16 Top Metrics for Assessing Your Marketing Automation Performance

Marketing automation (MA) is a lifesaver when it comes to running campaigns.

In fact, 80% of marketers saw an increase in leads once they started using MA software, and B2B marketers who use it increased sales pipeline rates by about 10%, on average.

That’s why at least one type of marketing automation technology is used by 75% of all businesses and 63% of marketers expect to increase their spend on MA technology in the near future.

Those are some compelling stats!

Clients often request our help with analyzing the performance of their marketing automation tool, based on the data it generates. What metrics do we use? Here’s a comprehensive list of key metrics to track, so you can evaluate the success of your automated campaigns and understand the value they deliver:

Engagement

Engagement gauges how prospects and customers are responding to your marketing outreach, and whether the content you’re providing resonates with them. There are several metrics for measuring engagement:

1. Click-Through Rate (CTR): CTR measures the percentage of people who clicked on a specific link or call-to-action within a marketing campaign. It helps assess the effectiveness of campaign elements in generating interest and driving traffic to a landing page or desired destination.
2. Conversion Rate: This metric measures the percentage of people who completed a desired action, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter, among those who interacted with the campaign. It indicates the effectiveness of the campaign in driving users toward desired outcomes.
3. Open Rate and Click Rate: For email marketing campaigns, open rate measures the percentage of recipients who open the email, while click rate measures the percentage of recipients who click on links within the email. These metrics provide insights into the effectiveness of the email campaign in capturing attention and driving engagement.
4. Unsubscribes: If your unsubscribe rate is higher than 1%, you should perform a list audit and improve your list segmentation. The only exception would be when you send emails to new lists where the unsubscribe rate tends to be higher than 1%.
5. Time Spent on Page: Tracking the average time users spend on a campaign landing page can provide insights into the level of engagement and interest. Higher time spent on the landing page could indicate that users are actively consuming the content and exploring the campaign offerings.
6. Bounce Rate: Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave the campaign landing page or website without taking any further action. A lower bounce rate suggests higher engagement, as users are more likely to explore additional content and stay engaged.
7. Reach and Impressions: Reach refers to the number of unique individuals who have been exposed to the campaign, while impressions represent the total number of times the campaign content has been displayed. These metrics help gauge the campaign's visibility and potential audience reach.
8. Engagement on Social Media: Metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and mentions on social media platforms provide insights into the level of audience engagement with a campaign’s content. In other words, if they consumed and enjoyed the content and found it valuable, they’ll share it!

Performance

There’s a difference between engagement and performance – your audience may be engaging with the content, but are they taking that next step and making a buying decision? If not, it’s time to analyze the data and find out why. Here are some key performance metrics to watch:

1. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs): While only a small portion of your MQLs will end up converting to sales, you’ve got better odds if you have more. Seeing a steady increase in MQLs will indicate that your campaign is performing well.
2. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs): If the lead scoring framework in your MA system is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, then the leads you send over to sales will be good ones. If you have a lot of SQLs, that also indicates that marketing is in alignment with the goals of the sales team.
3. Sales Cycle Length: How long does it take you to move a lead through the funnel and hand it over to sales? Is the lead getting stuck anywhere? If it’s delayed too long, your sales pipeline will suffer.

ROI

If you’re not getting value from your MAC system – in other words, driving demand and revenue for your organization – then it’s not worth the investment. But how do you know if your return is substantial enough to justify the investment in your MA tools and campaigns? Here are some tangible metrics for measuring ROI:

1. Revenue Generated: This metric measures the total revenue directly attributed to MA campaigns and activities. It tracks the value of sales or conversions generated from leads or customers who engaged with marketing campaigns driven by automation. Revenue can be measured at various stages of the customer journey, such as initial purchase, upsells or renewals.
2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): CLV represents the total value a customer generates over their entire relationship with your business. By analyzing how marketing automation impacts CLV, you can assess whether automated campaigns contribute to increased customer loyalty, repeat purchases, or extended customer relationships.
3. Conversion Rate: This metric measures the percentage of leads or prospects that are converted into customers or complete desired actions. Marketing automation can help boost conversion rates by delivering targeted and personalized campaigns. Comparing conversion rates before and after implementing automation provides insights into its impact on driving conversions.
4. Lead Nurturing Efficiency: Monitoring metrics like lead-to-opportunity conversion rate or the time taken to convert leads into opportunities can demonstrate the effectiveness of automation in nurturing leads and accelerating the sales process.
5. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): CAC measures the cost of acquiring a new customer. By assessing how marketing automation impacts customer acquisition costs, you can determine if automation helps reduce expenses associated with acquiring and onboarding new customers.

Not Your Grandma’s MA Platform

Today’s marketing automation platforms aren’t just for emails – they’re fully integrated engagement marketing platforms that can be used to orchestrate campaigns with multiple customer touch points. It’s critically important to make sure your MA platform and the campaigns you create are performing optimally, maximizing engagement and delivering value. Keeping your eye on these metrics over time will help to optimize your campaigns, generate more demand and deliver an exceptional customer experience.

BDO Digital can help you capture actionable insights from your MA data. At BDO Digital, we can do the heavy lifting that’s required to setup and maintain your marketing automation platforms. Learn more about our Campaign Execution Services and contact us today to see how we can help.