We all know we should be monitoring metrics, right? But how many of us have actually gotten around to it? And if we have, how do we know if we’re measuring the most important metrics or taking the best action based on what they indicate?
As part of my effort to answer those questions for myself, I’ve been researching to see what top experts recommend. This post is a round-up of the best content I’ve found, starting with the basics and moving on to the most complex implementations.
What Are Metrics and How Do We Measure Them?
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Marketing Metrics Roundup
- Identify the Marketing Metrics That Actually Matter
- 4 Marketing Metrics That Are Imperative for Any Small Business
- Business Marketing Metrics
- 14 Most Important Metrics to Focus in Your Digital Marketing Campaign [Infographic]
Content Marketing Metrics
- Jeff Bullas’ 17 Key Content Marketing Metrics to Start Tracking Today
- Top 4 Content Marketing Metrics
- A Practical Guide to Content and Its Metrics
- 29 Key Metrics to Measuring Content Success [Infographic]
Social Media Metrics Roundup
Video Metrics
Comprehensive Metrics Dashboard
Startup Metrics Roundup
- 16 Startup Metrics
- 16 More Startup Metrics
IT Metrics
- IT Manager’s Guide to Metrics White Paper [PDF]
Business Metrics Dashboards
Now that you have some idea what metrics are and which ones you might want to measure, here is the easiest way to set up dashboards: Cyfe. They have so many pre-configured widgets you can just click on, set simple configurations (like choosing an account), and instantly see graphs.
This video explains how to set up your first dashboard:
I don’t know that you can set up everything that Rand Fishkin recommended in his Whiteboard Friday linked above, but Cyfe is a good place to start and the above video is the best I’ve seen (besides Cyfe’s intro video which is also helpful).
Cyfe is free for up to five dashboards, but if you’re going to get serious about this you’ll want more than five. Fortunately, Cyfe is inexpensive at $19 per month ($14 per month if paid annually).
The main reason for using it is so that you can look at your most important metrics daily, weekly and monthly all in one place without having to log in and out of analytics, social media management solutions, your marketing system, and everything else you use.
Share Your Experiences and Links
If you are currently monitoring metrics and have a case study, or a link you like to refer to (whether you wrote it or not), or have insights into how best to go about this, do please leave them in comments.
I will move any relevant links up into the appropriate sections in this post so we can all use it for future reference.
Disclosure: I was not compensated for writing this post; Cyfe is just the solution I know of that creates dashboards for metrics. If you use and prefer others, please share them in the comments.
