Burkhard Berger – Cyfe https://www.cyfe.com All-in-One Business Dashboard | Digital Reporting Fri, 24 Dec 2021 18:56:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.cyfe.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/cropped-cyfe-favicon-32x32.png Burkhard Berger – Cyfe https://www.cyfe.com 32 32 Keyword tracking: What it is and how to do it https://www.cyfe.com/blog/keyword-tracking-what-it-is-and-how-to-do-it/ Tue, 12 Oct 2021 13:11:55 +0000 https://www.cyfe.com/?p=3800 If you’ve been planning to rank on search engines, then you already know that keywords are as important as SEO metrics. Every website you see that ranks on the first page of search engines have strategically used keywords to achieve their position. Given the importance of this aspect in SEO, it just gives you more […]

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If you’ve been planning to rank on search engines, then you already know that keywords are as important as SEO metrics. Every website you see that ranks on the first page of search engines have strategically used keywords to achieve their position.

Given the importance of this aspect in SEO, it just gives you more reason as to why you need to know more about keyword tracking. This process allows you to have insights into what you’ve been doing correctly on your SEO endeavors and what needs improvement.

In this article, you’ll get to learn more about keyword tracking and why it’s important for your business. You’ll also get to know how it’s done effectively so you can apply it to your own web pages as well.

What is a data dashboard?

When ranking on search engines like Google, you want to rank for keywords that relate to your business.

If you’re an SEO agency, you want to rank for keywords like “SEO agency”, “digital marketing group”, “digital marketers”, and “SEO marketing”. Basically, you want to rank for those keywords since those are the things that your company does.

So how do you know if your website is ranking for those keywords? You simply do keyword tracking.

Keyword tracking is the process of monitoring the position of your website or web pages for specific keywords. Doing this process allows you to see if your website is ranking for keywords that you’re targeting in your content.

The results you see here will give you an overview of your website’s SEO performance. You’ll see what keywords you are doing well on and what keywords you need to improve your visibility.

What is keyword tracking?

When ranking on search engines like Google, you want to rank for keywords that relate to your business.

If you’re an SEO agency, you want to rank for keywords like “SEO agency”, “digital marketing group”, “digital marketers”, and “SEO marketing”. Basically, you want to rank for those keywords since those are the things that your company does.

So how do you know if your website is ranking for those keywords? You simply do keyword tracking.

Keyword tracking is the process of monitoring the position of your website or web pages for specific keywords. Doing this process allows you to see if your website is ranking for keywords that you’re targeting in your content.

The results you see here will give you an overview of your website’s SEO performance. You’ll see what keywords you are doing well on and what keywords you need to improve your visibility.

How to do keyword tracking?

1. Traditional keyword tracking

This method is considered a classic when it comes to keyword tracking. A website owner can manually check for a keyword and see if their web page ranks on search engines.

The challenge with this is that the person needs to account for various things when doing research on search engines. Most of these search engines factor in different elements within a search result – especially with Google.

Sometimes, Google tends to give out different results to each user because of its personalization feature. Google considers the user’s device, locality, language, and browsing history.

2. Local rank tracking

Businesses should check if the keywords they’re ranking for have local search intent. If it does, then ranking on the first page would be a lot harder.

Keywords with local intent have different rankings based on area code, city, to even the neighborhood.

So how do you know if your keywords have local intent? Try searching it on Google. If it triggers a Local Search Pack, then Google thinks that the keyword has local intent.

example of local search pack google result

Local Search Pack is Google’s search results that display the local businesses related to your query.

So if your business only operates online and you are targeting keywords with local intent, it’s better to look for another set of keywords.

If you persist in using the same keywords, it will always be difficult for you to rank. Since Google’s algorithm sees that your targeted keyword has local intent, it is programmed to display companies that have their own address and physical store.

But if you’re a local business and you intend to rank on these keywords, here are a few tips you can do:

Set up your Google My Business Page – Once you’ve claimed your business page, make sure it includes a long and unique description and the category of your business. You can also upload photos, add a phone number, a business address, operating hours, and reviews from customers.

Be consistent with your NAP – NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. If possible, make sure it is easily seen on your website. If you’ve noticed, websites that rank on local searches display those details.

Utilize those reviews – According to Google, more reviews and positive ratings can improve your business’s local rankings.

You can place all of this information on the bottom part of your website. Checkout how Mixam’s website has all of these elements present:

3. Using keyword tracking tools

The best and most efficient way to do keyword tracking would be to use tools that have this feature. This makes the overall process a lot easier and brings more in-depth analytics and results.

