Google’s algorithm changes: What do they mean for your Lancaster business?

Google’s algorithm changes: What do they mean for your Lancaster business?

As a local business, you may not have time to pay close attention to the goings-on at Google. However, changes in Google’s search engine algorithms can affect businesses across the globe, including mom and pop businesses right here in Lancaster County. If any portion of your new customers find your business via an internet search, then your business can be impacted whenever Google makes a change. In this article we’ll summarize what Google’s algorithm changes are and what they mean for your business.

First – the basics

Why do Google updates matter? They matter because Google’s algorithms control what appears in search results. So, if a local consumer types “hardware store near me” into Google, Google decides whether or not your hardware store’s website appears in the list of results and, if it does appear, how high on the list. Google’s algorithms change frequently, many times per year. So, while your hardware store might have appeared at the top of the list last time you checked, it might not appear that high on the list after a Google update. Appearing high on the list of search results is important because most consumers don’t scroll past the first page of search results.

There are two types of Google updates, regular updates and core updates. Regular updates are generally unheralded in the mainstream press and have smaller impacts on specific types of searches. Regular updates happen frequently. An example of a regular update was an April 2021 update for search results for product reviews. That type of update would only affect sites that have product reviews, like e-commerce sites. Google also regularly does spam updates to attempt to keep junk websites from appearing in searches.

The other type of update is a core update. Core updates only happen a few times a year. Core updates are broad in scope and affect most types of searches. An important Google blog post about core updates can be found here and it is definitely worth a read. As Google explains in that blog post, their focus is on high quality, original, trustworthy content when determining which sites will outrank other sites in search. Google is continually assessing the content of every website to determine if it is relevant, valuable, and useful to searchers. In Google’s perfect world, every time a user searches for something, Google would provide the perfect website as the first result.

Google uses the acronym E-A-T to summarize how it identifies quality websites: E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.

• Expertise – Google has different expertise requirements for different types of content. For example, a site that has product reviews from ordinary users can rank highly for expertise since these users, even though they don’t have expert credentials, can be considered experts because they have used the product. However, for YMYL sites (Your Money or Your Life) the standards are higher. YMYL sites are focused on content such as health, news, safety, law, finance, and shopping. Google has higher expectations for YMYL sites and will look for site authors to have relevant credentials.

• Authority – Google assesses your site’s authority by looking for links to your site from other sites, as well as mentions of your site on other sites. If your site’s content is widely cited and shared by other sites that’s an indication to Google that your site has authority.

• Trust – Google assesses trust by noting several attributes on your site, such as: privacy policy, terms of service including refunds and exchanges, clear contact information, product specifications (if applicable), product reviews (if applicable), and positive reviews on other sites.

Overall, if you think about the content on your own site from an E-A-T perspective, you’ll have a clear lens through which to assess whether your site’s content meets Google’s definition of quality.

Because Google is always trying to make search results more relevant for users, it needs to do regular updates to its algorithms. So if your store’s website dropped down in search results after a Google update, it’s because something in your website’s content or metadata is no longer considered by Google to be as relevant to that particular search as it used to be. This is actually a good thing in the long run because the more relevant Google’s search results are to users, the more users will trust Google to provide the right information. This means that when your business’s website appears in a Google search results page, consumers will trust that your business will satisfy the need they searched for. However, as you’ll read in the paragraphs ahead, Google’s updates don’t always work perfectly or predictably.

The best way to increase the likelihood that your business’s site appears in relevant searches is to pay continual attention to your site’s search performance. This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can read more about SEO here and here. Most small to medium sized businesses do not have the resources for an in-house SEO expert. If this is the case for your business, then you should invest in a shared SEO expert through contracting with a Lancaster County digital agency such as LNP Media Group. While an SEO expert cannot 100% “future proof” your site against Google algorithm changes, an SEO expert will stay on top of Google algorithm changes and will help your site respond appropriately. This will make your site “future responsive” and help your site achieve and maintain good organic search placement over the years.

What changes after updates?

Google does not directly state the detail of changes in their core updates, but resources like Search Engine Journal and SEM Rush publish articles with observations and information from SEO experts. Reviewing multiple such sources revealed the following list of significant changes and impacts from updates.

1. Volatility – Many experts report that there has been significant volatility in search rankings (and thus in traffic generated by searches) after core updates. Experts have indicated that some sites may have gained traffic after a core update, only to lose it after the another core update, or vice versa. This is because every update may have unintended consequences in search results which, as they become apparent, may require a correction in a succeeding update. If your site’s organic traffic has experienced a sharp dip or boost, it may be because of this post-update volatility. Consult your local SEO expert to understand the specific factors that may be in play on your site.

