Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

KPIs are a special subset of high-level metrics that are used to measure performance
against key organizational goals or objectives. Many of them will measure key outcomes
or macro conversions for your organization. They can be either a count (total revenue)
or ratio (conversion rate). It is important to clarify the business objectives before selecting
any KPIs. The right KIPs help to evaluate the progress of the business towards reaching
certain goals.

Organizations should keep the list of KIPs for digital business lean and mean (few). Too
many KIPs will make your company data-intensive but less data-driven. Consider
simplifying or consolidating your list of KPIs so you can focus on what truly matters to
your company’s success. KPIs will be essential tools in aligning your digital marketing
efforts around common goals and managing performance towards them.

KPI examples for google analytics

Google Analytics KPIs - Metrics To Track Your Website Traffic (datapine.com)

A Google Analytics KPI is an objectively measurable performance indicator used to

monitor, analyze and optimize user behaviors on websites. Google Analytics metrics,
among other things, help website managers in the operationalization of their marketing
goals. Here is the complete list of the most important Google Analytics KPIs and metrics.

• Sessions and Users: How does the website traffic develop?

• New and Returning Visitors: How often do users return to the website?
• Bounce Rate: Are the visitors' requirements being met?
• Goal Conversion Rate: Do visitors perform desired target actions?
• Time on Page: How much time do visitors spend on a page?
• Average Page Load Time: How important is the page speed, actually?
• Bounce Rate by Browser: Are there issues with certain browsers?
• Organic vs Paid Sessions: What is the share of organic traffic?
• Average Session Duration: What is the quality of the generated traffic?
• Top 5 Search Queries: What are the most common search queries?
• Users by Gender: What is the gender and age distribution?
• Pages per Session: How many pages are being visited on average?
• Best Pages by Gender: What content has the most page views?
• Top 10 Landing Pages: Which landing pages are most relevant?

Making KPIs work for you

The entire web analytics process is meaningless if there are no Key Performance
Indicators. Therefore, when experts lay down the guidelines to analyze the performance
of a client’s website, deciding which indicators to gauge the results against is one of the
most important steps. Picking the wrong KPIs not only skews the analysis, it is of no
benefit to the business and has no effect on strategy building either.

Hence, to comprehend what went wrong or what will help you get back on track, the
following steps are the most essential ones to incorporate in a web analytics process:
Step 1: Determine the Key Performance Indicators to use
As mentioned before, determining the KPIs is an important step. Web analytics has some
very popular and generically used KPIs that are put into practice for most performance
judgments. Without KPIs, the process of analysing the performance of a website is
incomplete. Some of the most widely used KPIs are:
• Bounce rate
• Visits/Sessions
• Page views
• Entry & Exit pages
• Unique visitors average time on site
• Percentage of new visits

Step 2: Track KPIs to make sure reporting is on the spot

To make sense of the KPIs, it is important that you represent these results in a report that
enables experts to compare, contrast, relate and associate the indicators with the
benchmarks. Naturally, among the various KPIs you use, some will be more important
than others. Hence, it is advisable to isolate the most crucial ones and gauge their results
and performance over the long run. The report you conjure will give you a clear picture
of the indicators that drive success for your business, how they perform in different time
periods and how they relate to other measures of success and your own goals. Most web
analytical tools have a feature for reporting and drafting trend charts in the dashboards
that can be set up quite easily. Once you have such a dashboard, you can choose to make
the KPI report your landing page as soon as you log in to the software.

Step 3: Establish baseline and cut-offs for each KPI

Baseline is the current result of a KPI. This can be determined once you have isolated the
core metrics and set up a report for daily, weekly or monthly progress. When the results
of the metrics are out, plug them in the report, and at the end of the week or month, you
see the trend or pattern followed by the KPIs. A baseline gives you a solid reference point
to relate to. However, there are many factors to consider when establishing baselines.
These include:
• Seasonal nature of the business
• Extent of marketing and promotion
• The kind of website and the duration of time for which it has been operational
• The amount of data you collect to establish the baseline
• Any other externalities reported
Step 4: Analyze the differences in the cut-off and the KPIs generated on the website
Professional web analytics have industry averages and benchmark data with them to
assess the performance of a website. Once baseline statistics have been generated, you
can now see how far off these are from the benchmark. For instance, the bounce rate your
website records may be extraordinarily high compared to an average of all others in the
e-commerce field.
Step 5: Optimize performance with corrective action
Performance of a website can be improved when new strategies are formed after
analysing KPIs. With the help of the results generated, a business can change the layout
and design of the website, optimize specific pages in terms of Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) elements, take care of code errors and broken links, build liaisons with referrers
and even change the services offered to achieve bigger goals. There is an array of
corrective actions that can be taken in this regard. However, all of it depends on how
well KPIs are used to generate reliable statistics.

Common Digital Business Models

Today, the vast majority of companies have a website (often multiple), run online
campaigns across various online channels (e-mail, display, paid search), and use a wide
range of digital technologies and services. When determining what type of KPIs your
organization should use for its digital initiatives, it can be helpful to begin with some
basic questions:

• What’s the main purpose of your website, app, or campaign?

• How does it contribute to the success of the overall organization?
• What business challenges are you trying to resolve?
• What do you want visitors or users to accomplish?
• What is the expected outcome?
• How do you define success?