 These tools make analytics engaging with their charts and line graphs. It makes any data analysis process easier. Plus, if you’re an agency, you can collate all important metrics and create an engaging presentation for your clients.

Since we can’t discuss all of the tools available for public use, let’s talk about the top 3 most recommended ones.

a. Ahrefs

ahrefs keyword tracking tool dashboard example

Ahrefs is a well-known tool for backlinks and SEO analysis. The website is always part of every recommendation post from different websites.

It’s basically an all-in-one place where you can do keyword research, site analysis, and other SEO activities. This makes it a great tool to be partnered with Saas marketing campaigns, B2B marketing, social media marketing, and many more.

With the number of things that you can do on this platform, it makes sense why Ahrefs is the go-to website for everything SEO-related. 

b. SEMrush

If you’ve searched for SEO tools or even just content-related tools, you’ve definitely run into SEMrush already.

SEMrush is one of those household names when it comes to social media, SEO, PPC, and content solutions. It’s just so widely used that the majority of its reviews come from agencies.

With its easy-to-use interface and the number of features within its platform, SEMrush is a great tool for keyword tracking and SEO campaigns.

c. Google Search Console

People use Google Search Console because of its high accuracy. Some would choose this over other tools because the search engine always accounts for differences in search caused by personalized search results.

d. Cyfe’s Web Analytics dashboard

Using Cyfe’s web analytics dashboard, you get to track the performance of your website. It can be an all-in-one place to check the important metrics and necessary data to improve the current state of your site.

In terms of keyword tracking, the dashboard provides a clear picture of keywords that drive new visitors from Google. It also monitors all of your traffic channels and top organic keywords.

All of the features that the web analytics dashboard presents can help any website owner in creating content strategies and other improvement opportunities.

Benefits of keyword tracking

Keyword tracking shows whether your SEO strategies and efforts are paying off. The process provides you important insights on how your website is ranking in search engines relative to specific keywords.

It gives you an overview of your website’s search engine presence. If you don’t see any improvements in your website’s ranking, it can mean that your SEO strategy needs to change.

By giving attention to keyword tracking, you’ll have an idea of how your web pages are performing. It also gives you insights on what keywords you need to work on more.

Some would even hold online conferences or summits just to discuss these things. But the fact that you know about keyword tracking now puts you at a serious advantage.

The advantage of this is you get to see issues at an earlier time. You get to work on your mistakes and improve your process before things get worse.

This puts you ahead of companies that mindlessly produce content and hoping to rank on search engines.

To further dive into the topic, here are other important benefits that keyword tracking solves for you:

1. Boosts your revenue

If you’ve been tracking the analytics of your website, then you know which pages have the most visits and clicks. But unfortunately, visits and clicks can only do so much for a business. To keep the overall operations running, it needs to make money.

To take keyword tracking a step further, you can utilize those high-ranking web pages to sell your products or services. You can also use them to naturally introduce your referral program or insert your affiliate links.

When more people get to see your products, services, and links, the higher the chance that those things will convert.

2. You can double down on what works for your website

A problem with some of the websites in competitive industries is that they think there are only a few sets of ways on how they can rank on Google. They think that the information shared online is the only path to rank high on search engines.

What they don’t realize is their business can have its own sets of ways on how it can rank – they just need to observe what’s working for them. And a way to do so would be keyword tracking.

Since keyword tracking is a process to see where you rank on certain keywords, you get to see your web pages that have high visibility. These pages are proof that your SEO efforts were correct.

Knowing what works for your audience, means you can now double down on the strategies you used on those top pages. You can duplicate those results or better yet have more improved metrics than your current top web pages.

3. Find solutions to traffic dips

Unless you’re making a killing on your SEO game, traffic drops are a common thing for websites. You just can’t expect to be at the top for a long time especially if you’re ranking for highly competitive keywords.

A few reasons for this can be a need for re-optimization of those pages or a change in the search engine algorithm that you weren’t aware of. Sometimes it can also be a website or a domain issue. That’s why companies go to the lengths to hire a web developer to check and fix this certain issues.

By doing keyword tracking, you get to address these problems earlier. You get to find solutions for these issues before they get worse.

4. It helps you monitor your competitors

Keyword tracking also lets you know which keywords are your competitors ranking for and what they’re missing out on.

