How can you identify the right key performance indicators for your digital strategy framework?

The most important step is to define the goals of the digital strategy. Goals once defined clearly set the road to define the KPIs. For example, if the goal is just to increase reach, a good KPI can be the number of impressions only, while for a goal focused on enhancing engagement, KPIs like click-through rates, comments, shares, and time spent on the website become more relevant.

I see a duality in our digital strategy goals for marketing. On the one hand there are the digital strategy goals that support marketing and sales: such as driving brand awareness, lifting engagement, generating leads and conversions, expanding market reach and enhancing the overall end to end customer experience. Equally important on the other hand is - the digitisation of our marketing operations - optimising operational efficiency through streamlined digitised process, nurturing innovation - adapting, optimising, changing to stay ahead of our competition, and looking after clean, lean and good data, for effective decision making. Much depends on your target audience journey, your organisation's needs and your stage of digital maturity.

Understanding our digital strategy goals very much resembles planning a roadmap. To select the right KPIs, I rely on the SMART framework: > Specific: Define clear metrics aligned with goals, like social media engagement for brand awareness. > Measurable: Opt for trackable metrics such as conversion rates or lead generation numbers. > Achievable: Set realistic KPIs within available resources and capabilities. > Relevant: Choose metrics directly tied to our digital strategy goals. > Time-bound: Set clear timeframes for achieving KPIs, maintaining accountability. SMART criteria ensures selected KPIs are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, tightly linked to our digital strategy objectives.

As per the business goals, media objectives are defined. KPI indicates if we moving towards to the objective or not. For a performance campaign, ROAS can be a KPI (if profitability is the goal). In that case, we need to make sure that we are not confused with optimization method and KPI. In similar case, CPA would be optimized to get the desired ROAS. There can be a secondary KPI like CVR%. Similarly, for mid funnel, KPI could be sessions or LPV where it is optimized by CPS and CTR.

In navigating the digital landscape, I’ve always adhered to the ‘digital with a human touch’ philosophy. Experience has taught me that when it comes to digital strategy, implementing bottom-up KPIs is a game-changer. They enable more effective feedback loops and foster a deeper understanding of our digital initiatives at every organizational level. This approach has not only driven our strategy forward but also kept us grounded in the human aspect of digital transformation.

Understanding your audience through persona and journey mapping combined with hard data, if possible, should make channel strategy easier. At the same time it's important to stay on top of technology and understand if they would align with end user's needs. No matter what, having an empathetic mindset to the client base you are trying to reach is always the best way to go.

Forget scatter-shot tactics. Match your goals to the right platforms. Social media for brand buzz, targeted ads for conversion sprints, SEO for organic growth. Analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of each channel to find your perfect fit. Optimize, amplify, and conquer! Think laser-focused, not shotgun scatter.

The right channels are often, well, all of them. Every business needs a website, social media (though here you SHOULD choose the relevant channels), SEO, and most of them utilize marketing avenues. Look at crafting an omni-channel strategy, and instead of focusing on which channels you should use, focus on how they work effectively together in order to maximize your business potential. SEO is only useful in the context of a website, social is only useful with a content marketing plan. If you know what you're trying to achieve, you should focus not on choosing which channels and platforms, but on how to optimize their use to move your business forward.

Measure digital KPIs with a customer-centric lens by tracking engagement metrics, monitoring conversion rates, and assessing customer satisfaction through surveys. Gauge long-term impact using customer lifetime value and sentiment analysis. Employ cross device analytics for real-time insights, ensuring KPI alignment with business goals and a consistent view of the customer journey. This holistic approach allows strategic adjustments to resonate with evolving customer preferences in the dynamic digital landscape

Choosing the appropriate digital channels and platforms is essential in aligning with your digital strategy goals. Each channel, whether it's a website, social media, email, mobile app, or others like online advertising and SEO, offers unique advantages and challenges. The selection should be based on where your target audience is most active, your value proposition, and budget considerations. n summary, the right digital channels and platforms are those that best resonate with your audience and align with your strategic objectives, facilitating the achievement of set goals like sales growth or improved customer engagement.

Start with revenue, and work your way backwards. In eCommerce, this is easy peasy lemon squeezy: 4. Revenue 3. Checkouts 2. Add-to-Carts 1. Visits But in B2B, and LinkedIn Ads (my main area of expertise) - this can be trickier for various reasons: 1. You might not have a lot of data to begin with - especially if you're just starting out as a startup. 2. The sales cycles take longer. 3. Not all of the touchpoints are digital. 4. A lot of this data gets lost in the mix. But still - start with revenue and work your way backwards: 5. Closed Won 4. Opportunity 3. SQL 2. MQL 1. Lead All of these are important indicators - but the one you should focus on the most (when you don't have enough data to focus on revenue) is SQLs.

