We’ve got a question for you: 

What would make the upcoming holiday shopping season a success for your business?

• Would adding clients to your email list ahead of the big shopping rush make an impact?
• Would you like to drive traffic to your website so customers can shop to their hearts’ content?
• Are you ready to launch a new service or sell out a limited edition product?

Whatever your goals, it’s essential to every business that the marketing goals you have are purposefully chosen, measured, and used as guideposts for strategic next steps.

And the first part of that process is goal setting and metric selection.

So in today’s blog, we’re exploring marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) and sharing 6 ideas for you to consider when thinking about and measuring your big holiday shopping season goals.

Idea #1: Consider Your Marketing Email Performance 

Whether you sell through email promotions or use a monthly newsletter to share value and generate conversions, your email marketing performance can serve as a very helpful indicator of your sales funnel success.

So, ask yourself:

• How engaged is my email list?
• How many people sign up only to quickly unsubscribe?
• What is my sales email funnel open rate?
• What conversion rate am I getting on my sales funnel emails?

These questions, and others like them, can help you find the strengths and potential shortcomings in your email marketing campaigns. Measuring the success of your email marketing can help you make important decisions as you move toward the busy shopping season.

Idea #2: Focus on Conversions and Sales over Vanity Metrics

While ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ are great, they often earn the name ‘vanity metrics’ for one reason: They’re not always a strong indicator of conversions or sales – in other words, they don’t always correlate to an impact on your bottom line. 

So, reorienting your focus from these numbers to those that actually impact your customer relationships and your revenue is a great way to move toward your goals.

For example, while you may have a large following on Instagram, it’s helpful to focus on KPIs that show you how those followers behave:

• Do they sign up for your email list?
• Do they attend your webinars?
• Do they buy tickets to your events?
• Do they purchase products or services?
• Do they act as referral sources for you?

Asking yourself questions about real, impactful outcomes will help you spend more time marketing in ways that matter most for you.

Idea #3: Evaluate Your Marketing Cost per Acquisition

If you’re using paid marketing channels or other paid methods to obtain clients, it’s important to evaluate how those are impacting your marketing performance and the path to your business goals.

In other words: What’s your CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)?

This is an indication of how much it costs your company to obtain a new client. And when this number isn’t working for you, your business finances can feel it: It feels like spinning your wheels and spending your money without enough to show for it.

And while that’s frustrating and costly if it’s part of your story right now, it doesn’t have to be that way moving forward.

Collaborating with an agency partner you can trust allows you to dig deep into your marketing finance big picture with the support and clarity you need to make your money (and your marketing) work harder for you.

Idea #4: Determine Your Average Order Value

Your Average Order Value is a straightforward way to measure your holiday shopping season success. It’s an average of how much those who shop with you spend on each order.

And while it’s a clear metric to track, it’s also a great way to evaluate things like:

• Potential price changes that may impact your average order value
• Sales volume on specific products or services and whether they’re worth bringing back next quarter
• Services or products items that are often bought together and may be worth bundling in the future

And when a busy season like the holidays comes along, tracking your average order value can help you get and stay motivated.

This metric can also help you evaluate your progress toward quarterly and annual goals so that you can recognize and capitalize on the patterns of ebb and flow in your business all while marketing accordingly.

Idea #5: Clarify Your Customer’s Lifetime Value

In the same way that your average order value can help you plan for the coming seasons, understanding your customer’s Lifetime Value (LTV) can help you plan to keep that growth going consistently.

Depending on the structure of your business, a high Lifetime Value (LTV) can signal significant loyalty to your business and a potential source of recurring revenue year after year.

So, focusing on LTV can help you think of the big picture while marketing to each client in ways that make sense to them. 

You can also dig into the data to mine other relevant information about your high lifetime value clients and customers:

• Where do those leads come from?
• What types of interactions do these clients and customers have with your brand before, during, and after they shop with you for the first time?
• What do you consider a high LTV client?
• How many of these high LTV clients would you like to have in the next year?

And these are only a handful of the questions you could begin asking when it comes to marketing for higher lifetime value.

So, be sure to connect with your marketing agency partner and explore ways to take this KPI to the next level.

Idea #6: Identify Your Return on Investment and Return on Advertising Spending

Our last suggestion is one of the most important. Whether it’s the holidays or not, your ROI (Return on Investment) and your ROAS (Return on Advertising Spending) are key indicators you should be tracking.

First up, your ROI: This helps you see if your money is really worth spending where you’re spending it. It shows you what revenue you’ve generated with your marketing strategies and campaigns in contrast to the investment you made in those approaches. (Hint: You can look at your spending on all campaigns holistically or focus on your ROI for a specific campaign. Often, we help our clients do both!)

Then there’s ROAS, or Return on Advertising Spending. This evaluates the success of your advertising efforts concerning how much you’ve spent on advertising or marketing. This more specific metric focuses on advertising spending specifically, where ROI focuses on the overall strategies and includes marketing and advertising.

Whether you measure ROI, ROAS, or both this upcoming holiday season, in doing so, you’ll gain a greater understanding of what’s really working in your business marketing strategy.

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Selecting goals and creating a strategy around your key performance indicators now, before the holiday shopping season hits, will put you ahead of your competition in many ways. And if you’d like help taking advantage of that, be sure to contact us today.