This works well in new industries. Some keywords won’t be too crowded like ones in the NFT-DeFi space and the emergence of the streaming industry. Being a first-mover gives you an opportunity to effectively create an SEO keyword strategy.

It gives you an option to go for keywords that have less competition. There are many ways to tackle this aspect, just make sure that the process you’re going for benefits your efforts.

If you see that your competitors are gaining traction with some keywords, you can also look into why that’s the case. Could it be that they’re publishing more content? Are they taking a different route in their content production? Do they have a new marketing campaign?

The process of looking at your competitors gives you a set of new ideas on how you can improve your own content and strategies.

5. Find new opportunities for your site

By analyzing what works for you and your competitors, you get to find new opportunities to jump on. These keywords that you’re targeting will surely branch out to other keywords as well.

For example, if you’re primarily targeting “sales tools”, you can dive deeper into the term and unlock a whole set of possible keywords. The term will give you keywords like predictive dialers, CRM systems, paid and free project management softwares, and automated tools.

This also works outside the realm of all things digital marketing. Keywords along the lines of personal development, skincare, health and wellness, these too can introduce you to related terms that you can target.

Basically, any keyword that you’re targeting right now can lead you to find new opportunities.

By using keyword tracking and looking at keywords that work for your website, you’ll also get insights on a whole new list of keywords that you can target.

3 tips to improve keyword rankings in Google

Now that you know what keyword tracking is, how it’s done, and the different benefits of doing it, it’s time we talk about how you can greatly improve your keyword rankings.

Since the essence of keyword tracking is to look at where your website stands when it comes to certain keywords, let’s discuss how you can improve your website and web pages in search engines. 

I. Optimize your content

graph showing sessions increase due to content optimization

Optimization is vital to business growth. Keyword tracking and making keyword-focused content leads to the optimization of your website which is considered a growth hacking strategy by many.

If you’ve been slacking and wondering why you haven’t been hitting your content marketing KPIs,  you can review these elements of your content:

Title Tags – Your title tag should tell you what your content is. Make sure it’s unique and up to 60 characters only. If possible, include the keyword you’re targeting in the title.

Meta Descriptions – Most websites tend to leave this section blank. Meta descriptions are phrases pertaining to what your content is about. It’s like a sneak peek of the whole content. When writing this, make sure it’s concise and you’re able to hook your readers.

Header Tags – Headers are used to make the overall article structure be more organized. Don’t just increase the font, use your H1’s or H2’s properly. Search engines also consider these header tags when it comes to ranking a website.

URL Structure – The URL for your content should contain the keyword you’re targeting. Sometimes, businesses make their targeted keyword their domain name which also works.

An example of this would be www.restaurant-website-builder.com. When you search for the keyword “restaurant website builder” in search engines, it naturally comes at the very first page.

Images – Pictures make the overall article lively. If readers see a wall of texts, it automatically turns them off.

Keywords – If you want to rank for a certain keyword, make sure you use it naturally in your content. The number of times a keyword should be present will depend.

Overall Content – Your overall content should bring value to readers. If it benefits readers wherein they get lessons and ideas after reading, naturally they’ll share it with others.

If a lot of people get to read your content and share it to multiple platforms, this tells Google that your content is valuable and is worth ranking.

An example of optimized content would be a blog by Aura as shown below. Aura’s web pages ranked on the first page of Google when you search for the keyword “amazon repricer”.

The first web page that ranked is a blog post of theirs talking about the keyword “amazon repricer”. Notice how they didn’t only use the keyword on the title, but it’s also present in the URL and meta description.

The second web page was Aura’s website. The brand has been producing content around that keyword that Google saw Aura as an authority website when it comes to that topic.

II. Avoid keyword stuffing at all costs

Keyword stuffing is when a website stuffs keywords in a web page even if it’s out of context. They do this with the hope of ranking high for that keyword in search engines.

Although this doesn’t work for Google since its algorithm can detect such acts, you still shouldn’t consider this for the sake of visibility.

Make sure when you’re using the keyword you’re targeting, place them where it makes sense. Use them in context and not for the sake of stuffing them in your article or home page.

example of strategic keyword use

In the example above, look at how many times the word “Mannequin” was used on MannequinMall’s homepage. The term was used 74 times on a single web page.

But was this considered keyword stuffing? No. Because if you check and read the whole page, every term was used naturally and was in context every time.

