In the world of digital marketing, data is king. With so much information available, it can be overwhelming to try and make sense of it all. One of the best ways to gain insight into digital marketing trends is through the use of graphs.

Graphs can help to visualize complex data sets and identify patterns that may not be immediately apparent when looking at raw data. In this article, we will explore the top nine graphs for revealing digital marketing trends.

Line Graphs For Digital Trends

Line graphs are one of the most commonly used graphs in digital marketing. They are particularly useful for showing how a particular metric has changed over time. For example, a line graph could be used to show how website traffic has changed over the course of a year.

By plotting data points over time, it is easy to see any trends or patterns that may have emerged. Line graphs can also be used to compare data sets over time, such as comparing the performance of two different marketing campaigns.

Chord Diagrams Connecting Different Marketing Channels

Chord diagrams are a type of visualization that show the connections between different variables. They are often used to show the relationship between different parts of a complex system or network.

In digital marketing, chord diagrams can be used to show how different channels (such as social media, email marketing, and search engine marketing) are related to each other. By visualizing the connections between different channels, businesses can optimize their marketing mix and ensure that each channel is working together to achieve their marketing goals.

Scatter Plots for Digital Correlations

Scatter plots are often used in digital marketing to show the relationship between two different metrics. For example, a scatter plot, designed by a graph creator, could be used to show how the bounce rate on a website correlates with the time spent on the site. 

By plotting data points on an x and y axis, it is easy to see any correlations that may exist between the two metrics. Scatter plots can also be used to identify any outliers within a data set.

Bubble Charts Show How Differing Variables Relate to Each other

Bubble charts are similar to scatter plots, but they add a third variable to the mix by varying the size of the bubbles based on a third data point. This can be a useful way to visualize trends and patterns in complex data sets.

In digital marketing, bubble charts can be used to show how different variables (such as ad spend, click-through rate, and conversion rate) are related to each other.

Bar Graphs for Quick Comparisons

Bar graphs are another common graph used in digital marketing. They are particularly useful for comparing different data sets. For example, a bar graph could be used to compare the conversion rates of two different landing pages.

By presenting data in a visual format, it is easy to see which landing page is performing better. Bar graphs can also be used to compare data sets over time, such as comparing the number of leads generated by two different marketing campaigns.

Heat Maps Revealing Behavior

Heat maps are a unique type of graph that are particularly useful for analyzing website user behavior. Heat maps show how users interact with different parts of a website by using different colors to represent user engagement.

For example, a heat map could be used to show which parts of a landing page receive the most clicks. By analyzing heat maps, marketers can identify areas of a website that may need to be optimized to improve user engagement.

Pie Charts For Categorical Divisions

Pie charts are often used in digital marketing to show how a particular metric is divided among different categories. For example, a pie chart could be used to show how a company’s social media followers are divided among different age groups.

Pie charts are particularly useful for highlighting the most significant categories within a data set. However, it is important to keep in mind that pie charts can be difficult to read when there are too many categories.

Funnel Charts Reveal Bottlenecks

Funnel charts are a type of chart that shows how many users or customers move through a series of steps in a process. They are often used in digital marketing to track the conversion rate at each stage of a sales funnel.

By visualizing the drop-off rate at each stage of the funnel, businesses can identify potential roadblocks or bottlenecks in the conversion process and take steps to optimize their marketing strategy.

Gantt Charts for Keeping Campaigns on Schedule

Gantt charts are a type of bar chart that show the duration of each task in a project, as well as the start and end dates. They are commonly used in project management to track progress and deadlines.

In digital marketing, Gantt charts can be used to plan and track the progress of marketing campaigns. By breaking down a campaign into smaller tasks and assigning deadlines to each one, businesses can ensure that their marketing efforts stay on track and meet their goals.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, digital marketing is a complex field that requires businesses to track and analyze a large amount of data. Charts and graphs are essential tools for visualizing this data and identifying trends and patterns.

By using the right types of charts and graphs, businesses can gain insights into their marketing performance and make data-driven decisions to optimize their marketing strategy.

From line graphs and scatter plots to heatmaps and chord diagrams, there are a variety of charts and graphs that businesses can use to reveal digital marketing trends and stay ahead of the competition.

The post Data-driven Marketing: How Graphs & Charts Transform Digital Strategies appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Our very own Cydney D’Costa shares knowledge we’ve gathered from years of experience and countless hours serving clients. Prove to your clients their money and business are in good hands and that you’re invested in their success by sharing these foundational metrics with them: 

1. Traffic
2. Engagement
3. Subscribers
4. Customers
5. Customer Lifetime Value

Learn the right data to collect and how to interpret it to help clients see what’s going on and why your services are so valuable. 

