Measuring marketing success for startups
Measuring the success of your marketing is essential to determine whether your marketing efforts are paying off. Are you achieving the desired results and meeting your business goals? To do this, there are a number of things you should consider.
Set clear goals
Setting clear goals is as essential to measuring your marketing success as it is to setting up your marketing strategy. You need to know what you're trying to achieve by setting SMART goals for your startup.
SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. SMART goals are used to set clear, specific, and measurable objectives that can be achieved within a specific timeframe. Some examples of a SMART goal may include:
- Increase website traffic by 60% by end of year
- Generate 2x more leads in May ‘23 compared to May ‘22
Use relevant metrics
Once you have identified your SMART goals, select the metrics you want to measure based on your marketing channels. Some common marketing metrics include:
- Website traffic: A measure of the number of visitors to your website.
- Conversion rate: The percentage of website visitors who take certain actions, e.g. place an order, submit a form, or subscribe to a newsletter.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA): The cost of acquiring a new customer.
- Customer lifetime value (CLTV): The total revenue a customer generates over their lifetime with your business.
- Return on marketing investment (ROMI): The amount of revenue generated compared to the cost of all your marketing efforts.
- Social media engagement: The level of engagement on your social media platforms, such as likes, shares, comments, and followers.
- Email open rate: The percentage of recipients who open your marketing emails.
- Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of people who click on a link in your marketing campaign, such as a banner ad, email, or social media post.
You can find some more examples of KPIs here on HubSpot.
Track progress and analyse data
The next step in measuring the success of your marketing efforts is to set specific targets and test their validity. These targets should be based on your business goals and marketing objectives. For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic by 20%, your target may be to increase your website traffic by 5% per month for the next four months. Based on your analysis over time, refine your marketing strategy as you go to improve your metrics.
Regularly track your progress towards your marketing goals and compare your results to your benchmarks and industry standards. This can help you identify areas where you're doing well and where you need to improve. Use data analysis tools to gain insights into your marketing performance and identify trends and patterns that can inform your marketing strategy. This can help you optimise your campaigns and improve your ROMI.
Make data-driven decisions
Once you've analysed the data, identify insights that can help you make informed decisions. For example, if you notice that most of your website traffic is coming from mobile devices, you might decide to focus more on mobile optimisation. You can also use the insights to adjust your marketing strategy, target a new audience, or invest in new marketing channels.
