Inbound marketing is a great way to create sales funnels and get your target customers to find you. To optimize your inbound marketing strategy, you should track inbound marketing metrics. This article will outline essential metrics for the five main areas of inbound marketing, which are:
- Website
- SEO
- Social media
- Sales funnels
Understanding the important metrics for each area of inbound marketing will help you improve your strategy. Keep reading to learn more.
Website Metrics
Your website is where most of your inbound traffic will be directed. Therefore, optimizing your website will boost the performance of every other aspect of your inbound marketing strategy. The next sections will outline each of the top inbound marketing website metrics.
Website Visitors
The total number of visitors you get to your website is a key inbound marketing metric. Whether it’s repeat website visitors or people discovering your website for the first time, increasing this number is a sign that your inbound marketing efforts are working.
Conversion Rate
When someone visits your website, you want them to take action. Website conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who take a targeted action. Conversions can come from many actions, including purchases, filling out a form, email list signups, subscriptions, or app installs.
What is a Good Website Conversion Rate?
A good website conversion rate is usually between 2 to 5 percent. Conversion rates above 5% are considered excellent and show that your website converts at a high level. However, a good conversion rate will vary based on the industry and the types of products or services you sell.
Leads
You should be measuring the number of leads generated from website traffic. Getting leads from your website can include filling out a form, scheduling a call, or signing up for your email list. It’s important to figure out the process for how you will generate leads and the sales funnel that will follow. Planning this process will help nurture leads and turn them into paying customers.
Landing Page Conversion Rate
Landing page conversion rate is an inbound marketing metric that will tell you how well specific web pages convert. If a page has a high conversion rate, you can figure out what’s working and see if you can apply it to other areas of your website. Alternatively, if a page has a low conversion rate, you should see what improvements you can make to improve it.
Average Time on Site
The average time spent on your website is a great way to see if your website content grabs a viewer’s attention and keeps them engaged for a significant amount of time. Having a high average time on site also helps ensure that your inbound marketing strategies bring the right audience to your website.
What is a Good Average Time on Site?
Most marketers will aim to have an average time on site of more than 2-3 minutes. For reference, a 750-word blog post should take a viewer 4 minutes to read in its entirety. If you’re creating blog content, you can use this benchmark to help measure how engaging your content is for readers.
Visitors By Source
Visitors by source is a metric that measures which sources generate the most traffic to your website. Search engines, social media, and emails are common sources of website traffic. Knowing which sources are successfully generating website traffic and which could use improvement will help you optimize your inbound marketing strategy.
Leads By Source
Similar to visitors by source, leads by source is a metric that measures how many leads you get from each traffic source to your website. Understanding the number of leads generated by each traffic source will help measure each one’s effectiveness in bringing relevant visitors to your website who convert into leads.
Blog Subscribers
Blog subscribers is an inbound marketing metric that measures the effectiveness of your blog content. Consistently seeing an increase in blog subscribers shows that your SEO strategies are working while also providing engaging blog content for readers.
Blog Views
Blog views measures the percentage of website visitors that view your blog content. Increases in blog views indicate you are covering topics on your blog that are interesting for website visitors.
Call To Action (CTA) Conversion Rate
CTA conversion rate is a metric you can use to test different types of CTAs across your website. Testing different CTAs will help you determine which words and phrases lead to higher conversion rates.
Bounce Rate
Website bounces happen when someone goes to your website and immediately leaves. A high bounce rate shows that people finding your website aren’t interested in your content or it isn’t satisfying what they were looking for in their search. Ensuring you target the right keywords and clearly represent what your website has to offer will help minimize bounce rates.
Pages Per Visit
Pages per visit is a similar metric to average time on site because it measures engagement once someone gets to your website. A significant number of page views after someone finds your website is a sign that visitors are engaged with your content and that your content leads visitors through appropriate sales funnels.
SEO Metrics
One of the main ways websites get traffic is through search engines, making SEO a critical part of inbound marketing. The next section will detail important SEO inbound marketing metrics you should track.
Keyword Rankings
Keyword ranking is one of the top SEO metrics. Keyword rankings show how well your web pages are ranking for specific keywords. For inbound marketing, you should aim to be in the top 10 search results for a keyword since most people don’t look past the first page of results.