Even Google thinks that this isn’t keyword stuffing. In fact, due to their overall content and strategic use of the keywords, when you search in Google “mannequin online” or “mannequins for sale”, MannequinMall will always pop up on the first page.

search result page for mannequin mall

III. Be specific, concise, and clear

When you’re creating content, it’s easy to be too focused on ranking on Google. You tend to only focus on what Google looks for in an article. This makes you forget one important aspect in this whole equation – your audience.

No matter who your audience is, people appreciate when the information they’re looking for is provided to them immediately. They appreciate when the content gives them the answer they need without delay.

An example of this would be VPNOverview’s “Watching Netflix with a VPN – A Step-by-Step Guide”.

example of concise content guide by VPNOverview

This blog is a great example because the content goes straight into the details immediately. It only suggested one VPN provider and moved on directly to how the readers can navigate it.

The article was straight to the point and was concise on the information it wanted to relay. This is why this blog ranks high on the search for “Netflix VPN guide” – a keyword that they were targeting.

google search result for netflix vpn guide is article from VPNOverview

Conclusion

Business owners like keyword tracking because it gives them an idea of how well their websites perform for certain keywords. The process shows whether their SEO strategies are working or it needs further improvement.

Other than knowing how a website is performing, keyword tracking also allows you to see what the competition is doing. This gives business owners ideas if they ever rework their digital strategy.

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10 Essential Email Marketing KPIs and Metrics https://www.cyfe.com/blog/email-marketing-kpis/ Thu, 04 Feb 2021 08:00:21 +0000 https://www.cyfe.com/?p=3541 To succeed in today’s marketing arena, you not only need a great-performing website and strong social media presence, but you also need a solid email marketing strategy based on analyzing and interpreting the right data. Email marketing requires that you constantly monitor your marketing performance so you can measure your success and improve your results. […]

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To succeed in today’s marketing arena, you not only need a great-performing website and strong social media presence, but you also need a solid email marketing strategy based on analyzing and interpreting the right data.

Email marketing requires that you constantly monitor your marketing performance so you can measure your success and improve your results.

Although a lot of marketers only look at a few KPIs, there are actually 10 essential email marketing KPIs and metrics you need to watch so you can get the full picture. Thankfully, there are a lot of email marketing tools like Cyfe that allow you to easily track and analyze your data easily so you can truly optimize your email campaigns.

Table of Contents

With that said, here are the 10 essential email marketing KPIs and metrics to track.

Want to create a data dashboard for your business?
With Cyfe, you can quickly connect all of your data sources and design a real-time dashboard in minutes.

1. Delivery and Deliverability Rates

Before you can worry about whether or not your subscribers open and act upon your emails, you first need to ensure that your emails actually reach their inboxes.

The delivery rate indicates how many emails are accepted by your recipients’ servers. As long as an email doesn’t bounce, it counts as delivered. The formula for calculating the delivery rate is as follows:

Delivery Rate = (Emails delivered /  Total number of emails sent) x 100

If you send 40,000 emails to subscribers, and only 38,500 are delivered, it means that your delivery rate is (38,500/40,000) x 100 = 96.25%.

Your deliverability rate is a measure of how many emails actually avoid the spam folder and reach your recipients’ inboxes.

Also known as the inbox placement, this metric is impacted by a variety of factors, such as your domain setup, content, authentication, and your reputation.

You can use a tool like HavocShield whose “mail armor” feature allows you to strengthen your email security and maintain high deliverability rates.

HavocShield's Mail Armor is an email security tool

Pro Tip: When using platforms like Wix or Shopify, opt for a personalized and customized email address to match your domain name and business brand.

2. Open Rate (OR)

Your email open rate indicates how many emails were opened in relation to the total number of emails delivered. Most email service providers (ESPs) calculate this KPI for you automatically. But, you can calculate it for yourself using the following formula:

Open Rate = (Number of emails opened / Total number of emails delivered) x 100

So, for instance, if you send an email to 100 contacts, but only 50 of them open it, your email open rate is (50/100) x 100 = 50%.

ESPs track email open rates by embedding a tracking pixel or a tiny transparent image in your marketing emails and then recalling them each time a subscriber receives your email.

The email open rate is an engagement metric that is very important for you to track. You can study how your open rate compares to the industry average so you know where to focus your efforts to improve your email marketing campaigns.

If you have a weak open rate, there are certain tactics you can use to improve it, such as segmenting your list to ensure that each group of subscribers receives the most relevant content.

Another way to improve open rates is to add the recipient’s name to your email subject line. You can also use a subject line generator to help you come up with unique and engaging email subject lines.

