How are you planning to optimize in 2019?
Many websites and retailers turn to digital ads, email newsletters, referral programs, and more all in the effort to boost traffic. But how effective are your campaigns? In world buried by big data, it can be easy to become overwhelmed by which statistics are simply “vanity metrics” or those that are attributing to real value.
Here are a few metrics to start quantifying the difference:
Conversion Rate
Visitors pour into your website. But what do they do after? Do they leave confused and irritated? Or do they find what they are looking for, and possibly request more information? Do they make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, or make downloads? These items, goals, or conversions, are valuable events in a customer’s journey. By understanding the trending frequency of these events, by which audiences, we are able to leverage this info into better decisions.
Life-Time Value
This metric requires a holistic view of the customer’s journey. By leveraging historical data, we can easily gain insights into the value each of these customers are likely to bring on average over time. Multiple purchases, upsells, related services, referrals, they all apply when calculating LTV.
Viral Coefficient
Also known as the value each customer creates. By multiplying Conversion Rate against the Referrals sent by users.
Now, I know, you’re saying “Referrals are not paid traffic! They don’t belong here.” And while that may be somewhat true, it’s also worth keeping in mind, our best users can arrive via any channel. And our targeting and audience segmentation will therefore directly affect virality. Simply by collecting data on your best users, is going to help you target your best users.
Of course, you still want to monitor metrics like Pages Per Session, Bounce Rate, New Users – and so forth, but do not let these be the deciding factor of success in your campaigns.
Let 2019 be the year of insightful A/B testing, valuable data collection, and exciting referral programs. As long as you are making strides in new channels, mediums, or strategies, it is time well spent. The best way to collect these more involved metrics is by doing exactly that, getting started!