Impressions
SEO impressions are how often someone sees a link to your site on search engines. Impressions help you choose the right keywords that strike a balance between being able to rank highly while still getting a lot of search volume.
SEO Click-Through Rate
Click-through rate for SEO is the percentage of link clicks to your site out of the total number of impressions on search engines. SEO click-through rate helps measure if your headlines and meta descriptions get people to visit your site after seeing it in search.
Organic Traffic
SEO organic traffic measures the total amount of traffic that comes to your website as a result of organic search engine results. Organic traffic is essential for inbound marketing since the aim of inbound is to have your content naturally find a target audience during key parts of the buyer journey.
Backlinks
Backlinks are an important inbound marketing metric that affects both SEO performance and the amount of traffic you get to your website. Having other websites link back to your content provides more authority in search results and gives you additional organic traffic from other websites and audiences.
Social Media Metrics
Social media platforms allow your brand to build authority online and reach people during the buyer journey. The next sections will detail important social media inbound marketing metrics you should track.
Social Reach
Social reach is the total number of people who see your posts on social media. Some types of social media content can get more reach than others, so optimizing for content with more reach can be a great way to expand brand awareness.
Social Shares
Social shares are the number of times your content was shared on social media. Social shares are a valuable way to build your audience and expand your reach through people sharing content they love with their followers.
Post Engagement
Post engagement is the percentage of likes, comments, shares, and other engagements on a post out of the total number of impressions. Social media accounts that maintain high engagement rates on posts show that their audiences are receptive to their content and more likely to follow a call to action.
Email Metrics
Email is another key aspect of inbound marketing strategies. Sending out regular content to a list of email subscribers will help keep your audience engaged and your brand name at the top of their minds. This section will discuss key email inbound marketing engagement metrics.
Email Open Rate
Email open rate is the percentage of subscribers who open an email you sent. Maintaining high open rates ensures your audience stays actively engaged with your email content.
Email Click-Through Rate
Email click-through rate is the percentage of recipients who click on a link within an email. High click-through rates help boost traffic to your website and other important conversion pages.
Net New Email Subscribers
Net new email subscribers are calculated through the number of subscribers gained minus the number of unsubscribes. Consistently increasing net new email subscribers shows that you are getting people to subscribe to your email list and that your email content provides enough value to keep them subscribed.
Sales Funnels
When you get leads or website traffic from inbound marketing, sales funnels are what will drive home the sale and can be an integral part of the decision-making process. This section will outline key sales funnel inbound marketing metrics you should track.
Sales Opportunities
Sales opportunities are the percentage of people who make it to the end of a sales funnel where you can close the sale. Measuring sales opportunities is important because it shows how well your funnel performs to maintain engagement throughout the selling process. If you have a high number of sales opportunities but a low close rate, you should change your strategy for closing sales.
Close Rate
Close rate is the percentage of sales you closed out of the total number of people who entered the sales funnel. Providing value throughout the sales funnel and clear calls to action will help increase your close rate.
Sales Cycle Time
Sales cycle time measures how long it takes someone to make it through the entire sales funnel. While there is no specific amount of time that is right or wrong for a sales funnel, you should aim to get leads through the sales funnel as quickly as possible to ensure you maintain their attention and interest throughout the entire lead nurturing process.
Average Order Value
Average order value shows how much someone spends after they make it through your sales funnel. If your average order value is lower than you expected, you can find ways to upsell consumers on other products or services you have to offer throughout the sales funnel and closing process.
What is the Best Way to Track Inbound Marketing Metrics?
Now that you know all the important inbound marketing metrics, you’re probably wondering how to track and organize all this information to get the most out of your inbound marketing efforts. This section will outline ways to track metrics for each of the five key areas of inbound marketing.
How to Track Website Metrics
Many resources are available to track website inbound marketing metrics. Free options are available, which provide a beneficial resource for businesses on a tight budget. However, paid website analytics tools can help track some of the more detailed metrics on this list. The top tools for tracking website metrics are:
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a go-to website analytics tool for many professionals. It’s a free tool that helps track website traffic, time on site, your best and worst performing pages, and other key metrics. While Google Analytics does have its limitations, it’s great for a free tool to get started.
