3 Steps to Select Your Essential KPIs for Digital Advertising Success

Of all recent innovations in digital marketing, few are as impactful as the evolution of data and our improved capacity to measure it. Today, there is more data available to businesses than ever before. Unfortunately, without the proper framework in place, it’s easy to get caught up in the noise—measuring each and every data point, instead of zeroing in on the few that are crucial to understanding your equipment dealership’s digital marketing success. So how can you cut through the noise, narrow in on key data points, and ultimately measure what really matters? 

Here at Adpearance, we frequently browse Think With Google topics and discovered an article that answers just that. Our teams have already seen success from instituting these best practices internally, and we wanted to provide our take on Google’s tips to help equipment dealers do the same.

Separate Performance Indicators From the Noise

Before diving in, we want you to forget what you know about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Over the last few years, marketers have used the terms “KPI” and “metric” interchangeably, but they are fundamentally different. Here’s how:

Metrics: Simply put, a metric is a number. Metrics can be a count (e.g. pageviews), or a ratio (e.g. average time on site). Our average equipment dealer generates hundreds of unique metrics daily.

Key Performance Indicators: KPIs are a truly special type of metric that will assist you in understanding how your campaigns are performing relative to specific business objectives.

Metrics will help you understand your customers, spot trends, and drill deeper when reporting, but KPIs should serve as your at-a-glance performance summary. The key takeaway here is to select KPIs that are unique and meaningful to your dealership. Keep in mind that they can (and should) change or vary based on the type of campaign you’re measuring. Here are three steps to take to choose the KPIs that are best for your business. 

1. Outline Business Objectives

Start with the big picture. At their core, business objectives should remain high-level. To identify yours, ask yourself the following questions about your marketing campaigns: 

• Why do they exist? 
• Are they focused on generating awareness or driving leads? 
• Are they event-focused or conversion-centric? 

If you have multiple business objectives, rank by priority. If done right, you might end up with something that looks like this:

2. Establish Goals for Your Objectives

Next, it’s time to set goals to keep yourself on track. Setting realistic goals once you’ve identified your business objectives will help point you toward the correct KPIs. Think of these goals as general measurements of success. Broadly speaking, goals are the “P” in KPI—the performance that your KPIs are meant to track. Because of this, they can include anything from driving more qualified leads to engaging with buyers through social media or shared resources. 

3. Identify the Key Performance Indicators

Once you’ve established your business objectives and goals, you’re ready to dive into the process of determining your KPIs. These KPIs will be your high-priority metrics used to measure success. While these data points will differ dealer to dealer, common KPIs may include:

• Impressions
• Market Capture / Impression Share
• Marketing Material Downloads
• Qualified Sales Leads
• Sales / Close Rate

Identifying and categorizing your KPIs is a huge step toward actually being able to squeeze value from your data. And while this might not be an easy organizational undertaking, we believe all equipment dealers can benefit from this process. After syncing your KPIs and key business objectives, you’ll benefit from allowing your goals and objectives to drive your data insights, rather than the other way around.

Let Adpearance Help

Establishing digital marketing KPIs is an admittedly difficult and sometimes head-scratching process. There are a wealth of metrics available to measure the performance of your marketing campaigns; however, all the data in the world will fall short without the proper framework and established business objectives. Update your KPIs often and ensure you have the tools and technology necessary to track your dealership’s success.

Adpearance has worked for years to establish its own benchmarks for tracking standards and can work with you to establish tiers of KPIs that enable your business to run the most competitive digital advertising campaigns. In partnership with Foureyes sales intelligence software, we’ll power your marketing campaigns with keyword-level attribution,  phone tracking, and CRM connections that ensure your business objectives and data-driven KPIs stay closely aligned and drive continual campaign success. Contact us for a free digital analysis to start the process of selecting the KPIs that will help you achieve your business objectives in 2020.