Answering The 6 Most Common Questions Regarding Digital Metrics

If you are a food and beverage brand, you most likely already utilize social media, email, digital ads, traditional media, PR and web. And chances are your primary goal is to increase web traffic and boost engagement. However, knowing whether or not your tactics are useful and efficient can be challenging. 

The simplest way to tell is by gathering data through website analytic tools like Google Analytics (Note: On July 1, 2023, Google Universal Analytics will no longer process data, and Google Analytics 4 will become the new standard). Analytics tools allow you to identify where your users are located, which channels your users are coming from, how much time visitors spend on a page and so much more. But gathering this data is just the beginning. 

The next step is to interpret your data to know what works well and what doesn’t. To do so, you’ll need an understanding of analytics tools’ different metrics and terms. Once you understand them, you can better decide which metrics to use to indicate optimal performance. Below are the six most common questions you might have when making this decision.

Which Digital Ad Platforms Should I Utilize for My Food and Beverage Brand and Why?

1. Google Ads: Advertising on Google is highly effective for a B2B business because your business will appear at the top of the search results when people search for your offering. Plus, with Google Ads’ comprehensive keyword research tool, you can be sure you are advertising to your product’s exact target audience. 
2. Instacart Ads: Every one of the world’s top 25 CPG brands advertises on Instacart’s marketplace. The steps are as easy as choosing your products to boost, paying for performance and reviewing your results. 
3. Walmart Ads: Walmart has two ways for you to connect to potential customers online: Search and Display advertising. With Search, your products appear first in the Walmart search results, labeled as ‘sponsored’. Display advertising puts your products front and center across Walmart.com and the Walmart app, which are targeted based on customers’ Walmart viewing and purchase history.
4. LinkedIn Ads: This platform allows B2B businesses to target a specific audience right where all companies converge: LinkedIn. According to Hootsuite, visitors to your website originating from LinkedIn have 2x higher conversion rates than the average visitor.

What General Metrics Should I Be Tracking Across All My Digital Channels?

1. Impressions: The number of times your content is displayed, whether clicked or not.
2. Click Thru Rate (CTR): The average number of click-throughs per number of impressions, expressed as a percentage. Based on ColinKurtis’ experience in the food and beverage industry, the average CTR for sponsored content on LinkedIn is 0.4%.
3. ‘Cost Per’ Model: This model involves paying for advertising only when a user completes an action. For example, in the Cost Per Click (CPC) method, the advertiser pays an agreed-upon amount every time a user clicks on an advertisement. Drawing data from our clients’ metrics, the average CPC for sponsored content on LinkedIn falls between $7 and $13. Other methods include Cost Per View (CPV), Cost Per Lead (CPL) and Cost Per Impression (CPM). 
4. Conversion: A conversion is reported whenever a user completes a specified goal. 
5. Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): Any lead that meets the criteria of a marketing team to qualify them as a potential customer.
6. Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): An MQL becomes an SQL when they are ready to talk to the sales team or are vetted enough that they are ready for a direct sales push. 
7. Customers Acquired: When a SQL is sales-ready and proceeds to buy your product, they convert into an acquired customer.

And Website Metrics? Which Ones Should I Track?

1. Users vs. New Users: A user is any visitor to your website during a reporting period. Google Analytics will track the total number of users that come to your site, including returning visitors. An individual user who hasn’t been to the website in the reporting period is considered a new user.
2. Sessions: A single visit to your website consisting of one or more pageviews, events, e-commerce transactions and other interactions.
3. Pageviews: A pageview is reported when a user on your website has viewed a page.
4. Bounce: Analytics tools report a bounce when a user’s session only contains a single pageview. The idea is that someone comes to your website and they ‘bounce’ away and leave after only viewing a single page. According to Semrush, you should expect a bounce rate between 41% and 55% for your website.

Concerning Social Media, What Metrics Should I Keep An Eye On?

1. Social Impressions: Impressions are the number of times your content is displayed on social media, whether a user clicks on it or not, including paid, owned and earned.
2. Social Engagement: The number of Reactions (Likes, Loves, Sad, etc.), Comments, Shares, Clicks and Video Views.
3. Audience: Number of Social Followers.
4. Engagement Rate: This measures the amount of interaction social content earns relative to the social audience and impressions. According to Socialinsider, the average engagement rate for a LinkedIn post is 3.16%.

What Are The Most Important Email Metrics?

1. Drip Campaign: A drip campaign sends multiple emails automatically when a user takes a specific action. These actions could include signing up for an online course or abandoning their online shopping cart.
2. Click Rate vs. Open Rate: Click rate and open rate track the percentage of subscribers interacting with an email. However, open rate tracks the number of subscribers that open an email, whereas click rate tracks how many subscribers actually clicked on a link inside the email. The average open and click rates in the food services industry are 23.31% and 2.94%, respectively.
3. Hard Bounce vs. Soft Bounce: A bounce is an email that was not delivered. A hard bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a permanent reason, like a non-existent, invalid or blocked email address. A soft bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a temporary issue, like a full mailbox or an unavailable server.
4. Unsubscribes: The number of people opting to no longer receive your emails.

Regarding Public Relations (PR), What Are The Essential Metrics To Track?

1. Media Coverage: While not necessarily a metric itself, media coverage is all of the publications, big or small, that feature your business.
2. Brand Mentions: Anytime your brand is referenced on social media or news media, it is considered a mention. This includes mentions of your brand’s name, products, people and hashtags. Inspect the tone of these mentions to track brand reputation better. 
3. Media Reach: The potential size of your audience for any piece of content is considered its reach. 
4. Share of Voice (SoV): Simply put, SoV is your share of advertising in a specific niche/market compared to your competitors.

Still a little confused? Completely understandable! Our team at ColinKurtis would happily walk you through the various metrics. Contact Mitch Robinson at Mitch@colinkurtis.com or call 815.965.6657 EXT. 1 to find out how we can help.

 

Blog post from:

Matt Hensler
Vice President, Digital Integration