Digital marketing has come a long way since the “build it and they will come” mentality. Technology may be changing constantly, yet there is a new sense of order and maturity now that social media, mobile technologies and content marketing have gone mainstream. Digital budgets are surpassing television spendings, so they need to be justified with a solid return on investment (ROI). Here are 5 easy-to-setup analytics that can help you realize that ROI. Warning: these are addictive! You just may end up checking them every day.

Unique Visitors and Average Pages Per Visit

The number of visitors and average number of pages viewed per visit are the most basic statistics you can gather about your site. They’re easy to understand and encouraging to see trending upwards. In practice though, these numbers don’t tell you much; they don’t tell you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong, nor do they tell you where you should be focusing your resources. Fortunately, many more informative analytics available to you can help you on a day-to-day basis.

Organic Search Engine Click-Through Rate

Your search engine click-through rate tells you how effective your content’s descriptions are when found organically through a search query. You should try new title and description styles and measure their efficiency to determine how to maximize your click-through rate: subtle changes to titles or descriptions can have a dramatic effect on your click-through rate, which could result in a drastic rise in visitors. At Rich Media, we never stop experimenting, and we’ve found that even minor changes have increased our click-through rate by over 50%.

Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate indicates the proportion of people who leave your site after having only viewed one page. This is often a good measure of the effectiveness of your landing page, but can also reveal whether you’re attracting the right audience to your site. For instance, if a title or description change increases your click-through rate, but also your bounce rate, then you may be targeting the wrong audience. Titles and descriptions act as both a valve and a filter, so make sure to consider all variables when assessing the results of a change. Your goal should be to increase your click-through rate specifically in users interested in your product, and you’ll know you’ve succeeded when you have a low bounce rate.

Page Views And Average Page Visit Duration

Individual page views can be enlightening because they quickly tell you what content appeals to your core users. Grouping pages into categories can provide insight into which products are flying off your virtual shelves. Diving deeper into the average page visit duration can also reveal a fascinating story. For example, many pages at Rich Media earn, on average, 1-2 minutes of users’ attention, so when articles or job postings’ average visit duration starts exceeding 4 minutes, we know we’ve really tapped into content that users want to spend time consuming.

Network Visits, Network Page Views And Average Network Visit Duration

Did you know that if your company targets clients who have their own networks, you could be able to see that they’re visiting your site? At Rich Media, we can predict which clients are interested with some accuracy just by watching the network traffic coming from their servers. After a new pitch, we often see new visitors from that company visiting our site. If the pitch went well, those visits are typically prolonged and extensive, and if the pitch went really well, we see visitors continue to trickle in over a number of days, presumably as the core client shares our site with others involved in the project. Those visits are all anonymous of course, so these numbers can only be used as a gauge, but if all the visitors are interested in a specific type of solution, this constitutes some very useful information.

Content marketing is no longer about driving just anyone to your site. It’s about attracting, filtering, and interpreting users’ interests to assess the effectiveness of your digital marketing. At Rich Media, our philosophy is to predict but never assume. We believe in testing and testing again, constantly, as nothing is set in stone and users can (and will!) change over time.