Key metrics for your business and why they are so important.
Claudia Roca
If you've been running your digital business for a while now, chances are you've realized that metrics are key to evaluate the health of your venture and maybe right now you want to know what are the metrics we're referring to.
Imagine you're about to prepare a delicious vanilla sponge cake, you have all the ingredients on the table but you are missing the measuring utensils.
How much flour will the cake contain, will the sugar be enough, could you use a pinch of salt?
The truth is that doing everything by eye could result in a very delicious cake or a very strange one.
And so it is with digital marketing: you may do the right things, but if you don't have a way to measure them, you will never know the quality of your results.
We know very little about baking, but we know a lot about digital marketing.
Let's get down to business!
What is a metric?
A metric is an indicator that measures a company's performance in a certain area. It is usually based on numbers and gives you information about the internal health of the project.
We could say that they're like the "vital signs" of your organism. You can feel good, have energy and be close to death at the same time.
The same happens with your business, you can have constant sales and think that everything is going well, but the numbers will tell you how healthy its different areas are.
That is why you should always evaluate them in order to act in a timely manner.
Why is it so important to study the indicators?
When your business has been in the market for some time you will find a series of numbers that you must analyze to know how bad or good it is.
Many entrepreneurs don't know which metrics they should take into account.
It's happened to all of us and it's normal. It's essential to first study the metrics that fit your business model, so that in the future you can take more accurate actions.
With this you will determine the cause of a drop in sales, a high bounce rate or low profitability. Ideally, you should sit down with your team to evaluate how your company is doing.
6 Key metrics for your business
The metrics will depend on the type of business, but there are a number of indicators that fit almost any type of project:
1. Traffic
We will focus on digital businesses because they're the ones that are booming, although several of these metrics could be applied to a traditional company.
We talk about traffic as the amount of visits you get in a specific time interval. If you want to evaluate the success of your website you will have to study the traffic on multiple occasions.
The higher the traffic, the higher the visibility and this increases your chances of sales. However, if you realize that you don't have many visits there could be a problem with your promotion strategy and SEO positioning.
2. Where do your visits come from?
Do you know what's important? The origin of your visits, otherwise you won't know how to increase them.
Go to Google Analytics and click on "Source" and you will see where your users come from. It may be that some come from social networks, others from external links and others through a Google search.
3. Bounce rate
Bounce rate is very important, especially for landing pages and online stores.
To calculate the bounce rate just divide the number of visits in a month by those who left without any interaction. This will give you a percentage and signify the bounce rate for that period.
There is no right or wrong rate. Every business has a healthy indicator that it will have to reach in some way, so your job is to find it.
4. Abandonment at checkout
If you have a digital store your goal is to sell, it's as simple as that.
We are talking about people who enter the website, select a product, fill their cart but when they get to the checkout process they leave. It's frustrating, isn't it? Well, you can study this.
Measure it through the number of people who left the checkout process and divide it by the total purchases and then multiply it by 100. With this result you will know if you are on the right or wrong way.
Why do you have abandonments in the purchase process? They are usually due to problems in the user experience when closing their orders. Many times there are inconveniences with the shipping, you ask for a lot of information or you demand to create an account to buy.
All this should be evaluated to make the necessary changes.
5. Conversions
Conversions are too important in any business, especially digital ones.
We define a conversion when a user takes the action you are looking for. It doesn't have to be a sale, as you can look for a signup, a referral and much more.
Now, if you want to know the sales conversion rate, calculate it as follows:
Divide the total sales of the website by the total number of visits.
Multiply it by one hundred.
This way you will know if your content is generating the action you set as a goal.
6. Average ticket
When we talk about average ticket we refer to the average number of unit sales you make in a given time.
With the average ticket metric you will know which are your customers' favorite products, which prices don't work and much more.
Divide the total of all your sales by the number of sales made or customers served.
If you've been running your digital business for a while now, chances are you've realized that metrics are key to evaluate the health of your venture and maybe right now you want to know what are the metrics we're referring to.
Imagine you're about to prepare a delicious vanilla sponge cake, you have all the ingredients on the table but you are missing the measuring utensils.
How much flour will the cake contain, will the sugar be enough, could you use a pinch of salt?
The truth is that doing everything by eye could result in a very delicious cake or a very strange one.
And so it is with digital marketing: you may do the right things, but if you don't have a way to measure them, you will never know the quality of your results.
