Every business and organization should track their digital marketing metrics on their website and social media accounts. It’s the only way to know whether you’re reaching your digital marketing goals. It also ensures that your time and efforts spent on digital marketing are worthwhile.
First, we’re going to touch on which website metrics are important to track and where to find them in Google Analytics. Then we’ll dive into basic social media metrics.
Website
If you don’t already have Google Analytics set up, this set up guide can help you connect your website and start collecting data.
There are three basic components to look for in to website analytics: traffic, audience demographics, and website content behavior.
Traffic
Website traffic metrics tell you how many people are visiting and finding your website.
To find the number of times your website was visited in Google Analytics, go to Acquisition > Overview. Here you can also see how many visits were from new users/visitors to your website.
For a more detailed look, go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium. Here you’ll see how many visits are from direct traffic, organic search traffic, paid search traffic, referral traffic, or customized campaign traffic.
Direct traffic is where visitors typed your URL directly into their browser. Organic search and paid search traffic is from visitors who searched keywords that directed them to your website. Referral traffic tells you which websites or blogs link to your website.
Campaign traffic is from campaigns that you created in Google’s Campaign URL Builder for email, social media, or other advertising efforts. These can be tracked separately in Google Analytics and indicate metrics generated directly from your campaigns.
If you post content on social media that links to your website, you’ll want to know how many people click through to your website. To see this, go to Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals. This data will help you determine whether your social media fans and followers are also website visitors.
Audience Demographics
It’s important to know who visits your website. Go to Audience > Demographics > Geo > Location and click on United States to see a breakdown of visitors by region/state. Click on any state to see a city breakdown.
Go to Audience > Mobile > Overview to see how many visitors saw your website on desktop, mobile, and tablet. You can even see which brands and models of devices were used.
On any metric view, you can add a secondary dimension. This is especially important when considering how many visitors used a mobile device to view your website while they were in your city. To do this, click Secondary dimension and select Users > City.
As with the traffic metrics above, it’s good to know how much traffic came from mobile devices, how long mobile traffic stayed on your website, and how many pages mobile devices visited.
How many times a return visitor viewed to your website is essential knowledge. Go to Audience > Behavior > New vs Returning to see how many sessions/visits are by new visitors. View the frequency and engagement of these visits in the Audience > Behavior tab.
Visitor age, gender, interests, and additional data are also available this Audience view.
Website Content Behavior
Now that you know how many people visit your website and who they are, it’s time to delve into which pages they want to view, which pages draw people to your website, how fast your website loads, and which pages are uninteresting to visitors.
The top pages on your website will tell you what content people want to view and learn. This can be viewed on Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. The Landing Pages indicate which pages visitors see first, as well as what content draws people to your website.
Similarly, the Exit Pages tell you the last page visitors see before they leave your website. This may indicate whether they found pertinent information or not. Analyzing this data can help you determine if specific content is missing on those pages.
Bounce rates will tell you how many people left your website without clicking through to any other pages. A high bounce rate indicates that visitors aren’t interested in your content. To measure your bounce rate, go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages and look at the Bounce Rate column.
Website visitors are becoming increasing impatient on slow loading websites. By going to Behavior > Site Speed > Page Timings, you can see how quickly your website pages load. Speed Suggestions are provided to make pages faster.
Basic Social Media Metrics
Knowing your social media metrics are just as important as knowing your website metrics. Track how many people you reach on social media and how they engage with your content.
Below are the basic metrics to track in your social media efforts.
On your Facebook page, go to the Insights tab to view and export your Facebook data. Click Export Data to download your Page and Post metrics for a specific date range. These exports will provide most of your basic Facebook metrics.
The Page Level export indicates the number of total fans as well as new fans generated during that date range. Total reach and total impressions are also available in this export. The reach and impressions data in this export are for any content associated with your page, not just your post content.
The Post Level export indicates the reach and impressions per post. Click on the Lifetime Post Stories by Action tab to see the total count of interactions/stories from your page posts. These include post likes, comments, and shares.
As you analyze these metrics, it’s important to assess which types of content (photos or links) and which topic themes generate the most reach, impressions, and interactions.
If you promoted any posts or ran Facebook ads, view those metrics in the Facebook Ads Manager.
Go back to your Facebook page Insights tab and click on the People tab to see fan gender, age, and location demographics.
Instagram metrics can be viewed in the app if your account is an Instagram business profile. Tap the bar graph icon in the top right corner of your profile to view Insights such as total followers, total posts, and top posts.
Use a free or paid third-party tool, such as Iconosquare, to see likes, comments, and engagement rate, and to get an exported metrics report.
To see basic Twitter metrics, log in to Twitter and go to the Twitter Analytics home page. Here you can see a 28-day summary and monthly metrics, including the number of tweets, tweet impressions, profile visits, mentions, and new followers. Your top tweet, top mention, top follower, and top media tweet are also displayed on this page.
The Tweets tab provides a more detailed look at your tweet impressions, engagements, engagement rate, link clicks, retweets, likes, and replies. You can also export data from this screen for quick number crunching.
The Audiences tab provides demographic data such as gender, interests, occupation, household income, and more.
Need Help?
Cygnet Strategies offers three versions of Digital Assessments for individual businesses and communities to help you generate strong results from your digital marketing efforts. Contact us today to see how we can help you.
