For most companies, data governance and management is an issue. Most lack standard practices to capture, extract, clean, and visualise data in ways that lead to useful insights. Cultural barriers prevented them from developing the right mind-set and capabilities to adopt new technologies or agree on an approach.
Before we get into anything, we thought we’d list the definitions of various data points below. KPIs and Objectives get thrown around here and there. To prevent any arguments, we start with our definitions.
| Term | Definition | Example | Specifics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Generic action, or an outcome towards which we strive. - They lead the overall team towards delivery of client business goals. - Responsible for ultimate delivery quality and business results. - Client advocate and ultimate liaison. | Increase propensity to travel | Goals may not be strictly measurable or tangible. |
| Objective | Specific action - the objective supports the attainment of the associated goal. - In charge of making sure tasks are assigned to the right people, resources are allocated and ensures everything is run smoothly. | Deliver meaningful brand connections through content that will inspire future travellers. | Must be measurable and tangible. |
| KPI | A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives. - Core responsibility is to determine the best way to represent an idea and produce high-level concepts across every touchpoint. | - SEO ranking - Average page views per session - Time on task - Bounce rate | Evaluated over a specified time period, and are compared against past performance metrics. |
| Metric | A quantifiable measure that is used to track and assess the status of a specific process. - Responsible for designing the presentation and interactivity of a product. - Manages the overall performance of the live solution - Review data to identify and realise performance improvements to create and tune data models to optimise performance | Users are visiting destination pages, but not clicking through to hotel booking | A metric can be derived from one or more measures. |
| Measure | The numbers or values that can be summed and/or averaged. - Managing fact-checking, or approval processes with subject matter experts. | Sales, leads, durations or downloads | Measures are numbers/values; KPIs are context-driven and are often made up of multiple measures. |
The role of data in user experience is invaluable. As these data points pertaining to the problem, you are trying to solve.
It also helps to get buy-in from other team members on recommended solutions, especially while working with cross-functional teams. However, the trick lies in choosing the right process and the right sources to gather these data.
To use data effectively, you will need to set yourself up for success by using a KPI monitoring system or a spreadsheet with all critical metrics you’d like to measure month-over-month. Only tracked KPIs can be improved.
By setting yourself up this way, you can use the data to enhance your marketing strategy and focus your time and resources on the most profitable lead sources.
- Lead generation
- Website & traffic metrics
- SEO
- Paid advertising
- Social media tracking
The KPIs that demonstrate how effectively a company is achieving consumer interest or inquiry are:
- Monthly new leads/prospects The number of new leads acquired in the past month. A new lead can be someone signing up for a free trial or creating an account on your online retail site.
- Qualified leads per month
Qualified leads show whether your marketing campaigns are effectively focused on targeted leads or just generating traffic. Customer can be categorised into three groups:
- Marketing qualified leads (MQL) – leads that the marketing team has evaluated and decided to forward to the sales team. Sales-accepted leads (SAL) – prospects that the sales team has accepted and will follow up on.
- Sales qualified leads (SQL) – leads that the salespeople consider prospective customers, leading to focused attention and moving the leads further into the sales cycle.
- Cost per lead generated The cost of acquiring a new prospect. Complemented with the cost-per-conversion metric, we can evaluate whether various marketing activities pay off the effort, time, and resources spent to attract new leads.
- Cost per conversion The cost of acquiring a new prospect. Complemented with the cost-per-conversion metric, we can evaluate whether various marketing activities pay off the effort, time, and resources spent to attract new leads.
- Average time of conversion Monitoring the time for leads to convert into paying users shows the effectiveness of your sales process. If the conversion time is too long, your prospects might lose interest in your service or product, and you might end up losing them to a competitor.
- Retention rate The number of clients who keep using your product over an extended period and make repeat purchases. By monitoring the retention rate, you see how well-engaged your customers are. Moreover, you can evaluate whether your customer support and user experience help build and maintain customer loyalty.
- Attrition (churn) rate The percentage of customers no longer buying products or services. Increased churn rate may be a sign of poor user experience or slow service performance.
- Net promoter score
According to Net Promoter Network, there are three levels of customer advocacy:
- Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who praise your company to others and drive your sales
- Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied, but unenthusiastic customers leave when they see a better offer.
- Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who spread negative information about your company and damage your brand image.
- Monthly website traffic In addition to overall traffic, monitor the number of visits to multiple page categories such as your homepage, pricing page, blog, landing pages, etc. Use those figures to evaluate which parts of your website have the highest conversion rate and apply the best practices to other pages as well.
- Returning vs new visitors By measuring the percentage of returning visitors, you see how engaged your audience is. For example, a low return rate on a blog page might indicate that your content isn’t compelling enough for people to come back for more.
- Visits per channel Understanding your inbound traffic sources helps to determine the most profitable marketing channels.
