Metrics that matter

When you’re running a campaign, it’s so easy to get WOWed by the longest numbers in your analytics. Reach and impressions are two of the metrics that are likely to be the largest. They’re both important in the right contexts, but there are some other metrics that you may not have considered.

Which metrics really matter? Well, that depends on your social media goal and your wider marketing goal. We’ve narrowed down some of the truly important metrics to consider for some types of campaign goals. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means! There are hundreds of metrics out there and we can help you to find the right ones for you.

If Awareness is your goal, pay attention to the metrics that show your existing audience and potential audience.

  • Potential reach – this is how many people could see your post. If this number isn’t large enough, you might want to work on expanding your audience.
  • Impressions can be useful – that’s how many times your content has been displayed.

Getting provocative with your content to drive Engagement?

  • Video views – how many times your video has been watched. Now, this doesn’t give an indication of how long the video has been watched for. 3 second video views, 10-second video views, full-length video views give you a closer idea of these. But that would all depend on how long your video is and how much of the video your user needs to see for a view to be of value to you.
  • Engagement rate – That’s the percentage of people who have interacted with your post, compared to the Impressions.
  • Cost-per-engagement – Does what it says on the tin! The amount you paid for the campaign in total, divided by the number of Engagements you got.
  • Click-through rate – If Clicks are on your radar, divide the Clicks by the number of Impressions and times by 100. That gives you the percentage of the Total Impressions that resulted in a Click.
  • Cost-per-click – The amount you paid for the campaign in total, divided by the number of Clicks.

Focussed on Conversions? Whether that’s downloading content, signing up to a webinar, or newsletter, or booking a table at your restaurant. This is a complex goal that can exist beyond the social media channels, on your website or other platforms. As a social media agency, we can’t affect exactly what happens once users hit your site, but we can influence the heck out of it and track it!

  • Conversion Rate – This is how many people clicked on your link and then took the desired action, compared to the number of opportunities for users to complete that action (Impressions).
  • Click-through rate – It makes another appearance here in the Conversions category, because this is the percentage of people who clicked a specific link to take them to the new content.
  • Cost-per-conversion – You get the gist by now with these. How much you’ve paid per completed conversion. If you’re asking the question “Is it worth it?”, then cost metrics can really help you out.

We hope this has given you an idea of which metrics could be the ones for you to look out for when setting goals and knowing which ones to use for meaningful, valuable reports.

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