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Digital Marketing Metrics – deciphering the acronyms

Analysing digital marketing metrics can be a language of its own!
In our latest blog, we decipher these terms and provide a summary of the top digital marketing metrics, their acronyms, and the role they play when evaluating and analysing campaign performance to ensure your campaign is on target.

 

 

There are a host of digital marketing terms and abbreviations that are used widely when analysing performance across digital marketing activity. Here are the top 6 key metric fundamentals!

1.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

This metric is a percentage of clicks/impressions. It is the average percentage of the number of people who saw your ad divided by the number of those people that clicked on your ad.

CTR = (Total Measured Clicks/Total Measured Impressions) x 100

For example, if you had ten clicks and 100 impressions your CTR would be 10%

If your campaign is experiencing below benchmark Click through rates it could be associated with any of the below:

  • Unmotivating ad creative or messaging
  • Tricky audience targeting (low audience numbers/segments or niche audiences)
  • Very high competition (a lot of advertisers competing for the same audience)
  • Ad fatigue (whereby your ad begins to exhaust your available audience without experiencing any click through)

2.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

This metric is basically the average cost each click is costing your campaign budget. This is calculated by dividing the total cost of your clicks by the total number of clicks.

CPC = (Total Cost of Clicks/Total number of Clicks)

Why your campaign may experience a high Cost per click (CPC):

  • High competition
  • Low ad engagement
  • Poor landing page quality
  • Low congruency – the messaging within your ad does not relate to the landing page you are sending traffic through to

3.

Conversion Rate (CVR)

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of users who take the desired action once they land on your page e.g., completed a trackable action (conversion) such as filling in a form or downloading a brochure.

This percentage is calculated by dividing the number of users who converted by the total number of users who clicked on the ad, then multiply by 100.

CVR = (Total Number of Conversions/Total number of clicks) x 100

Why campaigns may experience low conversion rates:

  • Campaign is optimising for impressions objective
  • Poor landing page experience
  • Complex or poor user experience conversion process
  • Poor congruency
  • Inadequate retargeting

4.

Cost Per Conversion (CPA)

The average cost each conversion across your campaign costs (could be a form submission, file download or a particular action on the page you are measuring). For example, if your ad receives two conversions, one costing $2.00 and the other costing $4.00, your average CPA is $3.00.

CPA = (Total Cost of Conversions/Total Number of Conversions)

Top reason a campaign may experience underperformance of Cost per conversion:

  • High cost per click (CPC)
  • Low conversion rates

5.

Video Completion Rates (VCR)

The percentage of people who started watching the video ad vs. the number of people who watched the video in full.

VCR = (Total Number of Video Completes / total number of Video View Attempts) x100

Top reasons for underperformance of Video completion rate:

  • Video is too long in duration
  • Video creative is poor quality
  • Difficult audience to reach
  • Channel choice is not the best fit

6.

Cost per completed View (CPCV)

This is the average cost of each completed video view your ad receives.

CPCV = (Ad Cost / Total Number of Video Views)

Reasons why the Cost per completed view may be underperforming:

  • High cost per view rate
  • Low video Completion Rate (VCR)

These six metrics are just a snapshot of the available digital marketing metrics that can be leveraged when analysing and evaluating digital campaign performance. By gaining an understanding of the influence and relationship these metrics have with each other you can elevate insights and identify further opportunity for improvement across your digital campaign activity.

And if all this sounds like its too much to digest, don’t forget that C7EVEN can assist in developing the right digital strategy and campaign to suit your needs. Reach out to discuss!

 

Kyleen Partridge
Digital Activation Manager