2. Certain types of sites were more affected than others – According to SEM Rush, Google core updates affect almost all industries. However, some industries are uusually slightly more affected than others. If your business is in an YMYL category, your website is more likely to experience search/traffic volatility than other types of sites. Generally speaking, Google is especially cautious about content on health, medical and financial sites because searches that produce links to spammy health, medical or financial sites can have a significant negative impact on users. When just looking at the mobile web, sites that are in other industries like real estate, people/society, and beauty/fitness may also experience increased volatility in search rankings after core updates. The specific reason behind this mobile web volatility for certain industries that are not YMYL is not clear. If your site has been affected, consult a local digital agency for an SEO consultation.

3. Certain sized sites may be more affected than others – In 2021, also according to SEM Rush, sites with small to medium sized traffic (500k or fewer views per month) were more affected by the core updates than large sites in some core updates. That was relevant to Lancaster PA businesses because most businesses in our area will have sites with small to medium amounts of traffic. However, other core updates in 2023, for example, did not seem to affect sites by size. Again, check with your local SEO expert to understand the impact of core updates each year.

4. Sites with common content – Sites that publish content that is readily available on other sites (think song lyrics, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and business directories) may experience more volatility than other types of sites as a result of Google core updates. This is because the identical nature of the content makes it hard for Google to determine which sites should rank higher. Although this should not be an issue for local Pennsylvania business sites, a solution to this issue is to always add unique, relevant, value-added content to any pages that have commonly available content.

5. Reviews – Google releases updates focusing on sites with reviews. and as-of 2023 “reviews” includes not just product reviews, but any type of review. In essence, these types of updates are intended to reward sites that have high-quality, relevant reviews, and penalize sites with thin or negative reviews. However, the concept of a “thin” review does not relate to word count, it relates to quality. Reviews, ideally, should be written by named authors who have expertise in the products or services they are reviewing. The reviews should be original, helpful, personal, and insightful. Google’s review updates may penalize sites that over-use affiliate links and that have a lot of ads on their review pages. This is because Google has accurately determined that users don’t like being overwhelmed by monetization strategies while they are in an information-gathering phase of their shopping journey. You can read more about review updates here.

6. People Also Ask – Have you ever done a search and found, just below the first few results, a box that says “People Also Ask” with several questions underneath, all related to your search? That is Google’s People Also Ask (PAA) feature, which was introduced in 2015 and has expanded into over half of search results pages, according to SEM Rush. PAA is Google’s way of refining searches, by letting you see related terms/questions other searchers are using. If you click on a PAA box, it will expand and you’ll see a short answer. Google’s core updates continue the expansion of PAA into more searches. Worth noting is that Google has stated that requests from businesses to update/remove information in PAA boxes will take longer than other types of update/removal requests. This is because the PAA results are more “indirectly” sourced. The details on this seem scant, but you (or your SEO expert) should pay attention to PAA results as they relate to your business’s website.

7. Less country code top level domain crowding – Country code domain crowding is when several search results have the same domain name listed multiple times but with different international country code extensions. This can happen when an international company has multiple sites with the same top level domain name, but different country codes extensions such as .ca, .uk, .rs, etc. For local businesses in Lancaster PA, this is not an area of concern, but it’s worth noting that Google’s core updates have made this less of an issue for users overall. Conceivably, this could result in a Lancaster County business’s site moving up on the page because there should be fewer repeated international domains taking multiple positions on the page.

8. The impact of page experience – While Google pays some attention to user experience when determining rankings, content is more important. If your site is mobile-friendly, loads quickly, is secured (using HTTPS instead of HTTP), and doesn’t have disruptive interstitial ads, then your site most likely qualifies as having a good user experience. Google will use page experience as a tiebreaker when determining how to rank several sites with equivalent content. As always, your local Lancaster SEO expert can help you make changes in these areas if needed.

Closing thoughts

With Google frequently changing how it evaluates and ranks sites, what is a Lancaster County business owner to do about keeping up with and responding to these changes? The best approach is to keep a consistent focus on providing a great user experience. As a site owner, you need to understand what your users want and then deliver it to them. For example, most users now visit websites via their phones, so making sure that your website offers a great mobile experience is critical. You also need to ensure that your site navigation is clear and that there are no deadend pages (404 errors) to frustrate users. Put the time and effort into populating your site’s pages with useful, honest, clear content that provides value to your users.

And, finally, if this all seems too much to worry about while also running your business, consider contacting LNP Media Group for SEO services. SEO is a long-horizon project and requires expertise with Google’s ever changing rules. SEO does not have a payout within a week, it pays out over the course of six months and longer. This is a long term investment that pays off when new customers find your business again and again at the top of a crowded Google search results page.

