THERE’S AN OLD SAYING in business that you can only manage what you can measure. Most business owners are familiar with many of the key metrics of financial performance: profit, return on investment, stock turn, gross margin, etc. But many are not as familiar with the important metrics for measuring online performance as well. Here are a few of the key metrics you should be comparing in order to maximize your return from your online efforts.
Website
- Visitor Numbers: How many people visit your website each month? How are these visitors getting to your site (search, direct links, social media)? Is the trend increasing or decreasing?
- Bounce rate: This is a measure of the percent of people who visit one page on your site then leave immediately or “bounce” straight back out. It shows the ability of your website to engage people beyond the first page or interaction.
- Abandoned cart: This is the percentage of people who put an item into your online shopping cart but don’t follow through with payment. More than 50 percent of people are guilty of this, but it represents an opportunity to re-engage to get them across the line. What are you doing to follow up with these potential customers?
- Load time: One of the biggest deterrents to staying on a site is the time it takes to load. Expectations are that a site will load in less than 3 seconds.
Social Media
- Likes and Shares: What engagement are you getting on your social media? Have often do you post?
- Advertising Spend: What is your budget for online advertising? Is it increasing or decreasing? What platforms are you spending your money on?
- Cost per click: One of the great advantages of online advertising versus the traditional offline model is the ability to measure the interaction your customers are having and the cost of that interaction. Cost per click is the average cost of getting someone to click on your ad.
- Cost per result: You may know how much it costs to get someone to your website, but what of the cost of them taking action when they get there? Depending on the result you require (an email sign up? A download of a free report? A purchase?), you will need to measure the cost of this action. Without this information, you may spend more than the customer is worth to you.