Digital Metrics: What to Measure, How, and Why

@MeicoWhitlock @mnrebs #16NTCdigmetrics
Digital Metrics:
What to Measure, How, and Why
Meico Whitlock
Associate Director, Communications, NASTAD
Rebecca Reyes
Digital Marketing Consultant, Spring Media Strategies
March 24, 2016

Collaborative Notes
http://po.st/digmetrics-16NTC

Why We’re Here
1. Which digital metrics matter most for your
organization?
2. Key metrics (almost) every organization should be
capturing
3. How you can use data to take action
4. Tools and processes for collecting, reporting, and
putting data into action

Audience + Goals + What is Success
=
What to Measure (and Why!)

Guy Kawasaki SM Landscape Graphic

Well, it depends...

Start with a Strategy

NASTAD’s Strategy
Audience: U.S. HIV and hepatitis public health officials
Goal: Increase reach of advocacy and technical assistance
resources
Success: Resources reach the right people, in the right
place, at the right time
Approach: Share high quality, relevant, and timely
resources consistently via online and offline channels

NASTAD: What We Measure
Mailchimp: Open rate, clicks, unsubscribe rate
Bit.ly: Clicks and referral sources
Google Analytics: Unique pageviews, top referral and social
media sources
Facebook: Engagement (likes, comments, shares)
Twitter: Engagement (retweets, mentions, favorites, replies)

Make Sure What You See In
Your Data Aligns With Your Goals

Avg 30
clicks/link
Avg 437
clicks/link
1357%
increase!

Your Numbers Are Sliding

Launch of
new website
Implemented
new SEO tactics

Take Advantage of Opportunities
When Your Numbers Spike

Becomes
#1 issue
Another jump
above other issues
Ferguson brings national
attention to community-
police relations

Find Out What Your
Audience Wants

New strategy
implemented
New strategy
working!
We started
posting regularly

@MeicoWhitlock @mnrebs
Clicks per Topic on Facebook
Clicks per Topic on Twitter
#16NTCdigmetrics

Notice Any Differences in These Headlines?

Proactively Find Opportunities
and Problem Areas

Top exit pages are:
Pages to register and sign in
to the website
Our Top Exit Pages

New registrants were also on the decline

This daunting registration form
probably didn’t help

When Facebook Fans Are Online

Patterns in Website Popularity

Basic Stats to Monitor on Your Website
 Unique visitors
 Time on site
 New vs returning
 Bounce rate

Advanced Stats to Monitor on Your Website
• Landing pages
• Exit pages
• Heat map for clicks
• Conversion tracking
• Number of visitors, time on
page, bounce rate for key
pages
• Top social media referrals
• Top referring sites
• Site search queries
• Search engine queries
• Mobile vs desktop
• Location
• Language

Basic Stats to Track on Social Media
 Number of followers
 Replies/comments
 Retweets/shares/repins
 Mentions
 Which tactics get you the most new followers

Advanced Stats to Track on Social Media
 Conversions (via donate button on Facebook, for example)
 Sentiment
 Time of day your audience is active
 Influencers
 Demographics (age, gender, location, interests, etc.)
 Hashtags
 Topics/types of posts/hashtags that resonate most with your
audience
 How you’re doing compared to your competitors/partners

Basic Stats to Collect From Videos
 Number of views
 Number of likes
 Number of comments
 Time spent on video/completion rate
 Subscribers

Advanced Stats to Collect From Videos
 Clicks/conversions
 Demographics
 Traffic sources
 Playback locations (YouTube vs external website)

Basic Stats to Track on Email
 Number of opens
 Clickthrough rate
 Clicks for each link
 Open rate
 Unsubscribe/list growth rate

Advanced Stats to Track for Email
 Results of tests of subject lines, length, format, frequency
 Day/time that gets the most opens
 The type of content that gets a good response
 Conversion rate for emails and/or specific clicks
 Forwarding rate

Basic Fundraising Stats to Track
 Dollars raised
 Time of year you raise the most money
 Traffic sources
Tip: Set up conversion tracking on all channels

Advanced Fundraising Stats to Track
 Key donors/influencers
 Landing page of people who donate
 Demographics of your donor groups/ people on each
channel
 Monitor which channels, topics, messages, and time of
year convert

Don’t reinvent the wheel

There is no magic tool
that does it all

Start small

People and process are
more important than the tools

Reporting Tips
• Know your audience & which metrics matter to them
• Prove a metric’s value to your audience by
comparing it to metrics from previous time periods
and connecting it to your strategy
• “Bad news” is ok! Just make sure you can explain
why the news is bad and have an action plan to fix it

Basic Tools to Get You Started
 Spreadsheets (e.g. Google, Excel)
 Website analytics (e.g. Google Analytics)
 Built-in social media metrics (e.g. Facebook Insights)
 URL shortener analytics (e.g. bit.ly)
 Email marketing analytics (e.g. Mailchimp Reports)

Free Facebook Analytic Tools
 LikeAlyzer
 Edgerank Checker
 SocialExpress
 Komfo
 Agora Pulse
See the complete list: http://bit.ly/FreeFacebookAnalytics

Free Twitter Analytic Tools
 BlueNod
 FollowerWonk
 Klear
 SocialBro
 SocialRank
See the complete list: http://bit.ly/FreeTwitterAnalytics

YouTube Analytic Tools
 ChannelMeter
 Vidooly
 SocialReport
 RankTrackr
 Quintly
See the complete list: http://bit.ly/YouTubeAnalyticTools

Social Media Tools With Analytics
All-in-one scheduling and analytic tools:
 Hootsuite
 Buffer
 SproutSocial
See the complete list: http://bit.ly/CrossPlatformAnalytics

Advanced Third-Party Tools
 SocialReport
 SumAll
 SimplyMeasured
 Socialbakers
 Quintly

KPI Dashboards
These tools will help measure key performance indicators:
 Cyfe
 Dasheroo
 Klipfolio
 Geckoboard

Additional Resources
• blog.bufferapp.com/definitive-guide-social-media-
metrics-stats
• www.bethkanter.org/sm-metrics
• www.socialfish.org
• www.johnhaydon.com
• www.aids.gov/using-new-media

Acknowledgments
• Briana Kerensky, See3 Communications
• Matt Ott, Small World Labs & Black Fret

Session Evaluation Link
http://po.st/U0RbWP
Also find it in the collaborative notes:
http://po.st/digmetrics-16NTC

Contact
Meico Whitlock
• Twitter: @MeicoWhitlock
• Email: mwhitlock@NASTAD.org
Rebecca Reyes
• Twitter: @mnrebs
• Email: rebecca@springmediastrategies.com

Digital Metrics: What to Measure, How, and Why

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