I’m sorry, but it’s true. But it’s also for a very good reason.

As an “expert” in digital, I consistently see clients and organizations get bogged down with their metrics … metrics that the CEO, CFO and other key stakeholders just don’t care about. We’ve all been in one of those meetings. Those meetings where you’re going over KPIs with a client or your boss and “the question” pops up: “So, what does that mean?”

{Begin scene}

Marketer – “So as you can see on this slide, we break down some of the metrics for our website. This is about average for us compared to previous reporting periods. Any questions on anything specific?”

Boss/Client – “Yeah, one quick question. We go over these reports and, as far as I know, this all looks great, but what does it all mean?”

Marketer – (internal monologue) “Pssh. What does it mean!? WHAT DOES IT MEAN!?”

Marketer – “Well when we look at industry benchmarks, this shows that we are slightly above average compared to other businesses like ours. Overall, this means that people are using our site effectively and from a user experience…”

Boss/Client – “No, no. Sorry to interrupt, but I get that. I mean what does it really mean? Why should I care?”

{End scene}

As a man who has been in that situation more times than I would like to admit, it sucks. You’re frustrated, they’re frustrated and god forbid that it’s at the beginning of the meeting, because those next ten slides just aren’t happening.

So why does this happen? Why does no one seem to understand (or care) about your metrics? It’s simple, you haven’t shown them what metrics matter and how they impact the business. Look, industry benchmarks are great, but what do they really mean? In my opinion, nothing.

Let’s look at the super-used vanity metric, click-through rate (CTR). If you ran a digital ad or search campaign that had a CTR that was two percent lower than the “industry benchmark,” but resulted in $10,000 of ROI, does your CTR really matter? These are the metrics we as marketers need to showcase while reporting. Realistically, does anyone care if your CTR is at 8% if your conversion rate is at 0.05%?

“But Ryan, what about PR, what about campaigns that I’m running that don’t have a direct point to purchase? I mean, my average sales cycle is at least three to four months.”

That is a GREAT question. In cases like this, we have to do a better job of connecting the dots and communicating what is important and why.

Do you know the role each marketing tactic plays to move people through the buyer journey?
Determine the goals of the campaign upfront. Take the time to talk to your sales team. Find out what your average customer cares about. Be immersed in your CRM and traditional customer behavior patterns. Set up goals in Google Analytics. Set up values for certain pages, downloads or actions.

Reporting and metrics will always be important. It’s not going away, but we as marketers do have the power to change how and what they mean. It takes a lot of work and effort, but putting in the time upfront at the beginning of a campaign can make your experience look a little more like this…

{Begin scene}

Marketer – “So as you can see on this slide, we break down some of the metrics for our website. This is about average for us compared to previous reporting periods. Any questions on anything specific?”

Boss/Client – “Yeah, one quick question. We go over these reports and, as far as I know, this all looks great, but what does it all mean?”

Marketer – (internal monologue) “My time to shine”

Marketer – “Based on discussions with sales and the analysis of our CRM, we have found that if a customer spends more than 00:02:30 on the website they are 70% more likely to make a purchase or contact sales. Considering the metric for this reporting period is 00:03:10, we can see that our site is performing well above average in terms of keeping potential customers on the site long enough to gauge interest in our products. We have already spoke with the sales team and identified the contacts who have exceeded our internal benchmark, and they are being reached out to directly by the appropriate rep.”

Boss/Client – “Oh wow, that’s great. Thanks for explaining that.”

{End scene}

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