Use a subject line generator, like this one from Reply, for unique email subject lines

3. Conversion Rate

Your conversion rate shows you the number of subscribers who took action on your email. It indicates the percentage of email recipients who clicked on a link inside your email and then went on to complete an action, such as:

  • Claiming a discount
  • Signing up for a free trial
  • Making a purchase
  • Reading a blog post
  • Registering for a webinar

You can use the following formula to calculate your email conversion rate:

Conversion Rate =  (Total number of completed actions / Number of emails delivered) x 100

So, for example, if you send an email to 1,000 subscribers, and 50 recipients click the link, it means that your conversion rate is (50/1,000) x 100 = 5%.

You don’t need a digital marketing expert to tell you how important your conversion rate is for helping you determine your email marketing ROI (return on investment). When you know how much you spent on a campaign, and the number of email subscribers converted, it’s then easy to determine if your efforts, as well as the money you spent on the campaign, are paying off.

You can easily measure this metric by integrating your ESP, together with Google Analytics or any other web analytics tool. You can then create a unique tracking URL for individual links within your marketing emails. Cyfe is one such tool as it allows you to track all your key performance metrics and share them with your team.

4. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Your email click-through rate shows you the number of subscribers who clicked on at least one link inside a given email.

This is among the most common email marketing KPIs and metrics that help marketers to establish how successful their email marketing campaigns are. You can calculate your CTR using the following formula:

CTR = (Number of email clicks / Total number of emails delivered) x 100

As an example, if you send out 10,000 emails, and 500 subscribers click on one or more links inside the email, your CTR will be (1,500/10,000) x 100 = 5%.

The average click-through rate is about 4%, although this figure varies in different industries and can be influenced by a variety of factors.

You will discover that welcome emails and emails calling for specific actions, such as an email informing your subscribers that you are hosting a webinar, will experience higher click through rates.

If you are experiencing low click-through rates, an effective way to improve this essential email marketing KPI is to carry out frequent A/B testing on the different elements of your email, including:

  • The wording of the email
  • The content layout
  • The call to action text and design
  • The images in the email

Pro Tip: Use the tips in this graphic design article from Pixpa.com to help you set your email marketing, advertising, and branding apart from your competitors and boost your CTR. 

5. Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)

This KPI shows you the number of clicks in relation to the total number of emails opened. It also measures the number of recipients who clicked on links – but, only for the subscribers who actually opened your email.

This means that the CTOR doesn’t include all the subscribers on your list, or the total number of emails delivered. But, it’s a very accurate metric for measuring your email’s level of interaction. You can calculate your click-to-open rate using the following formula:

CTOR = (Unique clicks / Unique email opens) x 100

If you have 400 unique clicks out of a total of 2,500 unique email opens, then your CTOR is (400/2,500) x 100 = 16%.

 If you have a low CTR, but your CTOR is high, it could mean that your emails are well-designed, but that you’re wasting effort and resources sending emails to subscribers who don’t find them relevant.

On the other hand, if you are experiencing a low CTOR, it could mean that your content is uninteresting and is falling flat once recipients have opened your emails.

A great way to improve your click-to-open rate is to ensure that you segment your list so that you send relevant content that each group wants. You can use the segmentation categories outlined below as a guide:

Segment your audience for relevant content to improve the click-to-open (CTOR) email KPI

6. Complaint Rate

Spam or abuse complaints are among the most important email marketing KPIs and metrics to monitor because they can have a significant negative impact on your email marketing campaigns.

Your complaint rate is the number of times subscribers report your marketing emails either as unwanted or as spam. ESPs calculate the complaint rate automatically using the following formula:

Complaint Rate = (Total number of complaints / Number of sent emails) x 100

If you send 6,000 emails and you get 8 complaints, your complaint rate will be (8/6000) x 100 = 0.13%.

Important Note: Not all ESP’s have feedback loops set up with ISPs, which means that the formula above may not show you a truly accurate idea of your complaint rate. That’s why it’s important to choose the right email service provider to ensure you get a proper sense of your spam complaint rate.

Once you know what your complaint rate is, you can compare it to the industry average, which is about one complaint per 1,000 emails sent, or 0.1%.

This number is acceptable, but any higher than that will likely affect your email deliverability, and possibly result in the ESPs suspending your account.

7. Unsubscribe Rate

Your unsubscribe rate counts the number of recipients who clicked the “unsubscribe” link to show you the percentage of subscribers who opted out from receiving your email messages.