 

Video Production in Lancaster PA

Video Production in Lancaster PA

If you have a small to medium sized business in Lancaster County PA, or in surrounding counties such as Berks, Dauphin, Chester, York, or Lebanon, you may wonder how to secure high-quality videos for your company’s marketing campaigns. Lancaster is not a large metro area like Philadelphia but it’s still very possible to find affordable video marketing services locally. This guide will walk you through three topics:

1. How to find a local video production agency.
2. What to expect during the video production process.
3. Ways you can leverage video in your marketing.

Step 1 – Find the right Lancaster video production company for your business’s needs

To find a video production company that suits your needs, first develop an initial list of requirements for your video project. Your list may evolve after you have found a video production company, but you need to have a starting place.

Here are some considerations for your initial list of requirements:

  • • Video length: A commonly used video length is a 15 to 30 second spot for pre-roll ads, TV ads, or social media. Another common length is a 2 to 3 minute video for branding or how-to instruction. Of course, videos can be much longer as well. You’ll need to think about where your video will be distributed (see below) and the content of your video.
  • • Distribution: Consider where your video will be distributed, for example, on your website, TV, OTT/CTV, Social Media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc). If you want your video to be placed as a pre-roll ad, then you’ll need the services of a digital marketing agency. In this case, working with a video production team that is part of a digital agency will save you time and effort.
  • • Topic: The options for video topics are almost limitless, but here are some common examples: a history or narrative of your company and its brand, a short advertising spot to entice customers to buy a product or service, a how-to video about using your products or services, a training video for onboarding new hires, or a testimonial video from customers who are your company’s fans.
  • • Style: Will the video be taken in a single shot? Or will there be multiple shots that are edited together? Will sound need to be recorded, or will there be music or voice-over added in post-production? Do you need actors? Do you need animation or drone footage? Animation and drone piloting are a very specific skills that not all video companies can provide. Drone pilots are required to be certified and the drone itself must be registered with the FAA. In Pennsylvania, drone pilots need to abide by regulations including no-drone zones, altitude restrictions, no surveillance, and more. So if drone footage is a requirement, make sure to find a video production company that has a properly licensed drone pilot.
  • • Location: Videos can be shot on-site or in the studio. Not all video production companies have their own studio, so if you want your video shot in a studio, you’ll need to inquire about facilities. An on-site video could be shot at your location or at another location such as where your products are services are being used. Because video production companies will need to charge for their travel time to the site, in-studio videos are more affordable than on-site videos.
  • • Budget:  Video is an incredibly valuable format for conveying your business’s marketing message in a way that is engaging and accessible. An inexpensive video can cost as little as $500 for a 30 second promo filmed in the studio. A longer affordable video format is two to three minutes that are filmed on-site at a cost of $3,500 to $5,000. These price points are reasonable given the skills and equipment required for the production of high quality videos. Of course, videos can cost much more if they are longer and more complex.

Now that you have your list of requirements, how do you go about finding a local Lancaster County video company? Here are some ideas to help you with your search:

  • • References:  Ask colleagues in your field if they have had videos made by a local Lancaster video production company. Make sure to ask if they were happy with the work and if they have advice for your video project.
  • • Browse your competition: Take a look at competitors’ websites and marketing campaigns. Do they use video and, if so, do you like what you see? A quick call to the competitor may provide you with information on who produced their videos. The value of using a video production company that has worked for a competitor is that the video team will already be familiar with the types of products and services your company offers.
  • • Search engines: Use Google or your favorite search engine to find local video production companies. Use several different search terms to develop different lists of video production companies. Remember to look past the first page of search results; hidden gems can be found further down the list. Use search terms that include your location, such as “Lancaster County PA video production”, in order to find the most relevant companies. You’ll see ads on search results pages too and some of these may be worth checking out.
  • • Review samples:  Video production companies should have samples of their work included on their websites. Take a look at those samples and see if the style and content match up with your needs.

Step 2 – What to expect in the video production process

You’ve found your ideal video production agency and you are ready to start work. What does the video production process look like? This handy guide breaks down the steps, so that you’ll have an idea of what to expect as you get started.

PLANNING

The first phase, naturally, is the planning phase. You should expect to meet with your video agency team members to discuss key points such as:

