We live in the age of data, and it’s incredibly overwhelming, especially as a business when you’re sifting through all of it to determine how to measure the effectiveness of your marketing programs.
We realized we talk about tracking, monitoring, analyzing, but we haven’t actually done a deep dive into what the hell any of it means.
Our friends at Mailchimp outlined the main purposes of analytics.
- To gauge how well your marketing efforts are performing and measure the effectiveness of your marketing activity.
- To determine what you can do differently to get better results across your marketing channels.
Here are a few of the terms you need to know. Also, thanks to MailChimp for defining all of this for us; it made this blog MUCH easier to write.
PPC
Mailchimp defines PPC as an online advertising campaign that a company pays for only when users interact with the ads. Instead of paying for your ads to simply show up on a publisher’s website, you pay for user clicks. Pay-per-click (PPC) refers to a type of campaign. Cost per click (CPC) refers to the actual cost: the campaign fee/number of clicks = cost per click. For example, if you pay $1,000 for a campaign that receives 50,000 clicks, your CPC is $0.02.
Click-through rate
The percentage of users who click on the link in your digital marketing message after seeing it. For example, if 10,000 users see your display ad and 10 users click on it, your click-through rate (CTR) is 0.001 or 0.1%.
Segmentation
A/B Tests
also known as split testing, refers to a randomized experimentation process wherein two or more versions of a variable (web page, page element, etc.) are shown to different segments of website visitors at the same time to determine which version leaves the maximum impact and drive business metrics.
Call-to-action
What you want your target audience to do after receiving your marketing message. The call to action (CTA) clearly articulates the next step: learn more, contact us, shop now, follow us, sign up. A/B testing offers a great opportunity to experiment with different calls to action and optimize your messages with the CTAs that get the best audience response.
Backlinks
Links on websites other than your own that go back to a page on your website. Backlinks are also called inbound links because they represent traffic coming to your website from somewhere else. Depending on quantity and quality of backlinks, this can help you rank higher in search engines.
Conversation rate
The percentage of user actions taken after total clicks on a display ad or other digital asset. Your marketing strategy defines your actions, which commonly include clicking on a second link, downloading an asset such as a B2B (business-to-business) white paper, or signing up to receive special retail offers. The formula is: clicks / actions = conversion rate. The higher your conversion, the more successful your campaign.
CPC
A fee that a website publisher charges to serve your display ads on its site. Instead of paying for your ads to simply show up, you only pay when the audience interacts with them.
Drip Campaign
A series of automated emails sent to people who take a specific action. For any given action, you can choose how many emails to send and the rate at which to send them. These emails can be personalized with data like the contact’s name and specific references to the action they took.
We totally get how overwhelming this is, it’s why agencies like ours exist. We are dedicated to staying on top of trends, Google changes and more. Reach out to us, and we’ll help set you up for success in 2022.