Docurated, a content distribution and automation platform of Quark Software, carried MadPipe’s advice on marketing metrics and that measure and demonstrate results. If you were going to simplify it to just two, says Daniel DiGriz of MadPipe, you’d measure who shows up and what they do afterward.
You need a mix of at least two analytics / metrics to draw any conclusions. Ideally, that’s Traffic Sources and Conversions, which amounts to inputs and outputs. Traffic Sources tells you what marketing channels are generating leads and whether the trend is up or down. Conversions tell you the rate of desirable behaviors once they hit your site, and let you look for gaps in getting people to take the desired action . . .
You can get a lot of information by comparing multiple conversion measures. If you track micro-conversions like PDF downloads or items added to a cart, that can give you insights into where the gaps lie in getting people to macro-conversions like completing a checkout or contacting you. The micro-conversions are about positive behaviors that don’t necessarily result in a sale vs. macro-conversions that do.
