Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!

There’s so much information on online marketing you can easily find yourself pulling your hair out in a desperate attempt to know which content to pay attention to.

No worries—we have you covered. Here’s what you should care about when it comes to online marketing metrics:

1. Sales Conversion Rate

You’ll most often hear this referred to as a “conversion rate,” referring to the percentage of customers who perform any given action. While this technically doesn’t need to take shape as something that results in a sale, for our purposes, let’s assume “conversion rate” refers to this same action as a concern that truly matters to your business.

Conversion rates for service-based businesses typically run in the 1-3% range. So, it’s essential to know that just a few more website visitors could result in 50% more sales.

You can always track the conversion rate. This cannot be easy, but it must be done.

2. Revenue by Referring Source

Who/what helps you bring in the most revenue out of all possible channels driving customers to your site? In-person, word-of-mouth marketing? Google? Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Paid search? Other unknown sources?

When you uncover this information, you can identify where to spend more time marketing and where/how to shore up any weak areas.

3. Social Media Engagement

Size doesn’t matter—at least concerning social media. If you have a large audience who doesn’t engage with your posts, your ability to capture and grow the same is of little consequence. Possessing an engaged audience who takes action in droves whenever you post is better.

With this in mind, it’s great to know the engagement rates of your audience. This means measuring metrics such as comments, likes, shares, and mentions, which carry much more meaning than the size of your audience.

4. Open Email Rates

This is the engagement metric to measure for emails, telling you just how engaging your email content truly is. Again, a smaller, more engaged audience is more important than a larger, less engaged one. You only need a few hundred subscribers!

More is always better, but if just a couple hundred more subscribers can result in more sales, that makes a big difference for your bottom line. Your email list subscribers love to purchase because they’re your best customers. After all, only your most devoted customers join your email list.

Plus, this is an easy metric to track and also tells you what interests your audience. In this way, you can learn what to discuss on your website, in your social media profiles, and even in person—piquing consumer interests and resulting in more sales.

Wrapping Up

For any small business, these are key metrics to keep in mind regarding online marketing. As they improve over time, you’ll undoubtedly notice a difference in your bottom line.