It is a blessing that we are able to monitor KPIs in digital marketing in realtime. Each step of the funnel can be measured and should be. The point is, if you monitor the numbers for each step, you can immediately pinpoint which element in the funnel you need to fix. CTR tells you how good your ad pulls. Defining a CTA as a "Result" in the Ad Manager tells you how well your landing page converts. The loss from the CTA to the final purchase tells you if your shop system or payment methods need handling. With these numbers it is easy to adjust the exact points that will improve your campaign.

Defining right digital KPIs is really important to measure the impact of the Digital initiative. However, along with Digital KPIs , we need also to measure the impact of Digital initiatives in the Non-Digital channels’ KPIs. Like , implementing service app will have positive impact in reducing call volume and foot fall at service Center . So these channels KPIs also should have a part of Digital strategy success matrix .

The above misses a big point: The examples are lagging indicators - like most KPIs. Teams react after scores drop, rushing to find the drivers after the fact. This damages the business, and burns people out. Get better tools to measure the LEADING indicators and get them into your KPI's: Pre-behavioral 'early clues' are hidden in the expressed views of your customers, stakeholders and staff. Narrative analytics measures them. It is AI built on the same Large Language Models (LLM's) that drive generative AI - presented as a visualisation to contextualise the data and identify drivers - something that the chatbot approach to AI (above) can't provide. It enables KPI's that help you make decisions more proactively & effectively.

KPIs are your dance partners, revealing your digital moves. Match goals to music: sales = conversion quickstep, brand = buzz crescendo. Keep it relevant, actionable, trackable. Sales samba? Focus on conversion pirouettes, order value waltzes, and ROAS rumbas. Every metric, a beat in your digital masterpiece. Dance with purpose, conquer with precision!

The "I" in KPI is "indicator" which means it is a metric that needs context and benchmarks to be effective. The KPI analysis should include results from testing and other factors that can impact outcomes. KPIs should paint a larger picture not a single point in time, and then can be used to inform and direct marketing strategy. Many times in media plans I see a single metric being used as the KPI, e.g., the CTR, which is very misleading as CTRs used out of context and not tied to campaign objectives will not be "indicators' of anything or worse, incorrectly guide media investment decisions. CTRs vary widely based on creative, ad format, frequency, placement, and other variables.

Regularly review and reassess your chosen KPIs to ensure they remain aligned with your evolving digital strategy and overall business objectives. This iterative process will help you fine-tune your approach, ensuring that the selected KPIs effectively measure the success of your digital initiatives.

Tools like Google Analytics are your scuba gear, letting you delve deep into the data ocean. Track KPIs, compare reality to goals, spot the riptides and hidden treasures. Low conversion? Investigate the reef: website coral, user experience currents, pricing tides. Understand cause-and-effect, the coral's impact on the current. Analyze, adapt, optimize. Each KPI, a pearl in your digital oyster. Dive deep, discover brilliance!

Monitoring and analyzing your KPIs require a dedicated strategy. In this strategy, it should be specified: 1.Define the time intervals for checking each KPI 2.Establish the acceptable range of variations for each KPI. 3.Define thresholds that trigger action. 4.Determine how segmentation will be performed. 5.Identify Indexes suitable for each segmented group. 6.Specify benchmarks and criteria for assessing how your KPIs compare with those of competitors. 7.Determine the tools and platforms to be used for KPI analysis. 8.Identify external and internal factors that may impact KPI performance.

Regular and systematic monitoring and analysis of your digital KPIs is essential. Using tools like Google Analytics or Google Data Studio, you can effectively collect, store, and visualize your digital data. This step involves comparing actual performance against expected outcomes to identify discrepancies, trends, or anomalies. When analyzing digital performance, it's important to delve into the causes and effects and understand how different KPIs interact. For instance, a low online conversion rate could prompt an investigation into various influencing factors such as website design, user experience, product quality, or pricing.

Digital performance is never set it and forget it. It only works as hard as the optimizations you apply to the data uncovered. Whether you add new indicators or kill some, the system needs to be agile as it aligns to constantly new ways to measure the efficacy of digital marketing strategies.

Experiment, test, iterate – your digital playground. A/B test headlines, tweak bids, rewrite landing pages. Learn from stumbles, celebrate triumphs. Sales not sizzling? Refine ad copy, target hotter, bid bolder. Let KPIs guide your dance, every step igniting performance.