In this video:

• Engagement Metrics to Keep a Close Eye On: 1:30 – 1:41
• The Most Common Mistake People Make on Social Media 1:53 – 2:05
• How to WOW Agency Clients & Stand Out From the Crowd 2:56 – 3:15 
• The Magic Zone for Marketers and Businesses 4:25 – 4:31

Download the Customer Value Journey aka Super-charged Sales Funnel https://www.digitalmarketer.com/ebooks/1-page-marketing-blueprint-download/

Hire a Certified Partner and Put Your Business in Good Hands https://www.digitalmarketer.com/find-a-certified-partner/

Agency Owners: Learn Our Proven System for Taking Your Agency to the Next Level https://www.digitalmarketer.com/blog/customer-value-optimization/

The post Building a Successful Business: 5 Foundational Metrics [VIDEO] appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Your ability to track conversions is one of the most important foundational pieces of knowledge you can have in the world of paid advertising. 

Biggest Mistake Marketers Make With Paid Ads

The number one mistake we see marketers make across all advertising networks is incomplete or non-existent conversion tracking. Google and Facebook are the closest things to artificial intelligence that humanity has publicly accessible to us. They are trillion dollar machine learning mechanisms. Believe it or not, they’re working towards trying to accomplish your goal!

We want to make sure you have the principles that help you contend with any ad network regardless of what new ad networks pop up or what changes are made.

If all we do is teach you how to push the buttons and build the specific conversion actions inside of a certain ad network…that’s going to be antiquated information the second we publish this video.

Key Terms For Running Paid Traffic

Every landing page on your site should have a specific goal. What do you want each page to accomplish? This is true even if you’re not running paid ads.

On most pages, you should have a primary call to action. The primary call to action is the thing you want your potential customers to do. It is your conversion action. So the primary call to action is the same as the conversion action.

From a content marketing perspective, the call to action is the thing you want your customers to do. From a paid traffic perspective, the conversion action is the way you track it. 

Example: 

Call to action: Sign up for a free action plan

Conversion action: Fill out the contact form

A transitional call to action requires a smaller commitment from your customer. If the primary call to action requires a lot of time or money from your customer, include a transitional call to action. I would add these to the more important pages in your sales funnel.

A lead magnet is a great way to capture the lead and makes a solid transitional call to action. 

With a primary call to action and a transitional call to action on the page, you have the opportunity to capture the most traffic. And identifying those conversion actions helps tell the search engines what kind of traffic you want.

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Examples Of Primary Conversion Actions

Different users engage in different ways. 

• Some people want to chat. 
• Some people want to call. 
• Some people want to fill out a form. 
• Some people love quizzes or surveys. 

Everyone will engage in different ways. It’s up to you to figure out what your target audience wants. It won’t always be just one thing, so offer a few different ways for people to take that next step.

Pro Tip

ALWAYS direct conversions to a custom thank you page. (More on that in just a moment…)

Form Submissions

If you don’t have forms on your site you should. These are one of my favorite ways to engage users because it allows you to capture the most information. But you have to be careful. Keep forms short in the beginning. Only ask for the absolute amount of information you need for them to convert.

• Name
• Email
• Phone

Asking for the phone number keeps lead quality high. If you only ask for only the email address, you might end up chasing phantom leads. 

According to HubSpot, every field you add to a contact form decreases the conversion rate by 11%. So start by running paid ads to a short form.

Also, avoid using captcha codes. They frustrate users. If you get lots of spam leads, add it. But wait until you have data to back up that decision.

If you’re using a CRM (Hint: you should be), use embedded CRM forms whenever possible. If you use integrations, they’re more likely to break.

Pro Tip

If you get an insane amount of leads that aren’t qualified, add form fields to the contact form to help qualify them.

Appointments

If your primary conversion action is a tour or demo, remember these three things:

1. Have consistent availability

2. Meet your customer where they are

3. Have a very clear offer

If you don’t have availability, don’t offer a tour or demo. You should have at least two slots available every day if this is going to be your primary conversion action. This makes it easier to meet the customer’s needs. 

Also, when it comes to having a tour or demo, the offer should be very clear. Will the tour be virtual or in person? Is there something the customer must do before they show up? How long will it take? Do they need to be in front of a computer?

For appointments, you need to collect the phone number so you can follow-up. You also need the email address so you can send the confirmation email for them to add the event to their calendar.

Phone Calls

When you use a phone number on your website, it needs to be visible. We like to put it in the header, in the top right. That’s where most people go for contact information. But don’t use a button or an image, use text. The click to call button works great on mobile, but not desktop. And when you use an image, you can’t use call-tracking software.

