Essential Marketing Analytics Models and Metrics

What are marketing metrics and analytical models?

Marketing metrics are, quite simply, the statistics derived from various data pertaining to the expenditure and performance of a business organization. In a world of cut-throat competition with new companies constantly entering the market with innovations, any company that aspires to remain competitively dominant in the future must continuously analyze and improve upon the efficiency of its practices. The ratio of results to efforts determined using various quantitative and qualitative statistical data can enable responsive and effective decision-making that provides opportunities to overcome competition from similar players in the market.

Types of analytics models

While several types of analytics models are tailored to best fit different purposes, the four listed below are common ones that are used in every business:

Marketing size and trend analysis

Market sizing and trend forecasting is a fundamental requirement when developing a business plan or marketing strategy and involves studying and understanding the size and scale of the intended target market and the socio-economic trends that affect it. Such knowledge will allow a business to predict and adapt quickly to future events and can potentially provide a competitive edge over business rivals. Trends are typically forecasted with long-term views of 5 to over 20 years, with the aim of preparing for the market conditions at that time in the future.

Marketing size and trend analysis

Market segmentation is a detailed study of the various types of those intended to be customers that solicit the business and its competitors by categorizing customers into ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic demographics and examining the unique individual requirements and preferences of each demographic. A comprehensive market segmentation analysis can facilitate more effective marketing by helping identify the most lucrative demographic to target with marketing expenses. Businesses also undertake market segmentation studies with the aim of replicating their competitor's successes with other demographics that are not catered to by the existing services.

Product and service analysis

A product and service analysis involves a detailed and methodical examination of all services and or products offered by the business in question. While different types of products and services might have different metrics by which they are assessed, the information is used to determine the revenue generated and scope for future profit, allowing the business to eliminate loss-making ventures and allocate more resources on those products or services for good performance.

Sales analytics

Sales analytics are an examination of the demographics of customers, as well as the data obtained at all stages of the marketing and sales pipeline. This information is vital to determine the performance of the company’s marketing strategy, as well as to evaluate the potential for future growth or downsizing of the business.

The most commonly used metrics

The below-listed metrics are commonly used in assessing the success of a business's marketing strategy, based on the measurement of specific key performance indicators such as the ease in acquiring new customers and the ratio of profits to the investment required.

Revenue Growth

Revenue Growth, which refers to the amount of increase in revenue generation relative to the allocated expenses for a campaign, is the primary data point used to determine how effective a marketing campaign is – the primary purpose of marketing is to increase business revenue, after all.

Customer Lifetime Value

The Customer Lifetime Value refers to the average cumulative amount of business income through a single customer over the course of their lifetime of purchases from the business. There are many different methodologies used in determining this metric, which is helpful in determining the potential for developing long-term marketing channels.

Customer Acquisition Costs

Customer Acquisition Costs are another important metric that measures the costs required in order to acquire a new customer. This information is vital in determining how rapidly a business can grow.

Return On Investment (ROI)

The Return On Investment (ROI) is one of the primary metrics that investors look at while examining the business health of a venture before investing and refers to the ratio of the profit made to the amount invested, typically expressed as a percentage. The same concept of ROI is used to calculate the

Traffic to Lead Ratio

The Traffic to Lead Ratio is a metric that determines how effectively potential customers are directed by marketing towards the sales channels. This is an essential metric to track to determine if the marketing needs to be revamped to appeal more strongly to customers – if the business website has a high amount of incoming traffic. Still, very few visitors further engage with the business and become leads for future sales, then that may indicate customers are not satisfied with the information provided on the website.

Lead to Customer Ratio

The Lead to Customer Ratio is similar to the previously mentioned metric. It tracks the performance of the sales team in closing the leads generated through the various inbound and outbound marketing campaigns. The lead-to-customer ratio and traffic to lead ratio together can identify weaknesses in the company's marketing and sales processes, which need to be rectified.

Customer Retention rate

The Customer Retention rate is, simply put, the percentage of customers that are returning customers, as a ratio of the total amount of customers serviced in any given period of time. Improving the customer retention rate is one of the most efficient ways to increase business revenue, as the costs required to retain a customer are significantly lower than the costs to acquire a new customer.

Net Promoter Score

The Net Promoter Score is a marketing metric that measures the difference between the percentage of customers that are satisfied enough with the business to recommend to their acquaintances and the percentage of customers that are unsatisfied with the business and maybe potentially damaging to future profits by spreading negative reviews.

Monthly Recurring Income

The Monthly Recurring Income, while not just a metric, is essential to analyze the consistency and predictability of income and is one of the most vital performance indicators in subscription-based products and services that can rely on repeat customers.

Organic Traffic

Organic Traffic refers to website visitors that discovered and entered the website by themselves, without being prompted to by referral links or advertisements. Organic visitors most usually discover a site through its listing in a search engine and is therefore heavily linked to the business's SEO strategy. Having large amounts of organic traffic can enable a company to make huge savings on marketing expenses.

Social Media Metrics

Various Social Media Metrics can be used to assess the cost to benefit ratio of social media marketing expenditure in terms of various factors, such as the number of leads and customers gained, and the percentage of received traffic from each social media platform to determine which platforms to focus marketing resources on for maximum returns.

Mobile Metrics

Mobile Metrics are a separate entire category of metrics that analyze the performance of traffic from users browsing on mobile phones. As more and more people begin to use their smartphones as their primary means of consuming content, businesses that create mobile-specific versions of their websites gain a competitive advantage over a rapidly growing consumer audience.

average time spent on site

The average time spent on site is another measure of how engaging the content on the website is; a website with low bounce rates is successful because visitors find the content relevant, engaging, and important. In general, the more valuable the experience provided to the site visitor is, the more time they would be likely to stay on and interact with the site, increasing the probability that they might eventually become a future lead or customer.

Email Marketing

Email Marketing metrics are an essential component in evaluating the effectiveness of an online marketing strategy. Emails generate the highest returns on time and money spent in marketing and remain a vital digital marketing channel. Some of the most commonly measured email metrics include open rate, click rate, bounce rate, and forwards.

Landing page conversion rates

Landing page conversion rates measure how effective the business's web pages are at engaging potential customers who are directed to those pages from external links, such as online ads. A good landing page should engage the reader and thus generate leads by creating the impulse to purchase the product or service being offered.

Bounce rate

The Bounce rate refers to the frequency with which browsers are directed to a landing page on the business's website and exits the site (in other words, bouncing in and out of the site) without interacting further with the site. This metric is useful as a measure of how engaging the content on the site is.