- Adobe Analytics: Adobe Analytics is a great option for more advanced analytics tracking through a detailed metrics system. Adobe Analytics helps measure detailed metrics like unique website visitors, order attribution, and customer journey analytics. It’s a paid tool with a high price point, so it’s best for companies with bigger budgets.
- Clicky: The main feature that makes Clicky stand out is that it offers real-time website analytics tracking, so you can see analytics about website activity the moment it happens. All data on Clicky is displayed on a user-friendly interface. It comes at an affordable price of $9.99 per month.
How to Track SEO Metrics
Both free and paid tools are available to help track SEO metrics. Some of the best SEO metrics tools are:
- Google Search Console: Google search console is a great option to get started with SEO metrics. It provides details on keyword rankings, impressions, and clicks, all on a free platform.
- MOZ: MOZ is a company known for staying on top of all the latest information in the SEO industry. MOZ offers a free SEO checker on their website that will give you basic information about domain authority and how your pages are ranking. However, you will have to pay for a subscription to get the most out of the platform.
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a similar platform to MOZ. Ahrefs also has a free SEO checker where you will be provided with limited information about how your website performs in search. However, the paid plan is where you will get the most out of the platform, where you can track detailed SEO metrics and optimize your website for SEO.
How to Track Social Media Metrics
Most top social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have analytics tools right on the platform so you can see how your posts are performing. However, if you want more detailed social media metrics for inbound marketing, paid tools can provide additional insights and details. Some of the top social media metrics tools are:
- HubSpot: HubSpot provides detailed metrics about your audience, posts, content interactions, and how your social media performance ties in with business performance and revenue gained. While it is a pricier tool, it provides excellent value for businesses with a high budget.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social is a great tool that can be used to track metrics across social media platforms in an organized way. It also offers advanced features that help with social listening so you can help expand your reach and engage new audiences on social media.
- Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a social media analytics and management platform. It helps you manage your social media content schedule, automate social posts, and track key analytics about how your social content performs across multiple platforms.
How to Track Email Metrics
Email inbound marketing metrics can be tracked on various free and paid analytics tools. Some of the top email metrics tools are:
- Mailchimp: Mailchimp provides a free option to manage email campaigns and track performance metrics. Many key metrics like opens, clicks, and conversions can be tracked on Mailchimp’s easy-to-use platform.
- Bloom: Bloom is an email marketing tool that helps you set up an email list, manage email campaigns, and track metrics. Bloom is a paid platform that costs $69 per month, so it’s important to have the right budget if you want to use this tool.
- Benchmark Email: Benchmark Email is similar to Mailchimp. Like Mailchimp, it allows you to set up and manage email campaigns and track metrics about how your emails are performing. Benchmark is also a free platform, so if you’re debating between Benchmark and Mailchimp, you can always try both and see which one you like better.
How to Track Sales Funnel Metrics
Metrics for sales funnels can be more difficult to track, so they typically require more advanced analytics tools. Therefore, you should dedicate a sizeable portion of your budget to a good sales funnel metric tool. Some of the best sales funnel metrics tools are:
- HubSpot: HubSpot offers products that can help track customer lifecycles from the moment they become aware of your brand until they make a purchase. Everything you need to know about detailed customer behavioral trends can be tracked on HubSpot.
- Improvado: Improvada is a data platform that tracks the entire sales and marketing operations cycle. It provides detailed data tracking so you can get an insightful overview of each step in the buyer journey.
- Kissmetrics: Kissmetrics is known for tracking prospects and sales funnels at a deeper level to get an insightful overview of consumer behavior. In-depth details about consumer behavior can be overwhelming for some, so it’s important to know how much data you want to track before choosing this tool.
Conclusion
Tracking inbound marketing metrics is crucial to get the most out of your efforts. Inbound metrics can be tracked across different areas of the inbound marketing process. Knowing how consumers interact with your website, social media content, emails, sales funnels, and how they discover content in search engines is essential to optimize your inbound marketing campaigns. Using inbound marketing metrics tools can help you organize all the important data in one place to make sense of it all.
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