These questions will help you to clarify what you’re trying to achieve online, what’s
important to measure, and what’s not essential (which can be equally critical). One of the
fascinating things about the Internet is the wide variety of innovative business models
that have emerged and will continue to appear. Most of the organizations must align their
digital metrics with one of the five common online business models or scenarios.

1. E-commerce
Main objective: Grow online sales of products or services
Relevant industries: Retail, travel, high tech, consumer products, media (subscription-
based)

Key Metrics
 • Revenue. Represents the most important focus for retailers
• Orders. Shows how many transactions were processed.
• Conversion Rate (Orders/Visitors or Orders/Visits). Indicates how effective you
are at converting traffic into orders.
• Average Order Value (Revenue/Orders). Shows on average how much
customers are spending on each transaction.
• Revenue per Visit (Revenue/Visits). Gives you a sense for the average
contribution of each visit to your revenue goals; can be useful for evaluating the
quality of different traffic sources.
• Average Selling Price (Revenue/Units Sold). Reveals the average price point of
items being sold on your site.
• Units per Transaction (Units Sold/Orders). Indicates how effective your site is at
cross-selling products

2. Lead Generation
Main objective: Increase number of qualified leads that result in future sales of
products or services
Relevant industries: Business-to-business manufacturing and service providers,
high tech, automotive, financial services, health care, education, non-profit

Key Metrics
• Leads. Represents potential prospects that are more likely to become customers
than just general business inquiries. What makes a lead more qualified is
subjective and unique to each business.
• Inquiries. Shows the number of raw business inquiries (qualified or
unqualified).
• Inquiry Conversion Rate (Inquiry Completions/Visits). Reveals what portion of
visits end up submitting an inquiry, typically through some kind of online form.
• Cost per Lead (Acquisition Cost/Leads). Indicates the marketing costs of
acquiring each lead or inquiry.
• Form Completion Rate (Inquiry Completions/Inquiry Starts). Shows how often
an online form is completed after it’s started. Can highlight inefficiencies related
to online forms.
• Micro Conversions (Downloads, Trials, Demo Views). Reflect different key
steps or milestones in the overall conversion process of becoming a qualified lead

3. Advertising
Main objective: Increase content consumption and relevant audience share
Relevant industries: Media
Key Metrics
• Unique Visitors. Reveals the audience reach for your digital content.
• Page Views, Video Starts, and Mobile Views. Represents the overall level of
digital content consumption. Ad impressions are often associated with each of
 these different content views in either a one-to-one or many-to-one basis (a page
may display multiple ads) so it can serve as a proxy for ad inventory.
• Page Views per Visit. Provides insight into how much page content on average
is being consumed during a visit.
• Registration Rate (Registrations/Visits). Shows a conversion rate for how many
visits are registering for e-mail newsletters, which can be a key driver for repeat
traffic.
• Video Consumption Rate (Video Starts/Visits). Indicates what percentage of
visits is consuming video content, which is a key media type that is growing in
popularity at media companies.
• Visits per Visitor (Visits/Visitors). Shows the frequency in which visitors are
consuming your digital content within a specific time period (such as visits per
month per visitor).

4. Self-Service
Main objective: Reduce customer service costs and increase customer satisfaction
Relevant industries: Utilities, financial services, high tech, government, retail, travel,
consumer products, automotive

Key Metrics
• Self-Service Task Completions. Represent key tasks or actions that were
accomplished online by visitors (download a document, view a how-to video, use
an onsite tool, change account information, register a product).
• Self-Service Cost Savings [(Call Center Cost – Online Cost) x Task
Completions]. Provides insights into how much is being saved by online self-
service. This metric requires estimates for what it costs to process tasks through
both the call center and website.
• Support Requests per Visit. Shows how often a visitor sought out contact
information because they were unable to complete a task or answer a question.
This “failure” event can be triggered when someone clicks on a Contact Us button
or page in order to speak directly with a support representative.
• Content Feedback Score [Positive Feedback / (Positive Feedback + Negative
Feedback)]. Indicates how often online content successfully answers visitors’
questions. This metric can only be captured if visitors are asked “Was this content
helpful?” at the bottom of each support article then click Yes or No buttons.
• Search Effectiveness Rate (Task Completions / Searches). Reveals how often
your internal search engine assists in helping visitors to complete key self-service
tasks or actions. Onsite search is usually an essential component of most support
websites or tools

5. Informational
Main objective: Engage visitors and increase awareness for brands, products, or
services
Relevant industries: Consumer products, government, non-profit

Key Metrics
• Unique Visitors. Reveals the audience reach for your digital content.
• Page Views, Video Starts, and Mobile Views. Represents the overall level of
digital content consumption. Alternatively, you may identify a subset of strategic
content and focus on how much of this strategic content is being viewed.
• Page Views per Visit. Provides insight into how much content on average is being
consumed during a visit
• Macro/Micro Conversions (Registrations, Coupon Downloads, Social
Engagement, Forward to a Friend, RSS Subscriptions). Reflect different forms or
levels of engagement, including likes, tweets, and comments, as well as more
traditional downloads and registrations. The macro conversion will be the key
outcome of your digital marketing efforts.
• Registration Rate (Registrations/Visits). Shows a conversion rate for how many
visits are registering (or connecting through Facebook) for e-mail newsletters,
special offers, product availability updates, or online tool access, which can be
useful in ongoing marketing efforts.