This metric is calculated automatically by most ESPs, but you can double-check your numbers using the formula below:

Unsubscribe Rate = (Number of unsubscribes / Total number of delivered emails) x 100

If you send 5,000 emails, and 20 people unsubscribe, your unsubscribe rate would be (20/5,000) x 100 = 0.4%.

Your unsubscribe rate is likely to fluctuate depending on your email sending frequency. On average, most email campaigns experience a 0.2% unsubscribe rate, and if yours is much higher than this, then it’s cause for concern and you should focus your attention on dealing with it right away.

One way to lower a high unsubscribe rate is by setting the expectations for when you are going to email your subscribers. Stick to a consistent schedule and always deliver on the promise of your subject line.

Also, you should segment your list by interests so that you always send relevant content that your subscribers find interesting using a drip email marketing strategy.

And don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from your subscribers so that you have a better understanding of the type of content they want and expect from you.

Pro Tip: When working to improve your email design and reduce unsubscribes, you can use design resources like these to get your work done faster and more effectively.

8. Bounce Rate

The bounce rate indicates the number of email subscribers who didn’t receive the email you sent. It’s the percentage of addresses that return an error after you send an email.

In email marketing, there are two kinds of bounces: soft, and hard bounces.

A soft bounce involves temporary problems with an email address that is valid, such as a full inbox, issues with the recipient’s server, and so on.

A hard bounce, on the other hand, refers to permanent issues with an email on your mailing list, such as an email address that is either closed or nonexistent.

Whether your emails bounce due to the recipient’s mailbox filters or if you are sending to an address that is incorrect or mistyped, you still need to keep track of this email marketing KPI. You can calculate the bounce rate using this formula:

Bounce Rate = (Number of bounced emails / Number of emails sent) x 100

So, for example, if you send out 12,000 emails, and 80 of them bounce, it means that your bounce rate is (80/12,000) x 100 = 0.66%.

A high bounce rate can cause you to have a poor sender reputation, and this can result in the ISPs viewing your business as a spammer. That’s why keeping track of this KPI is vital to the “health” of your mailing list. It will help you to monitor any email deliverability issues you might be experiencing.

Although there are tons of online business tools to help you with various aspects of your business, it’s important for you to choose the right tools to assist you in reducing your bounce rate and getting more emails into your recipients’ inboxes.

9. ROI

Email marketing ROI is a metric that allows you to evaluate the efficiency and profitability of your investment. In many cases, it’s the main marketing metric you need to monitor in order to accurately measure how cost-effective your email campaign is.

This KPI will show you how much you earned compared to how much you spent to implement your email campaign. To calculate email marketing ROI, use this formula:

ROI = [(Total sales from campaign – Campaign costs) / Campaign costs] x 100

As an example, if you make $2,500 in sales, and your email campaign costs $500 to implement, your ROI would be calculated as follows: [($2,500 -$500) / $500] x 100 = 400%.

On average, email marketing has an ROI of 40:1, which means that for every dollar spent on email marketing, you get back $40! You could build a website and monetize it using the best tactics and still not achieve such an impressive ROI.

Email has the highest average return on investment (ROI) of various marketing channels

This is why email is among the best and most effective marketing channels you can use for your business.

If you are experiencing a low ROI in your email marketing, you can use the following tips to help you improve your results:

  • Divide your list into segments so you can send more targeted emails
  • Personalize emails by including the subscriber’s name in the subject line
  • Focus on improving your email deliverability rate
  • Discover the best days, times, and frequency for sending emails
  • Optimize your emails for mobile
  • A/B test subject lines and go with the ones that are most engaging
  • Include strong calls to action in each of your emails
  • Use lots of eye-catching visuals, including videos in your emails

10. Revenue Per Subscriber/Email

It’s estimated that there will be over 4 billion email users by 2024. With numbers like these, it’s no wonder email is such a profitable marketing tool.

The revenue per subscriber KPI shows you how much each subscriber on your list is worth in terms of revenue. This is very important because it allows you to identify the value of your email list.

To calculate your revenue per subscriber, all you have to do is divide your total revenue from email by your number of subscribers, as in the formula below:

Revenue per Subscriber = Revenue from email / Number of subscribers

So, if you have a list of 8,000 subscribers and you send an email that generates $10,000 in revenue, Your revenue per subscriber would be $10,000/8,000 = $1.25/subscriber.

