Analyzing Digital Campaign KPIs

Delivering campaign performance reporting is something your advertisers expect. However, you want to provide them with more than just numbers. Analyzing these KPIs (key performance indicators) allows you to help your customers understand success. Digital campaign KPIs are critical to determining success and helping you adjust for the next campaign.

In this post, we’ll cover what KPIs are, how to analyze them and what to present to your advertisers.

Analyzing Digital Campaign KPIs: How to Offer Insights to Customers

When presenting digital campaign KPIs to your advertisers, you’ll want to add context to reports without the jargon. Explain what the metrics mean in reference to their specific goals. Here are some scenarios based on the KPIs noted above.

Impressions

Impressions are a leading KPI for digital advertising, indicating the number of times an ad was served. It can tell you if the budget is limiting the campaign to the point where there aren’t enough impressions for results. It can also verify if bidding is optimized. This metric directly influences conversions, CTR, CPC and CAC.

Conversion Rates

This KPI is the big picture of how impactful the tactics were in driving sales. If comparing this to an industry benchmark or the customer’s previous campaigns, determine why it increased or did not. Some ways to explain this might be:

• Clicks were high, but conversions were low: This may indicate that the ad content and the offer didn’t align and caused confusion. Can you pinpoint aspects of the content or CTA (call to action) where this may exist?
• Offer relevancy: If conversions increased dramatically over benchmarks, that’s great news! So, you want to highlight the different approaches you took here — targeting, content, offer types, etc. It’s great when campaigns are successful. Looking into why shows the value of your recommendations and will help influence what your advertiser does next.
• One offer outperforms another: You may have included multiple offers in the campaign. Understanding which did the best can shape future tactics.

CTR, CPC and CAC

In looking at the costs, you start with the CTR, which indicates clicks per impression. You can first see how it measures up to industry benchmarks. You should also look at which ads had the best showing, as you likely used multiple creatives.

Those clicks then come to establish your CPC. Whatever this number is, you’ll want to compare it to industry benchmarks. You’ll need to explain if the “cost” led to actual revenue, whether you’re above or below. A click doesn’t mean a conversion, so you’ll need to present that number in the same analysis as the customer acquisition cost.

Overall, does the cost per click deliver actual purchases? Does what they spent to acquire a customer still present a good margin?

For example, the average CPC for legal services is $8.67. It’s the most competitive vertical. If the firm ended up with 700 clicks, the cost would be $6,069. If, from those 700 clicks, the firm secured 10 new customers, their CAC is $606.90 for this specific campaign. The average revenue from a new customer for that service is $7,500. So, they are turning a profit after the cost of their advertising.

By putting together all the pieces of the CPC and CAC story, you can determine that those metrics demonstrate a positive return.

That may not always be the case. If the CPC or CAC is so high that it cuts into profitability, you have to go back to determine why conversions were low.

Increase in Website Traffic

The more new traffic you can drive toward your client’s website, the more new conversion opportunities arise. Getting people there can come from many paid channels — SEM (search engine marketing), display ads, video ads, OTT/CTV, email campaigns, mobile messaging and social media ads.

It’s important to get prospects to the advertiser’s website. Local buyers want to investigate before they make decisions. Before you start a digital campaign, make sure your customer’s website can play its role. That means the website is accurate and up to date.

In looking at traffic increases, you want to isolate traffic that came from paid channels. To put it into context, compare it to a previous campaign. You could also look at it in terms of month-over-month and year-over-year gains.

Also, look at the new visitors the paid ads brought to their website. That’s an important data point because they want to see new users find them. Those who spend time on their website might not convert then, but you can retarget them to keep the connection going. Emphasize to your advertiser that more traffic means higher visibility. That can deliver returns way beyond the campaign.

Engagement

You can easily determine conversions from those tactics for email marketing and mobile messaging. These channels have up-front costs for your advertisers, so fewer variables exist. Beyond looking at conversions, you should also highlight engagement KPI numbers.

Engagement equates to open and click rates. Opening and clicking indicate interest. You can contrast engagement with actual conversions to understand how they impact this. For example, you might find that people who open the email or text message for the first 30 minutes are most likely to click and convert. That may inform the time you send these going forward.

Bring More Than Numbers to the Table When Discussing Campaign Performance

Providing your advertisers with detailed reports on their campaigns should be more than just the numbers. By analyzing digital campaign KPIs, you can add color and perspective to the data. Your advertisers will appreciate more than a data dump. It’s one more way to demonstrate your value.

When you provide linear and digital advertising to customers, you can show them how an integrated campaign drives more engagement, clicks, conversions and revenue.

Looking for more digital advertising content? Check out these resources.