Why should you use call tracking software? When a call takes place, the software can tell you:

• Where the call came from
• Whether it was answered
• How long the call lasted

And, it can record the call. With all that information, you can weed out the poor quality leads and define what a high-quality lead looks like.

Pro Tip

Use call tracking software to track, record, and score your calls. 

If you’re in the Saas or eCom space, you may not want to take phone calls. I get it. Not every business does. But in many cases, this puts you at a disadvantage.

When in doubt, check your competitors. If they’re taking phone calls, you should too.

Then, make sure you answer the phone. We had a client who didn’t answer 30% of the calls we generated for them! They kept wanting more traffic, but their entire sales process was broken. They didn’t need more traffic, they needed to pick up the phone!

When it comes to tracking conversions, make sure you only track quality calls as leads. If you’re using Google’s threshold rule for call tracking, but it doesn’t match how you score a quality lead, Google will get a false positive and start sending you MORE poor quality leads.

Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are solid predictive indicators of intent. What is a lead magnet? A Lead Magnet is a nearly irresistible offer made in exchange for a customer’s email address and/or other valuable marketing information.

A lead magnet gives people who aren’t ready to convert an opportunity to engage with you. The point of the lead magnet is to build relationships and start conversations. So give massive value up front. Nothing is more frustrating than getting excited about a lead magnet, downloading it, and finding out that it sucks. 

Finally, make sure not to let the lead magnet outshine the core offer. I like to put them at the bottom of the page or have a pop-up.

How To Avoid Wasting Ad Money

The entire network of paid advertising platforms want you to win. How do you help them help you? How do you tell Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Facebook, etc. your goal?

Tell them what conversion event you want. If your strategy isn’t properly outlined or you’ve missed the technical implementation, then you’re sending these super smart, trillion dollar machines a false positive. What happens then? They fly off in the wrong direction with your ad money!

Your conversion strategy is critically important. The technical implementation of your conversion events is critically important.

Want to become a traffic master? Click here to find out how!

NOTE: This content came directory from DigitalMarketer’s Paid Traffic Mastery Certification.

The post The #1 Mistake Most Marketers Make When Running Paid Ads appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

How SMART checks can help your metrics.

Amara Omoregie, Founder & CEO of amaraREPS talks about how to review your growth scorecards for maximum results.

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The post How SMART Checks Can Help Your Metrics – Amara Omoregie [VIDEO] appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

There’s one thing that every business owner has in common: they want their business to succeed.

It doesn’t matter what industry they’re in, what product they sell, or what problem they solve. Every business owner wants to rise to the top…

…But how?

Most people know what success feels like… but what does success look like?

Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t have to be super complicated to figure out. Because, although success could look slightly different depending on what you do, almost every business can track success with one thing: the right metrics.

It’s a methodology for tracking growth that Monique Morrison, Co-Founder of Jeronamo Digital Solutions and a DigitalMarketer ELITE Coach, uses for her clients every day. She spoke at her recent DigitalMarketer workshop about the power of metrics, and how to use them to project and achieve growth for your business.

Why High-Level Success Metrics Are Important

Using the right metrics to track how your business is doing is a surefire way to tell if you’re growing your business. They’re trackable, concrete, easy to understand, and they take the guess work out of the process.

You can track where you are right now and how that compares to this time last month or last year. And, most importantly, you can use those numbers to project what success will look like a year later.

When we map out what went right and what went wrong with our business, looking to the past is great. But none of it matters unless we figure out how to take what we learned from the past and apply it to the future. Tracking the right metrics gives you the milestones and checkpoints your need to hit by helping you evaluate exactly what you were able to do in the past.

Reliable ways to quantify success can’t be undervalued. In an evolving business world where you are always looking for an edge on your competition, it can often be better to look inside instead of outside. Tracking your success metrics allows you to bring something concrete to the table when you are figuring out what worked really well and what didn’t work so well at all.

And the best part is you don’t have to spend a dime to track your own metrics. It only takes time and a little bit of effort.

What Metrics Matter

Truthfully, there are lots of metrics that could matter for your business.

But there are some general metrics that are helpful for every business to keep track of. But that also largely depends on if you’re a project/service-based business or an ecommerce/retail business.

Project and Service-Based business will need to track:

• Revenue month-by-month
• Sales count month-by-month
• Lead conversion rate
• No-show/cancellation rate
• Landing page conversion rate
• Average cost per click and click-through rate

Ecommerce and retail businesses will need to track:

• Revenue month-by-month
• Sales count month-by-month
• Unique visitors by month
• Average ad cost per click and click-through rate

These are the stats that matter the most for your business, because they are the ones that will give you the bird’s-eye view of when things are going right. These metrics are very broad, and account for a culmination of all of the work that you’re doing. Which means they all translate to whether there is money trickling into your business’s bank account.