- Average time on page Important for organic search traffic as Google ranks pages based on relevance. If a visitor leaves your website straight after arrival, search engines will know that the content they saw wasn’t what they were looking for. The higher your website’s average time on site, the more likely you rank well on search results and convert more visitors to leads.
- Website conversion rate A page might be visited thousands of times. But if it doesn’t convert, there’s no use in directing paid traffic to this site.
- The conversion rate for call-to-action content This marketing metric is especially useful if you’re using pay-per-click campaigns to drive traffic to specific pages. By comparing the price per conversion and customer lifetime value, you’re able to evaluate your CTA content’s sustainability.
- Click-through rate CTR shows how effectively call-to-actions attract people’s attention and make them click for more information.
- Pages per visit This KPI shows whether your site navigation is set up in a logical order and includes compelling call-to-action. Moreover, you can see if visitors are attracted to your content, meaning that they’re more likely to return.
- Inbound links Measure only the quality links from pages with high page rank. The number of inbound links shows whether your content’s shared on other sites. It can also indicate whether you’re considered to be an industry expert in a specific field.
- Organic search Traffic This metric shows the number of monthly website visits through search engine results from Google, Bing, etc.
- New leads from organic search Monitor the number of new leads that found your brand through a search engine query. This KPI indicates the performance of your SEO strategy. Track this KPI as a percentage of all new leads to assess organic search value to your sales and profits.
- Conversions from organic search See how many leads from organic search convert into paying customers. This KPI shows whether your keywords that rank high in search engine results are linked to your value proposition. A low organic conversion rate indicates that you might have high-ranking keywords that confuse the audience and deliver wrong messages about your service or product offer.
- Page authority High page authority helps content, and landing pages perform well in search engine results. Monitor page rank with various SEO tools such as Moz and SEMRush.
- Google PageRank This website metric is calculated by Google using various algorithms to determine the importance of web pages. It is based on the quality and quantity of inbound links that direct to a given page.
- Keywords in top 10 SERP Monitor the number of keywords in the top 10 on a search engine results page to evaluate your SEO performance.
- Rank increase of target keywords At the end of each month, monitor how your top keyword rankings have evolved. Track the number of increased and decreased keywords to see whether your SEO strategy is on its course.
- Conversion rate per keyword If you can find a keyword that’s attracting a remarkably high number of paying customers, it can be a real goldmine. This means that the keyword is attracting a highly targeted audience. If a keyword has a high conversion rate, find related keywords, and create content to rank high in SERPs with all of these.
- Number of unique keywords that drive traffic The more high-ranking keywords, the more traffic. Monitor this SEO metric as a month-over-month trend to see whether your newest keywords start to bring more traffic.
- Traffic from video content With video becoming an increasingly used digital marketing format, you should include it in your SEO strategy. Studies have shown that videos are over 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search engine results as part of the blended results.
- Leads & conversions from paid advertising
Monitor the number of monthly leads and conversions from cost-per-click advertising as a percentage of overall results. This way, you get an overview of your non-paid marketing performance. - Cost per acquisition (CPA) & cost per conversion
Compare the number of cost-per-conversion with your customer lifetime value to ensure your campaigns are profitable in the long term. You can also monitor the cost per acquisition, but it’s cost-per-conversion that reflects paid campaigns’ actual profitability. - Click-through rate on PPC advertising
This KPI gives you an overview of the effectiveness of your pay-per-click campaigns. If the CTR is low, it means that your ad content isn’t compelling enough for a person to click on it.
- Traffic from social media Monitor this social media KPI as a percentage of all visits and follow the monthly trend to understand the importance of various channels to your website traffic.
- Leads and conversions from social media Monitor the number of monthly leads and conversions from social media to assess this channel’s efficiency in your marketing efforts.
- Conversion rate Measure how well-targeted your social media lead generation is. Track the number of leads that become paying customers. The conversion rate shows the actual ROI of your social media marketing.
- Managed audience size Monitor the number of followers per channel month-over-month to see whether the audience stays engaged.
- Page authority High page authority helps content, and landing pages perform well in search engine results. Monitor page rank with various SEO tools such as Moz and SEMRush.
- Engagement rate This social media metrics show the number of people who have actively engaged with your posts (shares, likes, clicks, etc.) Measure it as a percentage of your total number of followers.
- Mentions Monitor the monthly trend of both positive and negative remarks to evaluate your brand image.
- Social media ROI Find a formula for measuring social media ROI. You can choose to include social media marketing budget, staff payroll, development and design costs, etc. The benefits can be new leads and customers, increased awareness, and social proof.
Beyond this, there are other forms of data such as research data (user, stakeholder and competitive analysis), but this a good overview of the solid metrics that can enhance and improve designs.