus is to get conversions. In Google Analytics, you can use the segment “Sessions with Conversion” and “Sessions with Transactions” to effectively measure how close we are to that target. By focusing on keeping readers’ attention, having a good call-to-action and linking your content to other pages in your site, you can decrease your bounce rate. Search engines consider social shares in ranking pages, so it also makes sense to track social shares of your content by your readers.

  6. Email Open Rate is measured by Emails Opened / Emails sent – Bounces. The open rate measures the effectivity of subject and the timing of the email. However, some email client requires that images be loaded to count as an open, and some users have images turned off by default. So this measure may not be as accurate as you expect it to be. It is rather more actionable to focus on your call-to-action (CTA) in your email and measure the click-through rates (CTR) of the links in your email. It may be a CTA to download something or subscribe to your newsletter. High open rates are indicative of high lead generation potential.

  7. Number of Subscribers or Product Users – Tracking the number of people who have accepted a free trial or agreed to subscribe to newsletter does not equate to actual conversion. Emails may sit unread on inboxes and people may not be actually using free demos until they have expired. A more actionable approach is to track how much active users you have. There are metrics such as visitor loyalty or recency in Google Analytics that are more indicative of conversion than the volume of free trials or subscriptions. Repeat customers and retention numbers are metrics that will effectively measure conversion rates in e- commerce sites.

  8. Furthermore, tracking which content generated more leads that have converted and the actions that these leads had taken in their buying journey before they became customers provides a clear picture of what works for your business.  One way to extract data is by adding tracking links to your CTAs so you can see how your lead moved from one point to another as they travel their journey before they made a purchase. Repeat this process until you have refined the best CTAs that bring you more conversions, and ultimately more revenue. Before transitioning your metrics, it is ideal to review your goals and define them well and that your team have agreed as to which data to use in measuring if your strategy is performing to achieve your goals.

  9. SOURCE HTTPS://ANYTHINGSEO.WORDPRESS.COM/2018/ 02/25/VANITY-METRICS-VS-ACTIONABLE- METRICS/

More Related