  • • Audience Profile: The video team will need to know the audience you are trying to reach. The first question will be whether you are trying to reach consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B). If you are trying to reach consumers, who are they? Retirees? Young parents? Home repair do-it-yourselfers? Fashionistas? If your video will be viewed by other businesses, who are they? Firms in need of legal advice? Companies that need construction services? Manufacturers who need safety compliance consulting? Knowing the audience will help your video team point the project in the right direction.
  • • Brand position: In addition to defining your audience you also need to define your brand. Is your brand identity young and edgy? Is it down-home and comfortable? Does your brand identity include professional certifications or expertise? Is your brand a market leader or an underdog? Is your brand a bargain or a luxury? And, is your brand satisfied with its current position or does your brand need to develop a new identity? Answers to these questions will help the video team understand the tone they need to achieve in your video.
  • • Content Development: Once you have defined the audience and your brand position, you can brainstorm the content of the video. You’ll work with the video team to decide what will be shot and where, as well as the number of shots and how they would need to be threaded together. You’ll decide if there will be people in the video and, if so, who they are. If you’ll be filming people speaking, then you’ll need to have scripts written; your video team will be able to help with this. You’ll also make choices regarding voice-overs, background music, special effects, drone footage, and text on screen. Your finished video will need to be framed with an intro shot and an exit shot, or possibly an exit screen that has written messaging such as your business’s logo, web address or phone number.
  • • Storyboarding: Once all of the content decisions have been made, the video agency team will create a storyboard. A storyboard is a visual, graphical plan, shot by shot, of how your video will flow. The storyboard proceeds in a linear fashion from intro to end with notes about the action, the script, and production. Once the first draft of your storyboard is completed, consider sharing it with members of your team to get their input before shooting starts. A well-developed storyboard will make production faster and will help avoid costly re-shoots.
  • • Production Planning: After the storyboard has been finalized, you will be ready to make a production plan. This plan will include all the details for the shoot, such as dates, times, locations, equipment, props, scripts, and persons. If you are planning an outdoor shoot, you’ll need to consider the time of day/angle of the sun, so as to get the best opportunity for good natural lighting. You’ll also need to plan for rain dates in case of inclement weather.

PRODUCTION

Once planning is complete the next phase is production. With your storyboard and production plan in place, production should proceed smoothly and includes the following elements:

  • • On-site or in-studio shooting: Shooting on-site involves the video team and their equipment traveling to the specified location for the shoot. To save time, ensure that you have the site all set up and ready for the video team’s arrival. Conversely, shooting in the studio means that you’ll need to transport all of your people and items on the designated time/place.
  • • Directing and filming: Your video production team will direct the action as they film it. Having an experienced team directing the action ensures that the storyboard is followed, so that the end product is what was planned. An experienced director will also help navigate any unforeseen last-minute changes that might occur, such as missing props, missing actors, or a cloudy day.
  • • Photography: Consider contracting with your video production agency to have still photographs taken at the same time as the video is being filmed. Still shots can be used on your website, social media, or in ads. Still photographs will be an additional expense because a photographer will need to take the shots while the videographer does the filming. However, if you’ve gone to all the effort of setting up a great plan and a great setup for a video, having still photographs taken at the same time will maximize the value you’ll receive from your efforts.
  • • Lighting and sound: Your Lancaster video agency will bring appropriate lighting and sound equipment with them, according to the needs outlined in the storyboard and production plan. Professional lighting and sound equipment are essential to producing a high-quality video. You may think you can produce a video yourself just using your iPhone, but there is no comparison of visual and audio quality from an iPhone vs. professional equipment. A top quality video is a long-term investment in your business.
  • • Set design and styling: The video team members will also be able to guide you in the design of the set and overall styling. Styling includes the selection, placement and usage of items such as props, costumes, hair, and makeup. Props can be as simple as notepads, laptops, and coffee cups for a conference room video shoot. Or, they can be as complex as having the right vehicles in the background, or pouring the perfect mug of beer. All of these elements need to be aligned with your brand position and intended audience in order for your video to be a success.

POST-PRODUCTION

The video shoot has been completed and now it’s on to post-production. This phase will take your video agency a week or more to complete and involves the following aspects:

  • • Professional Editing: Your video production team will have more footage than needed for the length of your final video. All of the footage needs to be reviewed and the best footage selected for inclusion in your video. Video footage will be rearranged to match the sequence dictated by the storyboard and transitions will be created between clips. Color corrections, filters, and other enhancements will be applied as needed.
  • • Voice over: If voice over is part of your video, it will generally be during the post-production phase using a professional voice actor. Your video team should be able to provide a resource for voice overs. Once the voice over is recorded, the video production team will sync the voice over to the video, so that they work together seamlessly.
  • • Music: Your video team will be able to guide you with regard to music that is legally allowed to be used in your video. Most music is copyrighted, so you can’t just put your favorite songs as background to the video. The video production team should have access to a library of stock background music, much like stock images. However, this music may have a generic feel that is not the right mood for your video. If that is the case, discuss with the video production team if it’s possible to acquire a license to use a copyrighted piece of music. Another alternative is to work with a local Lancaster County musician who would like to sell their music, or perhaps allow you to use for free it in exchange for a credit at the end of the video.
  • • Graphics and animation: If your video production team is part of a digital agency, they will have artists who can design graphics and slides for your video. Animation is a much more difficult skill to find in the Lancaster area. Animation also tends to be expensive, so discuss this with your video production team to decide if it is truly essential to your project.
  • • Color grading: Color correction, mentioned earlier, involves ensuring that the color in the video matches what was naturally present during filming. Color grading is different and is a creative effort to apply color to create a mood or effect. Your video may or may not need color grading, depending on the goal of your video.

