One of my London MeasureCamp talks on 14th March 2015. How to avoid vanity metrics and choose KPIs that will help you achieve your business objectives faster.

1. 4 Steps to Better KPIs (Workshop)
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MeasureCamp, London. 14th March 2015

2. @edbrocklebank
The Buying Cycle
2

3. @edbrocklebank
Building a Measurement Framework
3
Get Attention Connect Inspire & Inform Persuade Convert Retain
Marketing
Strategy
Main Objective
Bring in high volume &
quality traffic
Optimise
functionality &
usability
Optimise product positioning & content
Improve checkout
process
Minimise churn /
maximise repeat
purchases
Buying cycle
Can you help me? What do you do? What’s different about you? Are you right for me? How much, how long, when?
Data Sources
Short surveys
Focus groups
Session recording
Live chat
CRM
Satisfaction surveys
AdWords
Display networks
On-site analytics
SEM
Competitor information
KPIs
Based on the
? ? ? ? ? ?

4. @edbrocklebank
Metric Brainstorm Challenge
4
!
Write down 10 metrics that could be used to measure the
objective ‘Bring in high volume and quality traffic’.

5. @edbrocklebank
10 possible metrics
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Objective
Bring in high volume and quality traffic.
• visits
• unique visitors
• bounce rate
• cost per click
• new visitors
• bounces
• entrances
• pages per visit
• time on site
• SEO rank
• Organic impressions
• facebook likes
• retweets
• facebook posts
• tweets
• twitter followers
• tweet replies
• facebook comments

6. @edbrocklebank
Typical Reporting in Awareness Phase
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Jan Feb Mar Apr
Tweets Favourites 0 1 2 5
Followers 10 20 50 100
Visits from Twitter 1 5 20 30
Social Media
Jan Feb Mar Apr
Visits 1000 1100 1200 1300
Unique Visitors 900 950 1000 1100
Ad Spend £5,000 £8,000 £6,000 £7,000
Avg. time on site 1 min 1 min 1 min 1.5 mins
Bounce Rate 90% 88% 70% 75%
Site Traffic
What conclusions can you draw about your digital strategy ‘Bring in
high volume and quality traffic’? How can it be improved?

7. @edbrocklebank
Is our social media strategy working?
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Jan Feb Mar Apr
Tweets Favourites 0 1 2 5
Followers 10 20 50 100
Visits from Twitter 1 5 20 30
Report A
YES!
Recommendations to the business
• Keep everything how it is, the strategy is working
• Reduce the social media team from 3 to 2, as they will still achieve growth and we can use the resource elsewhere

8. @edbrocklebank
Is our social media strategy working?
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Jan Feb Mar Apr
Tweets 5 10 50 100
Tweets Favourites 0 1 2 5
Followers 10 20 50 100
Visits from Twitter 1 5 20 30
Report B
Err…
Recommendations to the business
• Trial different types of content in tweets as in recent months they haven’t been getting as much traction as in Jan

9. @edbrocklebank
Effort vs Results
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Effort
Results
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
More efficient
Less efficient
Jan Feb Mar Apr
Tweets 5 10 50 100
Visits from Twitter 1 5 20 30
Absolute numbers don’t tell us if we are
working smarter.

10. @edbrocklebank
Is our social media strategy working?
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Jan Feb Mar Apr
Visits from Twitter 1 5 20 30
Visits per tweet 0.2 0.5 0.4 0.3
Absolute = Effectiveness
Ratio = Efficiency

11. @edbrocklebank
What makes a good metric?
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• Comparative
• Understandable
• Rate or ratio
• Easier to act on
• Inherently comparative
• Good for comparing opposing factors (e.g. distance covered / speeding tickets)
• Changes your behaviour
From

12. @edbrocklebank
Metric Combo Challenge
12
!
Create 3 more metrics by combining two different metrics to
create a ratio or rate.

13. @edbrocklebank
3 Ratio/Rate Metrics
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Objective
Bring in high volume and quality traffic.
• visits
• unique visitors
• bounce rate
• cost per click
• new visitors
• bounces
• entrances
• pages per visit
• time on site
• SEO rank
• organic impressions
• Bounce rate (bounces/entrances)
• % new visitors (new visitors/visitors)
• Cost per 2+ page visit (2+ page visits / spend)
• SEO traffic quality (2+ page organic visits /
organic impressions)
• Visits per tweet (visits from twitter / tweets)
• Avg. facebook replies (comments / wall posts)
• facebook likes
• retweets
• facebook posts
• tweets
• twitter followers
• tweet replies
• facebook comments

14. @edbrocklebank
Consider Two Reports…
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Jan Feb Mar Apr
Visits 1000 1100 1200 1300
Unique Visitors 900 950 1000 1100
Ad Spend £5,000 £8,000 £6,000 £7,000
Avg. time on site 1 min 1 min 1 min 1.5 mins
Report A
Jan Feb Mar Apr
Bounce Rate 90% 88% 70% 75%
% New Visitors 90% 85% 80% 75%
Visits per tweet 0.5 1 2 4
SEO Traffic Quality 0.10 0.09 0.09 0.08
Cost per 2+ page visit £50 £61 £17 £22
Report B
Which is more useful in helping us achieve the business objective?

15. @edbrocklebank
The Vanity Test
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What will I do differently based on this
information?
When looking at a metric, ask yourself
If you can’t answer the question, chances are you
are looking at a vanity metric.

16. @edbrocklebank
4 Steps to better KPIs summary
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1. Brainstorm possible metrics
2. Combine metrics to form new ratio or rate metrics
3. Pick a limited number (1-3) of metrics to set as KPIs
4. Ensure that they pass the vanity test