- B2B average site duration – two minutes per session [Hinge, 2016]
- Site conversions for tech – between 5-7% [Salesforce, 2015]
- Bounce rate from site pages – 25-55% [First Page Sage, 2014]
- Bounces from blogs – 50-70% [Quicksprout, 2014]
- B2B open rates – 15-30% [Smart Insight, 2016]
- B2B clickthrough rates – 2-3% [Pardot, 2016]
Start at home
The best KPIs start closer to home and focus on your own past performance. Even if you could get benchmark data for your specific industry, they would ignore dozens of critical differentiators like company size, offer, target audience seniority, etc And, unless you’re running a bespoke (expensive) benchmark project, you can forget about other key variables: list source, emails sent per month, or customer preferences.Make KPIs Personal
Best practice is to base your valuable KPIs on your own marketing initiatives. Pulling insights from your past experiences will save you from shooting too high or too low. It’s about where you sit on your own marketing maturity curve that really matters. If you want to know if you’re moving in the right direction, you need performance insight. So what do we mean by performance insight? Real insights come from your own tools and reporting to show how your audience is reacting to your marketing efforts (content, campaigns and offers). Real performance insight means you can:- Form meaningful KPIs based on your historical trends in all channels
- Test different hypotheses for stronger conversion rates
- Guide new content decisions
- React, focus and expand your marketing efforts
- Highlight and optimise ROI
SMART Insights (Client A) | Industry Benchmarks (Client B) |
---|---|
Specific Focused on an exact measure | General Focused on an aggregated number |
Measureable Linked to key organizational value | Comparable Linked to external norms |
Achievable Based on precise targets | Distant Based on broad ranges |
Relevant Meeting organizational strategy | Related Meeting multiple outcomes |
Time Specific Aligned to defined dates | Ongoing Aligned to evolving dates |
So what are the five key takeaways?
Glad you asked:- Start with your own performance instead of obsessing about generic ‘others’.
- Customize and evolve your reporting tools to give accurate baselines.
- Build focused KPIs based on SMART insight
- Let your KPIs drive your content and campaigns instead of the other way!
- Review performance monthly, quarterly and annually
The Insight Dividend
The difference in outcomes between Client A and Client B is huge. When – and only when – you know your own performance, can you start to think in terms of KPIs that have authority and value. There’s no shortcut. But the good news is you can start today. The answers are at your fingertips (hiding in your web analytics, marketing automation and CRM!).Enjoyed this article?
Take part in the discussion
Comments
There are no comments yet for this post. Why not be the first?