Step 3 – Ways to leverage video in your marketing.

Your video is complete and it’s perfect! But how do you get it in front of your target audience? Ideally, the video production team you selected will be part of a Lancaster digital agency. A local digital agency has the expertise to consult with you to find the most targeted and effective digital channels to distribute your new video. Examples of possible channels include the following:

  • • Websites/Blogs: If your video is a branding or testimonial video, posting it on your own website or blog page is a logical choice. Videos on your site are useful for two main reasons. First, video is an easy way for users to learn about your brand, service, and products. Watching videos quickly conveys information in an engaging fashion that text can’t match. Second, Google favors video content, so posting videos can help with your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). However, to ensure best results from having a video on your site make sure you follow all of Google’s best practices when posting your video.
  • • Social media channels: 15 or 30 second videos are perfect to use in social media. You can post your videos on your social media channels organically or you can get extra value out of your video investment through a paid social media marketing campaign. Facebook and other social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter provide options for targeting your desired audience by demographics, hobbies, location, behaviors, and more. Your Lancaster County digital marketing agency will help you with targeting selections, copy-writing, and ad creatives. A local digital agency will also report on campaign performance and will optimize the campaign as needed. Read our social media marketing blog post here:
  • • Targeted emails: Email marketing is another digital campaign type that has many options for audience targeting including location, interest, business category, occupation and more. Video can be embedded within the email body, or the email can contain a link to a web page with the video. Embedding video is a great user experience on most email clients, with the exception of Outlook, which does not support video players. Read our blog post on email marketing here.
  • • TV, OTT, and CTV commercials: TV, OTT and CTV are prime placements for your new video. CTV pre-roll ads allow you to reach people who like to stream content but don’t use cable. OTT ads also reach people who don’t use cable, but have the advantage of being clickable and viewable on phones and tablets. TV, of course, is the traditional video ad channel. All three formats provide targeting options including by day part. Read our blog post primer on OTT and CTV here.
  • • Pre-roll and post-roll: If your video is a 15 to 30 second ad spot, pre-roll and post-roll offer a wealth of placement and targeting possibilities. Your pre-roll/post-roll video ad can be distributed via Google Ads or Youtube and targeted by demographics, interests, affinities, custom intent, and more. Remarketing is an option that will allow your video to be shown to audiences who have previously engaged with your videos. Video pre-roll ads can also be placed on local news media websites that have news videos, such as LancasterOnline. When video is placed as a pre-roll ad on local news videos, you can select the type of video content that you want your pre-roll ad to be associated with. Placement on a local news media site ensures that your video is associated with trusted local news content.

According to Forbes magazine, the use of video for small and medium sized businesses can be summed up in four broad categories. First, it increases social engagement, second, it works well on mobile, third, it boosts SEO on your site, and fourth, it conveys brand personality. All of these reasons, and more, make a compelling argument for investing in video for your local Lancaster business.

LNP Media group is a full service digital agency and video production company. We have an in-house video production staff with years of experience crafting the stories of companies in the Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York area and beyond. We have a certified drone pilot, a state-of-the-art video studio, and full post-production editing capabilities. Once your video is complete, our digital agency team can place your video in a targeted digital campaign such as pre-roll, social media, email marketing, display, or more. Contact us today for a free video strategy session.

The Importance of Setting Goals and Tracking Performance in Digital Marketing

The Importance of Setting Goals and Tracking Performance in Digital Marketing

It goes without saying that all successful digital marketing campaigns start with the digital marketing team settling clear goals. Goal inform the details of the marketing campaign plan (how to get to the goal) and illuminate other objectives to reach. However, if a digital marketing team fails to set a goal properly, the campaign is doomed from the start. As such, it is absolutely critical that every digital marketing campaign have clearly defined and achievable goal; that goal is the foundation upon which the rest of the campaign relies.

But setting a goal properly is no easy task. While it may seem simple, specifying the exact objective of a digital marketing campaign is actually one of the hardest parts of planning the campaign. Therefore, it is vital for digital marketing professionals to understand how to form, analyze, and track their goals.

Choose a SMART Goal

Digital marketing campaign goals should be SMART. SMART is an acronym standing for:

Specific means narrow and clearly defined, not vague, and understood fully by all involved. “Improving sales” is too vague, “increasing by 10% the number of blue widgets sold in Florida by the end of the month” is more specific.

