It’s easy for marketers and business owners to think of engagement metrics as directly correlated to ROI. But seeing a jumble of numbers on a graph isn’t enough to actually understand what each of those stats indicates about your current digital marketing campaign.
Quality engagement is vital to a successful brand, but what does the term “engagement” really mean? How do we define it, measure it, and use those results as reliable information that can help a brand gauge the success of a campaign or digital marketing strategy? Here’s a look at the information and metrics that will get you the right data—and a clearer picture of your overall ROI—at the right time.
Why Is Engagement so Important?
Customer engagement is at the core of every significant business goal your brand has. By driving sales, profits, social influence, and brand reputation, consumers make or break the success of every campaign, product, or offer you put out there. When consumers are fully engaged and interested in what you have to offer, your brand flourishes. On the flip side, when brands fail to make real-time engagement a priority, consumers can feel sidelined and unimportant—and may end up choosing to champion your competition instead.
The bottom line is that every consumer wants to feel acknowledged and recognized for their support. In today’s market, where multiple brands are fighting for the attention of the same consumers, marketing techniques that drive engagement are the defining factor separating the customer-centered brands from the brands perceived as profit-hungry.
Why We Measure Engagement
“Okay,” you say, “we get it. Keeping consumers engaged is a crucial part of every successful marketing strategy. But, so long as we actively work to maintain real-time engagement, do we need to measure and record all of the results?” Think about it this way. Would you develop and publish a stellar Facebook ad with the intent to promote a new product, then never check the stats to gauge its effectiveness?
In the same way, focusing on consumer engagement would be a total waste of time without measuring the results of those efforts over time. Many marketers utilize engagement metrics to help track key interactions and better understand the thoughts and actions of current customers and potential customers. We recommend every brand start tracking several engagement metrics in order to stay informed and ready for growth.
4 Vital Engagement Metrics to Track
As you work on developing measurable stats to help track engagement, keep the following metrics in mind. Not only do these metrics provide valuable insight into site performance, but they also show you exactly when, where, and how visitors interact with your content.
Unique Visitors
Tracking the number of unique visitors to your website will tell you how many individuals are making their way to your content. Armed with that info, you can set about figuring out what those visitors have in common. User profiles speak volumes about any given consumer base and your brand’s strong points and weak points when engaging with those users. Consider breaking down your consumers into highly-targetable demographics like gender, age, sign-in method (social integration vs. email), and more. By segmenting, understanding, and properly tracking your consumer base from the start, you’ll be able to glean more insight from the following metrics.
Search Traffic Origin
Measuring web traffic helps to identify which source locations are directing visitors to your website. Sources can range from paid search and ads to SEO efforts and social links. Knowing how users are finding you helps identify the source that is most effective at drawing in traffic, and it also identifies which avenues need more attention. Not only does this metric help any brand market more effectively, but it can also be used to call out the best places to market to your segmented base.
Scroll Depth
Tracking scroll depth tells you quite a bit about content consumption on your site, including how many users actually make it to the bottom of your landing pages, if videos help them continue scrolling or prompt a quick exit, and whether or not the CTAs buried at the very bottom of your page get seen. Scroll Depth is a useful Google Analytics plugin that measures how far users scroll down your homepage, providing stats for each 25 percent of the page.
Similar to scroll depth, heat map analysis can show you where visitors spend the most time on a given webpage. This kind of information will help you identify the best places to put important info on a page, as well as areas of your site that need reworking.
Conversions
Arguably the most important engagement metric of all, conversions show the total number of website visitors who perform the desired action, like making a purchase, filling out a contact form, or joining an email list. If the whole point of your webpage or CTA is getting missed, consumers aren’t engaged.
Keep Your Customers Engaged With Snap
Want to start tracking your engagement more closely, but don’t have the team or resources to dedicate to the task? Let us help! With our awesome team of strategists, website designers, and SEO experts, Snap’s got your back on all things engagement-related. Shoot us a message today to start seeing results.