Digital marketing has transformed the way businesses and consumers connect. But how do you know if your digital marketing efforts are successful? Monitor your metrics for the most value. That way, you can understand what digital marketing campaigns hit the mark with your target audiences. Then, discover the best ways to engage with these audiences now and in the future.

Wondering how to get started with digital marketing metrics? Here are four steps you can take to leverage metrics to track the effectiveness of your digital marketing.

1. Make a Plan to Track Digital Marketing Metrics

Create digital marketing goals. Then, determine what you want to accomplish with your digital marketing campaigns. Establish steps to achieve your intended results.

Your digital marketing goals should define success. They can encompass various metrics, including:

• Website Traffic: The number of visitors who access your website within a specific time frame.
• Impressions: The number of times that a user engages with web pages, social media posts, or other digital marketing content.
• ROI: A comparison of the amount of money spent on a digital marketing campaign versus the amount generated from it.

Take a gradual approach to using digital marketing goals and metrics. Set SMART goals, i.e. goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Use metrics to assess your status toward accomplishing your goals. Update your digital marketing strategy as needed. Keep a close eye on this strategy so you can verify it consistently delivers amazing results.

2. Prioritize User Intent

Monitor user intent to figure out why audience members seek out your content. Once you know why users prefer certain types of content over others, you can monitor current content marketing trends and hone your content creation strategy accordingly. Integrate keywords that audience members frequently search into your content. The result: deliver engaging, timely, and relevant content that meets audience members’ expectations.

To track user intent, learn about the three types of search queries:

1. Informational: A user searches to get information relating to a problem.
2. Navigational: A user has a general understanding of a problem and seeks out potential solutions to it.
3. Transactional: A user is ready to find the best solution to a problem.

Craft content for each type of search query. Consider the terms and phrases a user may utilize to search for content. From here, integrate these terms and phrases into your website’s blog posts and landing pages. Next, monitor page load times, bounce rates, and other website metrics to ensure this content is easily accessible.

3. Capture Customer Data

Leverage analytics tools to retrieve customer data and generate insights from it. For instance, integrate Google Analytics into your website. Leverage Google Analytics to capture customer data in real-time. This information gives you a glimpse into how customers are engaging with your site. It can help you identify customer patterns and trends. Then, find ways to optimize your site’s content and performance.

Along with SEO analytics tools, take advantage of customer surveys. Email surveys to customers to learn how they feel about your business, its products, and its services. It can be beneficial to incentivize these surveys to encourage customers to complete them, too. Upon completion, gather survey results and use them to upgrade your digital marketing strategy.

Don’t forget to use a digital document management system to collect customer data. The system can serve as a repository for all customer documents. As such, you can keep all customer data in a single location and access and review it at any time.

4. Evaluate Customer Engagement

Make the digital experience one your customers will remember. Examine how your business engages with customers digitally. Then, maximize the digital experience across a wide range of platforms.

Key metrics to track to understand digital customer engagement include:

• Time to Interact: The amount of time between when a user requests access to a web page to the moment he or she engages with the page.
• Pages Per Visit: The number of pages a visitor checks out during one session.
• Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who complete a desired activity (fill out a contact form, make a purchase, etc.).

Your customer engagement metrics may indicate you need to implement creative calls to action on your web pages, improve page load rates, or take other measures to enhance your digital marketing efforts. Regardless, these metrics can provide valuable insights. Track them frequently. You’re then well-equipped to consistently deliver outstanding digital experiences.

Monitor Your Digital Marketing Metrics

Digital marketing metrics can be difference-makers for your business. Establish a plan to monitor these metrics and get insights from them.

Also, track your business’ digital marketing metrics regularly. These metrics can provide baselines for your digital marketing campaigns. And over time, they help you achieve the best possible digital marketing results.