Measurable means having an objectively quantifiable or unambiguously qualifiable target to reach. “Selling a lot more blue widgets” is unclear and unmeasurable, since people will have different ideas about what “a lot” entails. “Increasing blue widget sales by 10%” is measurable.

Attainable means being realistic and not excessively ambitious, but still challenging and worth reaching. “Putting a widget in every home in America” is not attainable, “becoming the leading state distributor of widgets” is attainable.

Relevant means being worthwhile, aligning with company or consumer values, and fulfilling needs. “Lobbying Congress to remove environmental regulations” is not relevant, “finding cost-effective green production methods” is.

Timely means having a deadline or end-date that the goal needs to be completed by. “Releasing a new widget” is not timely, “releasing a new widget by Christmas of next year” is, because there is a clear deadline.

SMART goals have been used for decades in the professional and academic world. Until recently, their success was so self-evident that few even bothered to question them. But recent studies have confirmed what many already knew – SMART goals help people work smarter, not harder. In fact, a 2018 study from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that SMART goals can even be helpful in making students smarter. Resident medical students were found to study more after being briefed on SMART goals,

“SMART goals serve as a powerful primer to promote additional self-directed learning,” the study authors wrote in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. “This intervention can be readily applied to most simulation debriefing sessions and requires little training to be employed effectively.”

But SMART goals aren’t just for medical students. A number of different digital marketing campaign strategies mesh perfectly with SMART goals, which means that it’s smart to use them for digital marketing teams, too. The examples listed above are just a few of the ways that digital marketers can integrate SMART goals into their campaign plan. To really make SMART goals work well in the digital marketing world, however, KPIs are the place to start.

Getting SMART with KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) measure success against a specific target. Any objective or numerical goal can function as a KPI. Fortunately, SMART goals usually have key performance indicators built into the first two letters of the acronym. However, it is still important to understand KPIs on a deeper level.. As Forbes puts it:

“Too often owners fail to get an understanding of how their business operates. They fail to log any departmental metrics of their operations throughout the year, and they’re stuck with an idling business wondering where problems lay…KPIs are a pertinent part of measuring the successes and failures of your business.”

Because KPIs are data-driven, they are often tied to financial goals that measure profit margins or revenue. Perhaps the most popular and widely known KPI is net profit: the revenue left from a given period after accounting for all expenses in that same period. For many KPI measurements, net profit is converted to a percentage of revenue called the “net profit margin.”

There are many other KPIs and new ones are invented to measure performance in new situations every day. However, there are some ubiquitous tried and true KPIs that have been used for years across a diverse range of different industries. It is important for digital marketing teams to know what these common KPIs are. Even if these KPIs aren’t useful for a campaign right now, learning about these common KPIs can provide insight for designing or selecting other relevant KPIs (and the more common ones might always come in handy some day in the future). Here are some of the most widespread KPI categories and how they are used:

Customer Metrics. KPIs focused on customers tend to cover customer retention (how many repeat customers a business gets), customer satisfaction (usually based on ratings or reviews from customers) or various measures of productivity/efficiency on a per-customer basis. Some common customer metrics include Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV, which is the total quantity of revenue that a customer gives to a business over the whole lifespan of their relationship with the business, and Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC, which is the total marketing and sales cost necessary on average to get a new customer. Many businesses also get more perspective by comparing CLV and CAC, which can help determine the efficacy of marketing campaigns that are aimed at acquiring more customers.

Process Performance Metrics. These metrics tend to analyze operational performance in an organization. One example is measuring the efficiency of a production process by dividing the total number of defective products by total product output to find out how much waste is in the process. If a significant portion of products a business makes are defective, then waste is losing the company money and that number needs to get cut down. Process performance metrics are useful for this type of analysis, such as Throughput Time which measures how long a particular process takes to run and complete.

Financial Metrics. Metrics focused on the financial performance of a company are also important. One example of this type of KPI is Burn Rate, or the rate that a company is spending money for a given period of time. Financial metrics vary considerably based on the size and type of company, so Burn Rate KPIs (especially short-term ones that cover periods in the week or month range) are most popular among small companies that cannot undertake extensive, large financial analyses but still want to look at how sustainable their expenditures are.

However, digital marketing offers a whole range of its own KPIs that are based on the unique industry they represent. But before choosing KPIs for a digital marketing campaign and learning what KPIs can do to enhance campaign goal setting, it is crucial to understand what KPIs cannot do.

What are the Limits of KPIs?

