Free Assessment: How does your sales & marketing measure up?

Get Started
Close

Free Assessment:

How does your sales & marketing measure up?
Take this free, 5-minute assessment and learn what you can start doing today to boost traffic, leads, and sales.
Get Started
Reporting & Performance

Inbound Marketing Goal Setting: The Metrics That Keep You On Track

John Bonini

By John Bonini

Feb 25, 2013

Inbound Marketing Goal Setting: The Metrics That Keep You On Track

Marketers and business owners who are armed with the the most accurate and conclusive data are also those that are shaping and changing inbound marketing, much to their own advantage.

If it weren't for data, then marketers wouldn't be able to suggest immediate and effective solutions for online businesses.  Business owners would be left making poor or ill-informed decisions that can have a negative impact on their business.  Without data, no one would be able to uncover hidden opportunities in new marketing channels that can help them drive up lead numbers and customer conversions.

As an inbound marketing agency, we live and breathe metrics. It's ingrained in the methodology to both track and measure the success of your campaign in order to make smarter, more targeted improvements. Apart from keeping a close eye on studies and statistics released from other companies (check out our free guide, “44 Incredible Social Media Statistics” for global social media metrics that can help you plan a more powerful social strategy), we're also constantly tracking and measuring our own metrics in order to make more informed decisions.

It's the new year, so we want to make sure that businesses and marketers are all tracking the right metrics when it comes to the initial marketing phase:  goal setting and progress measurement.

If you're interested in learning more about seeing significant improvement in 2013, check out our new ebook, "26 Ways to Generate More Inbound Customers in 2013."

Inbound Marketing Goal Setting: How to Stay on Track

What Metrics Should You Be Measuring?

We're starting with goal setting and progress measurement because both are what should be the foundation of every marketing decision that you make.  By having solid metrics on hand, you'll be able to not only fulfill your marketing goals, but you'll likely be able to keep ahead of them as well.

If you're considering using HubSpot software, or if you're already using it, check out our free ebook “The Essential Guide For Mastering HubSpot” for further tips and tricks on how to really make this software work for you.

Leads and Traffic Waterfall Graphs

Everyone likes graphs, and a leads waterfall graph is one that makes it easy for you to see whether or not you've attained your lead goals for that month.  You plot your daily lead generation goals and track your progress every single day.  The benefit?  You can quickly and easily see when you're falling behind on your goals.

So if you have a few days where you see that your lead or traffic numbers may be gradually tapering off, you can then start looking at ways to heat up your marketing campaign immediately. Try combating the dip in numbers with proven traffic generators:

    • Send a segmented email promoting a new ebook or your most popular blog articles
    • Try using a redesigned CTA on your most popular pages
    • Temporarily increase your volume of your blog posts and social media engagement
    • Host a contest

A lot of businesses also find traffic waterfall graphs pretty useful, and for those who are just starting out or have made changes to their website, this graph will help give you a good idea of what you can expect if you're trying to reach a certain lead goal.  Just as with the leads waterfall graph, as soon as you start to fall behind your traffic goal, you can change your marketing campaign on the fly to help maintain your traffic numbers.

Average Lead Close Rate

This metric is an important but often seldom followed metric that can have a huge impact on your bottom line.

When you follow your average lead close rate, you'll be able to monitor the quality of leads that you're attracting.  So if you have a high average lead close rate, then you know that you've done a pretty darn good job with your targeted marketing campaign. Your marketing team is sending more personalized content, featuring more targeted content, and effectively reaching the ideal prospect you've set forth in your company buyer personas.

If your numbers are low or they begin to drop, then you know that you may not be hitting the right market.  Keep an eye on this metric at least once a week so that you can make any campaign changes before you begin missing out on some serious business. Either your marketing team needs to alter the content, or your sales team is having trouble locating the good leads from the bad.

If this is the case, implementing a lead scoring strategy will allow your sales team to identify the qualified leads much quicker.