Having the right data models and the rights data analytics on top is a big asset to help in generating the right insights Having it on real time will give a more clear and immediate visibility for immediate action This should help in creating different views and trends to be monitored for a better decision making

Optimizing and improving digital performance based on KPIs is a dynamic and ongoing process. Utilizing digital data and insights, you can make informed decisions to enhance performance. This involves testing, experimenting, and iterating on different aspects of your digital initiatives and measuring the outcomes. For instance, if online advertising isn't yielding desired sales, consider optimizing elements like ad copy, targeting strategies, bidding methods, or landing page design. The key is to be agile in response to KPI analysis, willing to adapt and refine strategies based on what the data indicates.

Making sense of digital performance means both optimizing key data funnels and clarifying the insights to base smarter decisions. Building a focused digital KPI structure aligned to overarching business objectives is the first step. Rather than tracking vanity metrics, identify 8-12 metrics directly tied to goals around revenue, pipeline growth, customer acquisition costs or retention. Double Down on What’s Working – And Be Ruthless With What’s Not. Determine which programs deliver substantial returns given the investment and environment - then aggressively scale up resources allocated to those high-performers. Conversely, underperforming assets waste the budget without moving the revenue needle and must get cut swiftly.

Periodically reviewing and updating your digital KPIs is essential for maintaining the relevance and effectiveness of your digital strategy. KPIs must evolve in response to changing business goals, market conditions, customer expectations, and competitive dynamics to remain meaningful. For instance, if the goal shifts towards improving customer satisfaction, incorporating new KPIs like net promoter score, customer retention rate, or customer lifetime value can provide more targeted insights. This step ensures that your KPIs continue to accurately reflect the objectives of your digital strategy and remain effective tools for measuring success and guiding decision-making.

There are always going to be instances where you do not hit your projected targets for your KPIs. That is okay if you are able to make an honest effort into why you might not have hit your targets, rather than trying to identify excuses for the misses or find other data points that are more positive. In certain cases, you might have selected the wrong KPIs for your business goals. For example, if your goal is customer acquisition, there is a high likelihood that KPIs related to engagement are going to decrease since you are bringing in more users unfamiliar with your product/brand. That is why it is so important to take time to review your KPIs and be open to change.

It demonstrates a commitment to staying relevant, capturing meaningful insights, and continuously improving your digital strategy. By adjusting your KPIs based on changing business goals, market conditions, customer expectations, and competitive dynamics, you can optimize your digital efforts and drive long-term success. It demonstrates a commitment to staying relevant, capturing meaningful insights, and continuously improving your digital strategy. By adjusting your KPIs based on changing business goals, market conditions, customer expectations, and competitive dynamics, you can optimize your digital efforts and drive long-term success.

Segment data based on demographics, geography, or user behavior. This provides a more granular understanding of how different audience segments engage with your digital content.

When reviewing KPIs, it's crucial to also consider user exit pages and touchpoints for optimizing results. Focus on the top 3 user exit pages and evaluate whether they facilitate the right actionable activities. Ensure that these pages enable the measurement of all relevant touchpoints to gain comprehensive insights into user behavior. This analysis will contribute to refining strategies and improving overall results.

Digital KPI setting can become very easy, if one avoids these mistakes. 1. There can only be one gold KPI, you cannot achieve everything with 1 campaign. 2. KPIs don’t translate into effectiveness. You meet your KPIs but you still don’t know if the campaign was effective, so have an effectiveness measure. 3. Measuring KPI often becomes difficult, for no other reason, except poor tracking. Ensure correct an accurate tracking is in place before launching the campaign.

As part of the digital strategy, creating a KPI strategy framework is an essential step since you cannot manage without measuring. But, the key question is always understanding what happened and why happened. My common approach is to make sure defining both quantitative KPIs set to understand WHAT has happened and qualitative KPIs set to undertand WHY it has happened. And, while analyzing the results, always looking both types of KPIs together to be able to see the bigger picture.

Keep an eye out for unusual spikes or drops in your KPIs. Investigate the causes behind these anomalies, which could include external events, marketing campaigns, or technical issues.

It's also incredibly important to consider what stage your organization or team is at when deciding on KPIs. Are you an established company with a mature program? You're going to want to align closer to revenue goals while keeping in mind leading indicators. You've likely already proven out campaigns and channels, so it's time to hone in. On the other hand, are you a start-up who is still working to get from 0 to 1? You're not going to have the historical data, or frankly the runway, to be focused so far down the pipe. Get campaigns launched and look at more top of funnel metrics to determine potential effectiveness. Context is key.

Align KPIs with Overall Business Objectives 1) Organisational Orientation: Some companies are revenue focused, whereas some are more cost focused. Before even defining your goals, it is important to correctly diagnose your organisational orientation. That will define the role of digital marketing in the overall business, objectives and key north star metrics. 2) Business Integration: Ensure that your digital KPIs are not just about digital performance but are integrated with the overall business objectives. 3) Stakeholder Input: Involve various stakeholders to understand different perspectives and align KPIs with cross-departmental goals.