9 Health Metrics for Acquisition
More often than not, determining and/or increasing Conversion Rate is among the top objectives for any company, and, like all objectives, it reports whether or not an intended result was achieved (aka lagging indicator). Within this article, I am going to present nine health metrics for acquisition. Undoubtedly, the following KPIs should not be viewed as a “one size fits all” approach, however, monitoring these health metrics allows you to determine:
- which of your initiatives need to be tweaked/updated/relinquished,
- where and when to “double-down,” and
- your chances of hitting your Conversion Rate goal.
I found the following 9 reports to be very informative for keeping your marketing team focused, aligned, and able to create further hypotheses, as well as track hypotheses already made.
- Target Audience Traffic Grouped by Demographics
- Bounce Rate of Target Audience
- Medium
- Benchmarking
- Behavior Flow
- Sales Inquiries — Demo Requests
- Assisted Conversions
- Funnel Visualization
- Cohort Analysis
Depending on the stage of the business, the resources the business has to allocate toward marketing, and where the problem lies within your customer acquisition funnel, the following picture can help understand which metrics to utilize.
1. Traffic Quality
Understand whether your target audience is visiting your website. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication here, and demographics will give you all necessary preliminary data. Completely disregard the visitors that do not align with your buyer’s persona.
2. Bounce Rate
Check to make sure you have a decreasing trend. Ideally, your bounce rate needs to be checked against the Target Audience Demographics. If it is not performing well, it means that an undesired audience is coming in and/or that the visitors are not resonating with the value proposition.
3. Medium
Nowadays, people can reach a brand from numerous channels. Recognize the channels performing well and ensure they are being adequately utilized by your marketing efforts. If deemed appropriate given the stage of the company and the saturation of the already-utilized channels, experiment with the rest of the available channels.
4. Benchmarking
By now, you should be fairly aware of how YOU are doing. However, benchmarking against industry averages will provide you with even further valuable insights. Utilize this report to become aware of where your competitors are receiving most of their traffic as well as learn the industry average bounce rate ratio by medium. Understand where you are a top performer, and, if it aligns with your marketing strategy, identify where you need to put in some more work.
5. Behavior Flow
In order for your company to scale, visitors need to take the path you created for them. If they don’t, how will you convey to them the value proposition you envisioned and designed? Monitor and analyze whether the visitors are following the expected/defined buyer’s journey. Some useful insight can be gathered by asking the following questions:
- On which pages are visitors spending the majority of their time?
- Does the sequence of the visitors’ actions match the buyer’s journey?
- Is there a specific step in the journey where most visitors are bouncing?
- Which aspects of the visitors’ journey can be tweaked for a better experience?
Get more granular (if enough data exists). Study and identify patterns that get the most popular users to keep coming back. Does it make sense to create/replicate/enforce this pattern more often?
6. Sales Inquiries — Demo Requests
This is more appropriate for B2B companies, but it can be adjusted to satisfy your needs. Some visitors have resonated with and found enough value in your message that they are a click away from becoming a lead. No matter if a company is acquiring 100 demo requests per day or 10 per month, there is always room for betterment. And, depending on the performance of your sales inquiries/demo requests page, relevant questions must be asked. Some very valuable questions include but are not limited to:
- Is the conversion rate of the demo request page adequate?
- Can an experiment be run to identify if the page can be bettered?
- Am I aware of why the people who converted did so, and have I talked with them?
- Will a remarketing ad add any value?
- Are the visitors being led prematurely to make a decision?
7. Assisted Conversions
When the pre-sales inquiries or pre-demo requests funnel levers perform as expected, it is time to identify the channels that drive conversion. Understand how converters found the website, and figure out where marketing efforts need to be focused. Are there any channels that drive conversions both first and last touch?
8. Funnel Visualization
We’ve all heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” That’s what this report is all about. It’s an easy visual to consolidate much of the aforementioned information as well as generate a starting point to convey the information. Funnels are a simple and structured way to convey findings to stakeholders. One of the most valuable lessons I, fortunately, learned early on is to always adjust your funnel visualization so it is tailored to your audience.
9. Cohort Analysis
“Who is your ideal customer?” “Which vertical is converting the most?” I’m sure you’ve heard these questions or a variation of them from stakeholders or investors. Cohort analysis helps you separate the bad from the good.
Understand where you can be a shark among fish and take advantage of this. Grow fast, learn faster, and move to a bigger pond when you are ready. Divide and conquer.
All the reports above can be further analyzed vertically, demographically, and psychographically. Once you have done this, your cohort analysis is done and ready.
All in all, monitoring KPIs keeps you informed before it is too late. I am curious to hear about which KPIs you keep an eye on to stay ahead of the pack when it comes to Customer Acquisition!
