If you’ve spent months planning a marketing campaign, it can be quite overwhelming when it’s time to roll it out. Finally, all your hard work and sleepless nights are taking shape.

Do you relate to this? If yes, do you just let the marketing strategy do its work or do you sift through mounds of data and metrics to track if it’s actually working or not?

Well, when you are drafting your campaign strategy, you need to ask yourself this question – Can I measure this?

There’s no point running a campaign if you cannot measure results. Even before executing a campaign, you need to lay a solid foundation of how you are going to measure the success or failure of the campaign. A sure-shot method to track progress towards a goal is by identifying smart marketing metrics.

Look at goals as your destination and metrics as your kilometre stones. In a world where there is so much data available, it can be quite a task to identify which marketing metrics are really important. If you really want to measure marketing effectiveness of a campaign, start with these five metrics.

5 Marketing Metrics you Shouldn’t Ignore

1. Revenue: If you distribute your marketing spends across different channels, start by analysing how much revenue each channel is giving you. When you start tracking revenue, you will be able to justify your investment in successful channels. This will also enable you to reroute funds from the less performing channels and allow you to experiment with other methods.
2. Website Traffic Metrics: If you’re a marketing newbie, look at website traffic metrics as your first trail marker. You may have the most amazing blog posts, but what’s the point if your marketing activities are not increasing the overall traffic to your website? Track the number of page views and unique visitors coming to your site. Also, look to see where they’re coming from – organic, referral or direct. If there are certain keywords working in your favour, rank them and make adjustments in content to optimise search.
3. Cost per Lead: If you are suddenly securing quality leads, it’s a good thing. But, if the cost of doing so is extremely high, are those efforts really worth it? Ask yourself if the leads are worth the price tag? Your goal should balance cost with quality and results.
4. Conversion Metrics: Once you have customers coming to your website and staying around, you need to reassure them with several conversion metrics. To keep them engaged and interested, see what’s working and what isn’t. Track the average time spent on your site, the number of downloads and the bounce rate. Also, track the number of return visitors.
5. Growth and Acceleration: Your marketing metrics may be showing great results but is that really enough for your overall growth and acceleration? Every month or quarter, analyse if the new leads are actually helping. Track how often a customer is buying and what their churn rate is. If you’re losing customers after the first purchase, you need to work on nurturing these leads.

Measuring marketing metrics should be an integral part of every campaign or strategy. By analysing your campaign at multiple points of the process, you can make smart moves for your brand and improve customer journey.