Controlling Digital Marketing
An old boss of mine used to call the Dashboard I used ‘Website Health Check’. Which at the base level is what a dashboard does. You see, everything online is changing by the minute. You need digital marketing control.
The website is the hub of everything you do online. You have to be aware that things will go wrong and you want to spot them as soon as possible. When you realise that online tracking is vital then you can add other important statistics.
Benchmarking
Once you know where your stats start then you can set targets, then you’ll know what makes a difference and then you’ll make progress.
A Dashboard Made With Action
I use Excel. Nothing fancy and there is one very important aspect to this basic approach. You’re going to use your eyes, your mind and your ideas to create actions that make the difference.
An Action Dashboard contains:
- Targets
- Health Check
- Paid Stats
- Vanity Stats
- Keyword Tracking
PLUS
- Content & Engagement
- Video Stats
- Email Stats
- (Actions)
Targets
Your targets. Usually revenue / sales (go further by knowing the margins on each product, the cost per acquisition etc).
Targets can also be influence / brand awareness. You can monitor (in Google Search Console) the amount of brand terms that produce visitors). You can monitor engagement rates on social platforms, even down to the amount of comments a content type is getting.
Targets can also be Conversion Rate. Not just CD for sales but also for content.
Email targets, yes amount of subscribers, open rate and click through rate should be tracked. But also keep an eye on your other channels. Does traffic increase via organic, via paid etc when an email goes out?
Health Checks
Here you are tracking the overall traffic to your website broken down by channels ie organic, paid email etc. You’re also tracking how many links to the website and how many organic clicks
Paid Stats
This is usually Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Remember the Dashboard is an overview and you don’t want too much detail just the top ones, so here you’ll be looking at Ad spend overall, conversion, sales, Cost per Click. You’ll have a more detailed report from Google Ads to ponder over. Is it making money is all you need to ask?
Vanity Stats
Tracking the number of followers you have on social? That’s a vanity stat. Useful though for doing partnerships, ‘You can have a Facebook post in return for a slot on your email.’ Are you losing a lot of followers? Is it the adverts you are doing?
Keyword Tracking
Number one on your list is your business name or ‘Brand Name.’ This indicates the level of awareness you’ve created and it also indicates loyalty. Do the searches for brand go up after an event or after an email goes out?
Usually I have 5 – 10 keyword phrases I am tracking for my clients. I manually look them up in Google. Why? There are tools for that eh? Well, yes. Some very good tools BUT if you are looking at the SERP’s in Google every week you are going to know more about your market, your competition and more. You’ll also find this creates ideas with actions.
Content & Engagement
Remember what it says above about vanity stats? Well, this is where you track individual pieces of content and how much engagement they gain.
Is it the image, the copy, the video making a difference? Is it the subject matter? What else is contributing, is it the hashtags used? A particular influencer?
This is tricky to add to a dashboard so perhaps use broad strokes here. Create themes or categories of content to access and track.
It is better to have 10 engaged visitors who buy stuff than a thousand followers who do nothing on Facebook (Remember most of your followers are not going to see your content unless you pay).
Video Stats
Don’t believe stats. Well, not all of them Some will tell you that video converts at X% more that images. Really? Ask them to prove it. Is there proof relevant to your business? Well, you’re going to find out yourself. Apart from the engagement values, a) reactions b) comments c) shares look at two things and track them: minutes watched (what YouTube loves as it keeps people on the platform) drop off.
YouTube, Wistia and Vimeo will show you where the drop off is in your video, work out why and move on or scrap the idea if you can’t make it work.
Email Stats
Your business lives and dies by two things, the hub. That is your website and your email list. Having a target of increasing subscribers and average open rates is a must. There’s much more you can track here, again, you could look at content themes and engagement, traffic via other sources when the email goes out and of course sales via email.
Actions from Dashboard
We track clients on a weekly basis in the main, some on a monthly basis only. What things have you found out that can lead to an action? If the dashboard is providing ideas that turn into actions that you can also track then that’s GREAT!
If there is no action to be taken but it is interesting then park it. It may lead to an action at a later date.
Typical Actions
- Conversion from keywords in Google Ads. Action: Making content to attract organic traffic.
- Bounce Rate High. Action: creating a popup with an offer, to test.
- Competitors showing in knowledge boxes. FAQ schema setup on client’s website
- Loss of Facebook followers. Action: review ads and content for pattern
- Visitor increase to a page. Action: add link to products page, with image / without, to test.
- Spike in Direct Traffic. Action: review, looks like bot traffic, block the bots.
Above are just a few. You’ll find your own that will make a difference to your online marketing success.
About Conversion Detectives
Conversion Detectives is a full service digital marketing agency in Hertfordshire.
We find the best quality traffic for your website and convert more of that traffic into sales or sales leads.
Digital Marketing Strategy | Creative Content Marketing | Email Marketing | Lead Generation | Content Strategy |
Social Media Marketing | Video Marketing | SEO (Basics) | SEM |
Video Marketing | Shopify Marketing
About Post Author
