SEO glossary · D

Digital Marketing KPIs

What are Digital Marketing KPIs?

Digital marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) are the few measurable numbers that show whether your online marketing is reaching its goals, such as leads, sales, cost per acquisition or return on ad spend. A KPI is tied to a goal; other numbers are just metrics.

Examples of digital marketing KPIs

  • Business results: leads, sales, revenue from online channels, customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLV).
  • Paid advertising: conversions, cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS) and click-through rate (CTR).
  • SEO: organic traffic and conversions, rankings for priority keywords, and clicks and impressions in Google Search Console.
  • Website: conversion rate, engagement rate and page speed.
  • Email: click rate, conversions and unsubscribe rate.
  • Social media: reach, engagement rate, and traffic and leads from social channels.

KPIs vs metrics

Metrics are anything you can measure, such as page views, followers or impressions. KPIs are the handful of metrics that directly show progress towards a business goal. Followers and impressions are useful context, but they rarely deserve to be KPIs on their own.

How to choose and report KPIs

  • Start from the business goal, then pick the numbers that best show progress towards it.
  • Use three to five KPIs per goal; more makes it hard to see what matters.
  • Set a target and a time frame for each one.
  • Build a dashboard, for example in Looker Studio, that pulls in data from Google Analytics, Search Console and your ad accounts.
  • Send a regular report that explains what changed, why, and what you will do next.

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