In addition to knowing your revenue per subscriber, you also want to calculate your revenue per email. You can calculate your revenue per email using the following formula:

Revenue Per Email = Revenue from email / Number of emails delivered

This KPI helps you gain valuable insight as to the types of marketing emails that are most valuable for your business. You can then identify the characteristics and trends common to your most profitable email marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

No matter what system you’re using, whether you opt for a popular ESP or predictive dialer software with built-in email marketing tools, these are the 10 essential email marketing KPIs and metrics that you need to know, follow, and analyze so you can accurately measure the success of your email campaigns.

The Cyfe dashboard lets you monitor all the important KPIs mentioned in this article so you can understand your campaign performance.

There are many methods to make money online, but not many offer an ROI as impressive as email marketing.

Which of the email marketing KPIs and metrics mentioned in this article do you currently track? Sound off in the comments!

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9 B2B Sales KPIs Every B2B Company Should Measure in 2020 https://www.cyfe.com/blog/b2b-sales-kpis/ Wed, 16 Sep 2020 04:56:54 +0000 https://www.cyfe.com/?p=3244 As hard as it is to believe, driving sales for your website is not all about what Google has to say. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) include a boatload of information that you can use to measure your B2B company’s success and how you can grow that success.  A high-performing sales team has a good strategy, […]

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As hard as it is to believe, driving sales for your website is not all about what Google has to say. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) include a boatload of information that you can use to measure your B2B company’s success and how you can grow that success. 

A high-performing sales team has a good strategy, dedicated team members, and a solid understanding of their customers’ wants but the data is where the money is at. If you are not taking a look at your past, there is no way you can create the best strategy for your future. 

Table of Contents

What exactly are B2B Sales KPIs?

B2B sales KPIs include performance indicators that your team can interpret to plan ahead for the year. B2B KPIs in specific allow sales leaders to take a step back and see how the company is performing in comparison to the goals the sales team is setting.

So, if your yearly revenue is not meeting the number you forecasted, you need to figure out what is missing and how you can fix the problem. Tracking the right sales KPIs at the right time can give you invaluable data to help you do just that.

What is the best way to go about selecting B2B eCommerce KPIs?

The first thing you need to do to target the right KPIs for your business is to take a step back and understand what your company’s goals are. This does not just include the goals of the sales team but rather of the company as a whole. What do you want to achieve a year from now?

Having the answer to that question will allow you to narrow down on a few primary KPIs that you should focus on at all times. These two or three KPIs are going to be your primary focus and all of the other KPIs you choose to measure will be secondary. 

So your primary goal as a B2B company is likely to be one of the follows-

  • Gaining more customers
  • Increasing your yearly revenue
  • Increasing your conversion rate

Now that you have your primary goal, you can select the KPI you want to focus on. All of the other B2B metrics you will be targeting will be decided based on that.

9 Sales KPIs Your Company Should Be Tracking

There are a few KPIs that your company should absolutely be keeping a track of if they are in the B2B sector. Here are some of them:

Sales from new business ventures

It is important to keep track of your new business ventures or product launches so that you can decide whether you want to invest more time and money in that venture. Taking a look at the total revenue your new business has brought in is one of the best B2B eCommerce metrics to track.

Sales by product

Tracking the number of sales that are coming in for every product that you have on the market is one of the B2B product metrics worth tracking. It will give you a bird’s eye view of what is working for your business by showing you which products or services are serving as your company’s cash cows. 

It will also show you what products may be worth pulling from your online store.

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) to Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) Conversion Rate

A Marketing Qualified Lead(MQL) is one of the KPIs for B2B marketing that you should ideally use alongside your sales KPIs. Looking at your MQL alongside your Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) will also allow you to see how effective your funnel is.

Here is how it is done –

An MQL is a lead that has just entered your sales funnel by doing something like signing up for an opt-in freebie, subscribing to the company podcast, or signing up for one of the company’s webinars.

A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is a lead that is ready to hop on a call with one of the members of your sales team because they are potentially interested in one of your products. 

The Marketing Qualified Leads that convert into Sales Qualified Leads will show you how much your marketing efforts are paying off. 

So, for example, if 1000 people sign up for a freebie opt-in through your website and 150 of those 1000 people convert into Sales Qualified Leads (wanting to get in touch with your sales team to learn more about your product) it means that you have a 15% MQL to SQL conversion rate.

This is one of the B2B marketing metrics that matter for not just the marketing team but the sales team as well so that both teams can build a better relationship and align their goals with more ease. Coming together to fill in any potential gaps in your strategy will allow the company to take advantage of every marketing lead brought in.