Let’s do a deep dive as to why these stats are important.

Revenue Month-by-Month

Revenue month-by-month is the metric that every business should be tracking, regardless of industry or niche, to measure and project growth. It’s literally the number that tells you how much money is flowing into your business, and one that you definitely already have your eye on. Without tacking it, you’re going to be underprepared to do even basic business analysis.

There is only one part of this metric that could use explanation: the timespan. Although some companies may elect to do a formal evaluation of their revenue on a yearly basis, monthly evaluation is more effective. That way you can see the way your revenue fluctuates with different promotions or marketing strategies, and then you can learn how to analyze and adapt those strategies in a timely manner.

If you try to track it on a weekly basis, you’re going to risk overreacting to inconsequential shifts. And the last thing you want to do is drive yourself insane.

Monthly tracking is the way to go. As for finding those numbers, you need to look no further than your books or your bank statements. If you have a designated accountant, ask them. It’s that simple, but it really is important.

Sales Count Month-by-Month

Similar to revenue, this is important for every business to track. Your sales count lets you see the how many sales you’re making and the money you’re bringing in, but it also adds important context to your revenue number.

That’s because this metric is analyzing the number of sales, not the amount of money. It’ll allow you to look at your revenue and understand if you’re converting a bunch of small sales, or a few really high-dollar sales. That will let you analyze the kind of audience you need to be targeting, letting you optimize your marketing plan.

You can also use it to find the customers giving you those high-dollar sales, so you can send them an exclusive deal as a little thank you.

To find this number, you can look in your ecommerce platforms or keep a manual count if you’re a brick and mortar business.

Average Ad Cost per Click And Click-Through Rate

Both of these metrics will let you gauge the effectiveness of your online advertisements. It tracks not only the amount of money you’re paying to have them seen, but also how often people actually click and interact with them. It’s important because digital advertising is one of the cornerstones of any great marketing strategy and knowing how to optimize your ads is essential to achieving growth.

To find these numbers, look no further than the platforms that you’re advertising on. Facebook and Google, as well as any other platform that you may be on, will provide these statistics for you. All you have to know is what they mean.

Unique Visitors by Month

Tracking unique visitors is an important task for ecommerce businesses because their business is entirely online. It’s the same reason brick-and-mortar businesses like to keep track of how many people are coming in and out of the store. If you can’t get people through the (virtual) door, you’re never going to have a chance to sell anything.

Knowing your unique visitor count can also help you gauge the effectiveness of your advertising and SEO, as well as the persuasiveness of your landing and product pages. If people aren’t visiting your website, then you know there’s probably changes that you can make to help generate more traffic and, in turn, more sales. If your number of visitors is high but your sales are low, then you’ll know that your advertising and outreach aren’t the problem.

You can find this statistic on the dashboard of your website, as well as through Google Analytics and even some of your advertising platforms.  

Lead Conversion Rate and No-Show/Cancellation Rate

Although these stats are different, they’re also one in the same—mainly because it’s easy to track them both at the same time.

For project and service-based industries, a large portion of your job is lead generation. Your goal is to create leads and then convert them into customers, and these statistics will help you determine exactly that. Are you turning leads into customers?

Of course, you want your lead conversion rate to be high and your cancellation rate to be low. But it’s important to keep track of both because it will paint the most complete picture.

By comparing them side by side, you’re going to be able to see the rate in which you convert. Then you can use that to project roughly how many new clients you can expect to get over any given period of time doing what you’re doing. Then you can have a baseline when you try new things to raise that lead conversion rate.

As for finding this data, you can find it in your Google Analytics or turn to your CRM software. Anywhere you track or organize potential clients, you can track how effective your lead generation (and closure) is.

Wrap-Up

Remember that these stats are important because they not only show what all you’ve been able to accomplish, but they also let you project what you’ll be able to accomplish in the future.

And having a good idea of where your business is going is one of the most powerful tools you can have.

Numbers don’t lie—that’s why metrics are your business’s best friend. They take all of the guessing out of growth and tell you exactly how well your business is doing. And as you can see from the metrics above, there are all sorts of numbers that tell you helpful things about your business.

Then you can use all those numbers to paint a completely honest picture of your business.

And once you have that, you can start to make changes that you need to achieve growth. Then, you can see if you were able to do it by simply comparing your current numbers to your previous numbers.

It really is that simple, but it’s also really that powerful. You can impact your business’s success in real time, all by taking the time to figure out what success actually looks like. And although that includes money in your bank account, metrics show you that success goes so much further than that.

Track metrics and take control of your business. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

The post The Metrics that Matter for Your Business (And Where to Find Them) appeared first on DigitalMarketer.