We know very little about baking, but we know a lot about digital marketing.
Let's get down to business!
What is a metric?
A metric is an indicator that measures a company's performance in a certain area. It is usually based on numbers and gives you information about the internal health of the project.
We could say that they're like the "vital signs" of your organism. You can feel good, have energy and be close to death at the same time.
The same happens with your business, you can have constant sales and think that everything is going well, but the numbers will tell you how healthy its different areas are.
That is why you should always evaluate them in order to act in a timely manner.
Why is it so important to study the indicators?
When your business has been in the market for some time you will find a series of numbers that you must analyze to know how bad or good it is.
Many entrepreneurs don't know which metrics they should take into account.
It's happened to all of us and it's normal. It's essential to first study the metrics that fit your business model, so that in the future you can take more accurate actions.
With this you will determine the cause of a drop in sales, a high bounce rate or low profitability. Ideally, you should sit down with your team to evaluate how your company is doing.
6 Key metrics for your business
The metrics will depend on the type of business, but there are a number of indicators that fit almost any type of project:
1. Traffic
We will focus on digital businesses because they're the ones that are booming, although several of these metrics could be applied to a traditional company.
We talk about traffic as the amount of visits you get in a specific time interval. If you want to evaluate the success of your website you will have to study the traffic on multiple occasions.
The higher the traffic, the higher the visibility and this increases your chances of sales. However, if you realize that you don't have many visits there could be a problem with your promotion strategy and SEO positioning.
2. Where do your visits come from?
Do you know what's important? The origin of your visits, otherwise you won't know how to increase them.
Go to Google Analytics and click on "Source" and you will see where your users come from. It may be that some come from social networks, others from external links and others through a Google search.
3. Bounce rate
Bounce rate is very important, especially for landing pages and online stores.
To calculate the bounce rate just divide the number of visits in a month by those who left without any interaction. This will give you a percentage and signify the bounce rate for that period.
There is no right or wrong rate. Every business has a healthy indicator that it will have to reach in some way, so your job is to find it.
4. Abandonment at checkout
If you have a digital store your goal is to sell, it's as simple as that.
We are talking about people who enter the website, select a product, fill their cart but when they get to the checkout process they leave. It's frustrating, isn't it? Well, you can study this.
Measure it through the number of people who left the checkout process and divide it by the total purchases and then multiply it by 100. With this result you will know if you are on the right or wrong way.
Why do you have abandonments in the purchase process? They are usually due to problems in the user experience when closing their orders. Many times there are inconveniences with the shipping, you ask for a lot of information or you demand to create an account to buy.
All this should be evaluated to make the necessary changes.
5. Conversions
Conversions are too important in any business, especially digital ones.
We define a conversion when a user takes the action you are looking for. It doesn't have to be a sale, as you can look for a signup, a referral and much more.
Now, if you want to know the sales conversion rate, calculate it as follows:
Divide the total sales of the website by the total number of visits.
Multiply it by one hundred.
This way you will know if your content is generating the action you set as a goal.
6. Average ticket
When we talk about average ticket we refer to the average number of unit sales you make in a given time.
With the average ticket metric you will know which are your customers' favorite products, which prices don't work and much more.
Divide the total of all your sales by the number of sales made or customers served.
From here you will know if you have to decrease the price of some products, establish promotions, improve the packaging or copy of an ad and much more.
You will only know what actions to take if you study all the metrics in depth. We believe with our eyes closed that metrics are the key indicators that every digital business must manage every month.
Now it's your turn to define which numbers you will use to evaluate your business, but the important thing is that you do it and don't leave it to chance.
Many projects fail for not detecting problems in time, so we don't want it to happen to you.
Want to know more about digital marketing? Check out everything we have in our blog and become an expert in one of the most demanded topics of 2022.
P.S. Let us know your honest opinion in the comments.
From here you will know if you have to decrease the price of some products, establish promotions, improve the packaging or copy of an ad and much more.
You will only know what actions to take if you study all the metrics in depth. We believe with our eyes closed that metrics are the key indicators that every digital business must manage every month.
Now it's your turn to define which numbers you will use to evaluate your business, but the important thing is that you do it and don't leave it to chance.
Many projects fail for not detecting problems in time, so we don't want it to happen to you.
Want to know more about digital marketing? Check out everything we have in our blog and become an expert in one of the most demanded topics of 2022.
P.S. Let us know your honest opinion in the comments.
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