Definitions

An online advertising guide

Click - a click refers to when a user clicks on an add, a goal of online advertising. With the measurable nature of clicks (and conversions), now we can know for sure whether ads are driving customers to us. On our data, an interaction is a click. For emails, this metric measures the performance of the email once it’s been opened. It looks at the actions of those who opened the initial email.

CTR - Click-through rate is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement. It is commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website as well as the effectiveness of email campaigns. It’s the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown: clicks / impressions = CTR. For example, if you had 5 clicks and 1000 impressions, then your CTR would be 0.5%.

Delivery Rate: Those that haven’t bounced back because it;s an invalid address, soft bounced, a temporary failure, or contacts that have previously unsubscribed.

Email Open Rate: 2 ways to calculate

• total opened / total delivered

• total opened / sent

If this rate is dropping, consider revising the subject line.

Impression - Sometimes called a view or an ad view, is a term that refers to the point in which an ad is viewed once by a visitor, or displayed once on a web page. The number of impressions of a particular advertisement is determined by the number of times the particular page is located and loaded. Whether the ad is clicked is not taken into account. Each time an ad is fetched, it is counted as one impression. An impression is an estimate of the number of people a particular advertisement is reaching, and may be counted in different ways depending upon the way the ad is situated on the page, as well as the number of times the web page where the ad appears is shown. Ad reports list the number of total times of impression of the ad, which basically counts the number of times that the ad was served by the search engine when the keywords that the ad is connected to were searched for.

Average position - How an ad typically ranks against other ads. See here.

• The highest position is “1,” and there is no “bottom” position. An average position of 1-8 is generally on the first page of search results, 9-16 is generally on the second page, and so on. Average positions can be between two whole numbers. For example, an average position of “1.7” means that your ad usually appears in positions 1 or 2.

• Your ad’s rank can change, causing its position on the page to fluctuate as well, so your average position can give you an idea of how often your ad beats other ads for position. However, the most important thing is to find what’s profitable for you, which might not be to show in the top position.

• Average position may be less useful in optimizing for performance on the Google Display Network because of the diversity of websites on this network. If you want to measure performance on the Display Network, we recommend focusing on metrics such as conversions and ROI.

• You can see an “Avg. Pos.” column for your ads, campaigns, and other elements, but average position is generally most useful to look at for your keywords. By seeing how your ad typically ranks when it’s triggered by one of your keywords, you can try to influence your position by changing the keyword’s bid.

Converted click - the number of clicks that convert within your chosen conversion window. So, if a customer makes two separate purchases after clicking on an ad, they will register as one Converted Click.

Conversions - Total Conversion Actions or Total Sales + Unique Leads. The new settings here give advertisers the flexibility to set the way conversion actions are counted by All or Unique.

View through conversion - is essentially triggered whenever a user is on the Display Network and sees your ad but does not click on it. The user later directly visits your website or finds it via an organic search or other referring site (basically any source other than Google / AdWords).

Display Network - businesses instead place display ads on a huge network of sites across the internet.

Search Network - When advertising on the Search Network, businesses place text ads in the search engine results.

Search Engine Markeing - SEM Involves promotion of websites by increasing visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) prmarily through paid advertising.

Forbes article 10 Online Marketing Metrics

1. Total Visits: Gives a “big Picture” on how well the campaign is driving traffic. Numbers should grow steadily.

   • If numbers dropping, should investigate one of the marketing channels.

2. New Sessions: A good indicator of a site’s stickiness, i.e., does it encurage repeat customers? Also, an indication of outreach efforts. For example, if you change the structure or content of your site significantly and your ratio of recurring visitors to new visitors drops, it could be an indication that your website is losing effectiveness in warranting multiple visits.

3. Channel-Specific Traffic: In the Acquisition section of Google Analytics. Segments by point of origin.
   • direct
   • referrals: include external links from other sites
   • organic: includes visitors who found you after performing a search
   • social: includes visitors who found you through social media. This is a good way to guage the strengths of:
     • SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
     • Social Media Marketing: ways to reach new customers and engage existing ones.
     • Content marketing: provides relevant and useful content to help customers solve their issues.
     • Traditional marketing campaigns: television, radio, and print.

4. Bounce Rate: What percentage of visitors leave the website before exploring it.

5. Total Conversions: One of the most important metrics for measuring the profitability of overall marketing efforts. Goals are defined by the business and can include, filling out a form, completing a checkout, making an inquiry. Goals can be set up in GA or built in to the site. If the conversion numbers are low, look at
   • design
   • poor offerings
   • disinterested viewers

6. Lead to Close Ratio: A measure of sales success more than a measure of marketing efforts.total number of sales/total number of leads = sales success independent of your marketing efforts.

   • If close rate is low, a drop in revenue or overspending could be a symptom of inefficient final sales strategies.

7. Customer Retention Rate: A low customer retention metric can be a symptom of a product or service that isn’t sticky, or an indication of lacking outreach programs.

8. Customer Value: Difficult to calculate. Does not describe the health of sales or marketing efforts, but is helpful on determining overall ROI. To find your average customer value, you have to take into account all sales the average customer will initiate over the course of your relationship.

9. Cost Per Lead: A specific metric. Average monthly cost of your chosen campaign and compare it to the total number of leads you generated with that specific channel over the same period. For example, if you spent $500 in advertising for a pay-per-click campaign and achieved 10 total conversions over the same period, your cost per lead would be $50.

10. Projected Return on Investment: compare your cost per lead against your lead to close ratio, and compare that figure against your average customer value. If you pay $50 per lead and close 50 percent of your leads, you’ll pay $100 for each successful new customer. If your average customer value is more than $100 in this example, you’ve generated a profit and your marketing campaign can be considered a success.

Formulas

Bounces

IF [Activity Status] = “Bounce”

THEN 1

ELSE 0

END

In tableau

Bounce Rate

(SUM([Bounces]))/(SUM([Sent]))

In tableau

Clicks IF [Activity Status] = “Interact”

THEN 1

ELSE NULL

END

In tableau

CTR:

(SUM([Clicks]))/((SUM([Sent]))-(SUM([Bounces])))

In tableau

CTOR:

(SUM([Clicks]))/(SUM([Opens]))

In tableau

Delivered:

SUM([Sent]) - SUM([Bounces])

In tableau

Open Rate:

(SUM([Opens]))/([Delivered])

In tableau

Opens:

IF [Activity Status] = “HTML View”

THEN 1

ELSE 0

END

In tableau

Opt-Outs:

IF [Activity Status] = “OptOut”

THEN 1

ELSE NULL

END

In tableau

Sent:

IF [Activity Status] = “Sent”

THEN 1

ELSE 0

END

In tableau

UnSubscribe Rate:

(SUM([Opt Outs]))/((SUM([Sent]))-(SUM([Bounces])))

In tableau