If you use the Cyfe business dashboard to visualize your KPIs, you can integrate your HubSpot account into your dashboard like so-

hubspot integration

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This will allow you to see your entire Contact Lifecycle Pipeline at a glance. This includes all SQL, MQL, customers, opportunities, and subscribers that have been brought into the business during a certain time period.

Sales by Region

Keeping track of exactly where your sales are coming in from is a good way to know which regions you should be focusing your business efforts on. This KPI will allow you to see the volume of sales for your services/products from around the world.

If you keep track of this KPI, it will allow you to see if you are meeting your sales goals for each region. For example, 1500 sales from Canada could be a goal you could track using the KPI.

For example, if you are running a language learning website like Preply (traffic comes from multiple countries), it becomes even more important to know where your sales are coming from. This will help you understand the languages people want to learn the most and which parts of the world are most interested in learning a second language. 

learn a second language

Orders Canceled With a Reason

Knowing the reason behind an order cancellation should help your company potentially solve a recurring issue. This will benefit your sales goal long-term. If there is one particular reason customers keep canceling an order, it can easily be dealt with once you know what the problem is by analyzing customer feedback.

If you are using a Cyfe dashboard to track your sales, you can integrate Shopify, Salesforce, or HubSpot to track the percentage of orders that were canceled due to a particular reason. 

Opportunities by lead source

An opportunity is a sales lead that has already spoken about a problem that your product or service could potentially solve. This makes that lead an opportunity and your primary aim now is to convert them into a qualified sale.

Knowing which route most of your opportunities are coming through could help you understand what to focus on as a company. So, for example, if most of your opportunities are coming from webinar conversions, it would be wise to double down and focus on webinars more.

Once you know which lead source is sending you most of the opportunities coming your way, you will understand what to focus on much better. This is one of the B2B sales metrics that really help you make more money and save time in the long run.

You can track this B2B KPI by integrating your HubSpot account into the Cyfe business dashboard which should give you a bird’s eye view of the lead sources that are sending in opportunities to your sales team.

Monthly Sales Growth

This is one of the SaaS B2B metrics that show you what the growth in sales volume is like on a monthly basis. Are the changes you are making working and are there any sales trends you should be focusing on more? These questions are often answered more easily by looking at your monthly sales growth and reflecting on the sales decisions you have made that led you there.

KPIs That Can Help Set Personal Goals for Employees

Most of the KPIs we have targeted so far will help benefit the sales team as a whole but it is also important to focus on Key Performance Indicators that can aid the growth of each individual employee and track their progress individually. 

  • Sales Per Rep– The number of qualified sales each sales rep is making needs to be looked at individually to see whether they are improving as time goes on and meeting their overall sales goals.
  • Monthly Calls Per Sales Rep– A good KPI to track would be the number of calls each sales rep is making every month and how many of those calls convert into prospects. This can also help the company decide whether this outbound technique is worth spending more or less time on.
  • Percentage of time spent on data entry– Knowing how much time each employee is spending on data entry will help you see how many hours are actually being used productively. 
  • Sales by contact method– The contact method that is converting the best for different reps on your team may be different depending on their strengths. One employee may find it easier to bring in sales by sending out cold emails while another may be more comfortable over the phone. Tracking the sales by contact method allows you to figure out which method is worth focusing on for each rep individually. 

Sales Cycle Length

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The sales cycle length is one of the B2B funnel metrics that track how many days it takes for a lead to convert into an order. This will allow a sales team to take a step back and try to figure out ways to shorten the length by being more productive. 

You might even find areas where individual reps could improve such as- spending more time on calls, focusing more on certain types of leads, or even using one productivity tool over another.

Wrapping it up

Most sales teams today already know the many benefits of having data to learn from. 

Tracking the right B2B SaaS metrics for your business and focusing on making changes based on what you have learned looking at the data is one of the most affordable ways to grow as a company. 

The value of tracking the right B2B KPIs cannot be overstated. No matter what sort of business you are, the difference between tracking metrics and not tracking them is watching your company grow over the years as compared to seeing your yearly revenue either stay the same or go down as other companies stay tuned with the trends.

Simply having the data in front of you is not enough, you need to take a deep dive into it to figure out ways you can improve, what you should focus on more, and what is already working for you.

You can use a sales dashboard like the one available on Cyfe to get a bird’s eye view of all of your business metrics starting today.

The post 9 B2B Sales KPIs Every B2B Company Should Measure in 2020 appeared first on Cyfe.

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