Digital marketing teams should keep in mind that KPIs are limited in their efficacy, so they shouldn’t be relied on exclusively as the only type of SMART goal that can be set. Some of their limitations are their requirement for non-stop tracking and monitoring (as well as close follow up) to be useful and the fact that they usually need to be measured over a long time to produce meaningful data. Still, their biggest limitation is their effect on workers. Since KPIs are typically numerical and quantitative, they can ignore the qualitative traits that companies need to thrive. For example, a company maximizing the widgets made per month as a KPI can end up making lower quality widgets that break easily or don’t work as intended. KPIs can also force employees to shoot for unrealistic targets, undermining the point of SMART goals and creating unnecessary stress that damages long-term productivity. Workers that are just chasing after a numeric goal are less happy and less fulfilled, which may make them more likely to leave the company for competitors or other fields entirely.

Perhaps worst of all, KPIs have the potential to lead managers to “game the system” to try and appear to meet their performance targets. Although some level of “cooking the books” is an unfortunately widespread practice in many organizations, poorly designed and implemented KPIs can turn minor number tweaking into total falsification, which can spell death for any organization big or small. The importance of getting KPIs right shouldn’t be underestimated; historically it has led to the collapse of entire nations. One classic example is the Soviet Union. After Stalin seized power in the late 1920s, he implemented a series of “Five Year Plans” that were meant to rapidly industrialize the USSR which was still reeling from World War One, the two bloody revolutions and a civil war that followed, and a crushing economic crisis. Five Year Plans, interestingly, made use of KPIs – managers of factories and collective farms were given production targets that had to be supported with measurable data.

During the Five Year Plans, goal success was measured exclusively using these production quotas, and they were the end-all, be-all of the plan. However, the quotas were usually set far too high, and were sometimes impossible to meet. By the 1930s, the pressure to reach production quotas was so high that managers routinely falsified their numbers. As the British National Archives describes it:

“If workers did not achieve their targets, they were punished. Desperate factory managers fiddled the books or committed suicide as the pressure to produce more and more became too great. If the workers succeeded in reaching targets, they might be rewarded with increased wages. But usually their targets were increased as well [leading to] problems with wastage and inefficiency in the plans.”

The lesson here is that the more unrealistic the goal is and the more pressure workers are under to meet it, the more likely they are to fabricate results. As such, when building KPIs into a goal, it is critical to ensure that the goal is reachable and that there are not excessive consequences for failing to meet it. It is almost always better to reward people for meeting KPI goals than to punish them for failing to reach the target. Another important lesson is that significantly raising KPI targets because workers reached the previous target can backfire. The USSR isn’t the only place this this has happened – in the U.S. federal government has this problem too. The “use it or lose it” approach – where agencies risk future budget cuts if they don’t use their entire yearly budget – has led to serious wasteful spending. It is counterproductive to punish people with budget cuts or drastically higher productivity targets. Finally, KPIs should never be the totality of any goal or plan, but rather be used as an objective indicator that helps paint a larger picture. Other methods of goal measurement should be implemented to compensate for the limitations of KPIs.

“Despite having multiple KPIs,” according to Forbes, “every report should tie together into a single flash for the business as a whole. Not every KPI measures the overall performance of the business. They don’t show the totality of a project’s performance.”

What KPIs Work Best for Digital Marketing Campaigns?

For digital marketing campaigns, KPIs are based more on the digital world than the financial or customer service world. While all these areas are of course still important, there are unique circumstances in the digital marketing industry that have led to innovative new ways to measure success. One of those circumstances is social media, and the way individuals can express themselves and tailor the content of their feeds. As such, digital marketing campaign KPIs are as varied and curated as the customers the campaigns are trying to reach. Still, there are some broad goals and KPIs that are often used to measure the success of digital marketing campaigns, such as:

Digital Marketing Return on Investment. Most people who have worked in the business world are familiar with return on investment (ROI), but digital marketing teams face the unique challenge of clients asking “how do we know all this digital marketing stuff even works?” Fortunately, digital marketing return on investment is the answer to that question. Calculating digital marketing ROI is easy as long as the digital marketing team can figure out what new revenue to attribute to their efforts. The equation for calculating this metric is: (Total Revenue From Digital Marketing – Total Digital Marketing Cost) / (Total Digital Marketing Cost)

Conversion Rate. The term conversion refers to users completing a desired action, such as creating an online account, signing up for a free trial, or downloading a file. The importance of conversion lies in the data it generates; every conversion is another entry in a marketing database that helps further analysis. Conversion rate is the percentage of users in a given period of time who complete the action desired and is calculated like this: (Conversions / Total Visitors) x 100%

Cost Per Click (CPC). One of the most common KPIs in digital marketing is CPC, the price paid for each click users make, typically on ads. CPC is useful for measuring the effectiveness of a digital marketing campaign and is commonly used in display campaigns. It illustrates not just whether a campaign is generating clicks, but also whether those clicks are worth the cost of the campaign. It is also useful for comparison between different campaigns. CPC is calculated simply by dividing cost of an ad by total clicks.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). CPA is the average cost in marketing and sales for every new customer acquired during a campaign. It is a critical digital marketing KPI since it can make or break a campaign; campaigns that fail to acquire customers efficiently will inevitably be abandoned. CPA doesn’t apply in all circumstances, though. It is most useful when the goal of a campaign is acquiring customers that will have high lifetime value, rather than campaigns that aim to facilitate one-time sales. CPA can be calculated in two ways. The first equation is: (Total Ad Cost) / (Total Conversions). The second is: (Marketing Costs + Sales Costs) / (Number of Customers Acquired).