Average Leads Per Business Day With Month Over Month Growth

You may already be following your month over month growth, but a lot of businesses aren't keeping an eye on their lead per business day month over month growth.  Here's why this is beneficial: not all months are the same length (i.e. comparing this month, which has only 28 days, with May that has 31 days would produce skewed results).

By following leads per business day, you're able to see how much you're able to produce in any one given business day.  This will help you properly meet you goals and maintain your quotas.

Another consideration that you'll have to make is what sort of software you'll use to get this information.  Though there are a number of options out there, our personal favorite is the HubSpot Marketing software.  This closed-loop marketing software has all of the metrics that we've found necessary to make the best online business decisions possible.

Free Assessment:

How does your sales & marketing measure up?
Take this free, 5-minute assessment and learn what you can start doing today to boost traffic, leads, and sales.

Related Articles

10 Marketing KPIs You Should Be Tracking

August 3, 2023
Carolyn Edgecomb Carolyn Edgecomb

Vanity Metrics Are The Most Misunderstood Numbers in Marketing

December 26, 2022
Ramona Sukhraj Ramona Sukhraj

What Marketers Need To Know About Switching to GA4 [Google Analytics 4]

July 30, 2022
John Becker John Becker

13 Valuable Marketing KPI Dashboards To Track Every Metric That Matters

July 14, 2022
Ramona Sukhraj Ramona Sukhraj

Get More Out of HubSpot Reporting With a Third-party Tool

July 9, 2022
John Becker John Becker

Databox vs. Geckoboard: Choosing the Right Data Platform for You

July 2, 2022
Ramona Sukhraj Ramona Sukhraj

Google Shares New Tools to Audit Website User Experience

August 12, 2021
Paul D. Grant Paul D. Grant

8 Best Digital Marketing Tools and Tech for Every Business (+ VIDEO)

March 31, 2021
John Becker John Becker

10 Google Analytics metrics you absolutely must track (updated)

March 29, 2021
Magdalena Day Magdalena Day

Google Analytics 4: Your business website analytics are now smarter

November 11, 2020
Vin Gaeta Vin Gaeta

Why a growth-driven design website will give you better traffic, leads, and sales

October 26, 2020
John Becker John Becker

Social Media KPIs: The 10 You Really Should Be Tracking and Monitoring

August 30, 2020
Ramona Sukhraj Ramona Sukhraj

Content ROI Examples: How to Nail Your Reporting Strategy with HubSpot

August 28, 2020
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

How to Create a Powerful Monthly Content Marketing ROI Newsletter

August 7, 2020
Liz Murphy Liz Murphy

Google Analytics to offer 2 new probability metrics: purchase and churn

July 20, 2020
Vin Gaeta Vin Gaeta

Data privacy update: How the CCPA affects you and your paid advertising

July 15, 2020
Dan Baum Dan Baum

How attribution reporting helped iCIMS improve its Google Ads performance ft. Joel Maldonado of Path Interactive (Inbound Success, Ep. 150)

July 6, 2020
Kathleen Booth Kathleen Booth

What does Basecamp’s privacy-focused HEY email service mean for marketers? [IMPACT Toolbox June 2020]

June 25, 2020
Morgan VanDerLeest Morgan VanDerLeest

Google Ads now offers category reporting for your Search and Shopping ads

June 1, 2020
Vin Gaeta Vin Gaeta

How to Measure Content Marketing ROI, Celebrate Your Wins, and Keep Your Job

April 16, 2020
Jen Barrell Jen Barrell

Case study: Are you confident in the data behind your digital marketing strategy?

March 24, 2020
Dan Baum Dan Baum

Google makes it easier to hide content and check third-party reporting

February 4, 2020
Dylan Lepak Dylan Lepak

RIP HubSpot's 'links' tool: What you should use instead

January 8, 2020
Jessica Palmeri Jessica Palmeri

Why do regular backups of your website matter?

December 23, 2019
Daniel Escardo Daniel Escardo

What is Google Analytics? The pros, cons, and ugly missing link

December 17, 2019
Angela Bowman Angela Bowman