Digital Marketing

The 22 Most Important Digital Marketing Metrics

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By David Tomas, on 21 October 2021

How many metrics do you need to assess the success of your digital marketing strategy? How do you know what actions are working? The answer will depend on the channels you are going to use and the objectives you have set, but in most cases it is probably less than you think.

In the world of digital analytics, quantity does not equal quality. Instead of making neat reports accumulating a lot data without relevance, it is better to be very clear what figures we are really interested in and how they are calculated.

To do this, I've compiled the most important metrics for each type of digital marketing campaign. Ready to get started?

* Discover the most important digital marketing metrics you should know!  Click here to download ourfree ebook that breaks down these 130 metrics,  including video, social media, and SEM analytics.



Digital Marketing Metrics: General Metrics


1. Lifetime Value (LTV)

Calculation of the profit you earn from a client during the full time that they use your platform, product, or service. You can compare the LTV of different origins to compare the channels that bring in the most valuable customers. We provided the most simple calculation of this metric below.

  • To Calculate: Customer Lifetime Value = Average purchase amount * Gross margin percent * Number of purchases * Number of Years

2. Bounce Rate

Indicates the percentage of users who have visited your website but not navigated through it. Essentially this number represents the number of users who entered your website but were not interested in the additional content, so they left before navigating further. This data helps to assess the effectiveness of your landing pages. A high bounce rate means that there is a problem with the content or with the browsing experience of your website. Ideally the number should be as low as possible.

  • To calculate: Bounce rate = Number of users who “bounced” / Total site visits

Social Media Metrics


3. Engagement

One of the most fundamental metrics in social media. It is found by counting the number of people who have reacted, commented, or clicked on one of your posts. This is a very common and valuable metric for all social media platforms.

  • To calculate: Engagement = likes + comments + shares / followers

4. Referral Traffic

This metric shows you the number of users that are redirected to your page from Facebook. You can use this metric to assess the effectiveness of your Facebook campaigns and the functionality of your organic posts.


Video Marketing Metrics


5. Playback Rate

Playback rate is the number of users who play your video on the website in which the video is hosted. It is calculated by dividing the number of views against the page visits. If the page's playback rate is low, it is likely that the video is not relevant to the theme of the page.


6. Watch Time

Watch time is the total amount of time users have watched your video on YouTube. It is essentially the combined total amount of minutes or hours that your video has been viewed.


7. Cost Per View (CPV)

This indicates the amount of money you pay to get a user to watch your video. On YouTube, a view is only counted if the user watches for 30 seconds or more.

  • To calculate: CPV = Total Amount Spent on Promotion / Total Views


Email Marketing Metrics


8. Unsubscribe Rate

This rate indicates the number of users who no longer want to subscribe to your newsletters. People who subscribe to your site are generally interested in your topics, thus your unsubscribe rate should never exceed 1%. If it does, your emails may be too intrusive or too numerous.

  • To calculate: Unsubscribe Rate = (Users who unsubscribe / Emails Delivered) * 100

9. Contact Growth Rate

This metric measures the rate at which the company’s email contact list grows. A successful email campaign will spur an influx of new subscribers, while too many emails or irrelevant content will cause a drop in contacts. As the campaign progresses, you should review casualties and drops in the growth rate to optimize your growth strategy.


10. Email Revenue

Calculation of the amount of revenue obtained by sending emails. The total revenue is divided by the number of sent emails (subtracting the bounces) to show how much revenue each email generated. Generally, this metric should show consistent results with spikes during promotional periods. If the revenue per email is low, consider editing the content or format of the emails.


Mobile Marketing Metrics


11. Number of Downloads

Measurement of how many people downloaded your application or content from a specific source. Tracking downloads will allow you to see how interested your audience is and where your calls to action are effective.


12. Session Duration

Measures how long a user is active for each session. This information will help you deploy screens or tasks where users typically leave the app.


13. Cost Per Download

A metric that's calculated by dividing your total ad spend by your app's total installs.


SEM Metrics


14. Quality Score

Indicates the relevance of keywords within your ads and landing pages. A high-quality score helps you to gain a better position on search engines without breaking the bank.


15. Impression Share

This is a comparison between the number of impressions you received and the number of impressions that were available in a topic or market.

  • To calculate: Impression Share = Your impressions / Available impressions

16. Number of Conversions

A conversion is when a user completes an action that furthers them along the conversion funnel. This could be downloading content, downloading an app, filling out a form, or making a purchase. Tracking conversions will help you to analyze how effective your advertisements and campaigns are.


Ecommerce Metrics


17. Average Order Value

This measures the amount that your customers spend on average. You can try to increase this by suggesting complementary products or by using other purchase strategies.

  • To calculate: Average order value = Total product income / Total number of purchases

18. Cart Abandonment Rate

Refers to the percentage of people who visited your page, added your products to the cart, but left before making a purchase. A user could abandon their cart if your page looks unreliable, if there are high shipping costs, or if the price of the product increases at the end of the purchase process etc. If this metric grows you must quickly analyze the causes so that you can recover sales.

  • To calculate: Cart Abandonment Rate = (Carts abandoned / Carts created) * 100

19. Visits to View Product Rate

This refers to the number of people who ultimately view a product on your website. If very few people are reaching the product, you may have a usability issue.


SEO Metrics


20. Top 3 Keywords

This is the number of keywords that you have positioned in the top 3 results in Google. These indicate the health of your SEO strategy. The closer your website is to the top of the results page, the more clicks it will receive. On Google, the top position receives almost 60% of clicks, 2nd position around 16% and 3rd position 8%.


21. Total Organic Traffic

This is the total number of unique visitors who have seen your website, platform, or ecommerce organically. Organic site visits occur when a user finds your website without using a paid ad. Growth in this area means that the site is easy to find and your SEO is working well. A website in good standing will show a month to month growth of around 10%.


22. Website Load Time

The total amount of time it takes for your site to load after it is clicked on. This is a very important metric to track and review often because a few seconds of load time can make the difference between getting a visit and losing the user. Ultimately you want as many views as possible, so a fast load time is essential.


More Marketing Metrics

These are some of the most used marketing metrics that we constantly reference. But, if you’re looking for the definitions of even more marketing metrics check out our free ebook The 130 Marketing Metrics You Should Know. This ebook is a quick and easy reference of every marketing metric you’ll ever need to know, organized by campaign type.


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David Tomas

CEO y cofundador de Cyberclick. Cuenta con más de 20 años de experiencia en el mundo online. Es ingeniero y cursó un programa de Entrepreneurship en MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. En 2012 fue nombrado uno de los 20 emprendedores más influyentes en España, menores de 40 años, según la Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012 e IESE. Autor de "La empresa más feliz del mundo" y "Diario de un Millennial".

CEO and co-founder of Cyberclick. David Tomas has more than 20 years of experience in the online world. He is an engineer and completed an Entrepreneurship program at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2012 he was named one of the 20 most influential entrepreneurs in Spain, under the age of 40, according to Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012 and IESE. Author of "The Happiest Company in the World" and "Diary of a Millennial".