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Seven Important Metrics To Gauge The Success Of Your Online Advertising Efforts

Forbes Agency Council
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Forbes Agency Council

You've just finished wrapping an online advertising campaign with the goals of creating awareness amongst your target market and generating new leads. Once you have the data, however, what should you look for to determine whether or not the campaign was a success?

While it's important to look at conversion rates and ROI, consider also what metrics ring true: did you effectively drive a customer to take action? How did it make an impact on the audience at large?

Below, seven agency executives from Forbes Agency Council disclose what metrics should be taken into consideration when understanding what went well (or what didn't) in an online advertising campaign.

Clockwise from left: Brandon Stapper, Sean Allen, Kristopher Jones, Anurag Harsh, Joel Kelly, Mick DiMaria, Conrad Egusa. All photos courtesy of individual members.

1. Conversion Rate

The most important metric that you must gauge to get a clear picture of how successful your online marketing efforts have been is your conversion rate. Your conversion rate is the percentage of users who complete a desired action after visiting your page. The desired action would be making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. You can track your conversion rate for free with Google Analytics. – Brandon StapperNon Stop Signs

2. Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)

First, understand how paid, owned, and earned channels need to work synergistically. Dive into your analytics and take a look at your top conversion paths. Understanding your cost "per lead" or "per acquisition" is great, but do you know the lifetime value of a customer?  Take a look at your marketing dollars as a whole, then drill down. Stop looking at ROI in silos. – Sean AllenBlue Onion

3. Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS)

The most important metric to evaluate your advertising efforts is return on advertising spend (ROAS). ROAS measures how much gross revenue is realized for every dollar spent on advertising. This simple metric allows you to size up the efficacy of your advertising efforts, while also providing a simple way to determine ad budget and revenue forecasting. – Kristopher JonesLSEO.com

4. Action

Conversion is an action you want users to take on your site, such as make a purchase or make a phone call. Here the action equals the goal, and is thus the most important metric to track. Conversion rate is important (number of conversions divided by the number of clicks/sessions) as it tells you the ad’s relevance. – Anurag HarshZiff Davis LLC

5. Revenue or New Signups

The most important metric for advertising efforts is new revenue generated. It's particularly important because once there is a positive ROI with advertising spend, a lot more resources can be invested into the channel. In the cases where revenue is not applicable, for example when a startup does not yet have a business model online, then I would focus on new signups. – Conrad EgusaPublicize

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

6. Impact on Culture

Our goal at 72andSunny is always to make brands matter in culture. That's our mantra and it applies to everything we put out there — online, broadcast, etc. For me, the most important metric for any marketing effort is earned media impressions. If what we did was not compelling enough to get press, get people talking, and extend our clients' media dollars, it might as well not have happened! – Mick DiMaria72andSunny

7. Business Results

The most important metric is actual business results. Did this advertisement generate new customers? Everything else is a guide to help you optimize toward that specific goal. Most metrics are distractions. Measure the ones that matter, and you'll soon find your results improving. – Joel KellyVERB Interactive