Cost Per Conversion (CPCon). Though similar to CPA, CPCon is a broader metric. While acquisitions refer specifically to gaining a customer, anything can be called a conversion (a sale, a lead, a download, a subscription to a newsletter, etc.) so CPCon takes a bit of a wider view. It varies and is defined by the business model and type of campaign it’s measuring. CPCon is also calculated in two possible ways, first: (Cost) / (Conversions). Note that in this first equation the term “cost” is vague; that is because the costs being used to calculate CPCon will also vary from campaign to campaign. The second equation is: (CPC) / (Conversion Rate).

Cost Per Lead (CPL). Although it can be tempting to look at the raw number of leads to measure success, that isn’t enough to mark the success of a digital marketing campaign. Lead acquisition costs have to be low enough to maintain a good margin and show significant growth. That’s where CPL comes in. It can be calculated as: (Total Campaign Cost) / (Number of Leads)

Revenue Per Lead (RPL). Measuring CPL is good, but it’s important to consider the other side of things and look at the approximate sales value for each new lead. This metric allows digital marketing teams to predict their future sales based on conversion rates and expected traffic. It also helps reveal where the most profitable leads come from so the team can allocate resources effectively and reinvest in those more profitable channels. It can be calculated as: (Total Revenue Attributed to Campaign) / (Number of Leads)

Email Clickthrough Rate (ECTR). In email marketing campaigns, the email clickthrough rate measures the target audience’s engagement. It shows whether an email is actually getting customers to take a desired action and can help the team discover what aspects of an email do and do not work. It can be calculated as: (Number of Clicks) / (Number of Emails Successfully Delivered) x 100%

Email Open Rate (EOR). It is one thing to measure ECTR and know how many people are taking a desired action, but it is important to compare ECTR to EOR. Why? Because some members of the campaign’s target audience will open an email and then not click through. EOR also shows how effective the email subject lines are at grabbing the attention of potential customers. A big difference between ECTR and EOR demonstrates that an email has an eye-catching title, but the content of the email might be failing to get customers to take the desired action. EOR can be calculated as: (Emails Opened) / (Number of Emails Successfully Delivered). However, it is worth noting that tracking of email open rate is achieved through the use of an invisible pixel on the email which, when downloaded in the email client, informs the email service provided that the email has been opened. In June 2021 Apple announced that, with iOS15, the iPhone mail app would no longer support this type of email open tracking in a bid to assure users that Apple valued user privacy. As of this writing, the impact of this change is not yet clear.

Bounce Rate. Of course, not all emails are delivered successfully. Sometimes things go wrong, such as the email list having incorrect or invalid emails. A high Bounce Rate means it is time to clean up the email list and potentially get more email addresses. The Bounce Rate can be calculated as: (Emails Sent – Emails Delivered) / (Total Emails Sent) x 100%

Cost Per Install (CPI). There are few metrics more significant for mobile app owners to measure than CPI. It is a way of measuring the number of paid installs against organic installs. For companies that are trying to extend their existing business into the mobile world, CPI is a critical indicator of where they need to invest to make sure mobile marketing is effective and reaches out to their target customer base. CPI can be calculated as: (Total Ad Cost) / (Total Installs).

After creating a digital marketing plan and selecting the main KPI metrics that will measure its success, it is time to choose what tool to measure them with.

Choosing Analytics Tools

There are a number of different platforms to manage digital and social media analytics. They fall into three categories: web & SEO tools, social media tools, and email marketing tools.

Web & SEO Analytics Tools

Search Engine Optimization and web analysis is difficult and complex, but fortunately there is an abundance of different tools to help assess the success of efforts in these areas. Here are some of the biggest ones:

Google Analytics. By far the most popular, Google Analytics runs on a freemium model provided directly by Google to help digital marketing teams track various metrics about traffic and other web performance measures. The basic version is free, but the premium version (Google Analytics 360) has a number of additional features that many find well worth the cost.

Google Search Console. This program, which is a part of Google Analytics, offers in-depth SEO reports when linked to a Google Analytics account. The service is completely free to use and does much of the SEO-based analysis that Google Analytics doesn’t offer.

HubSpot. For those looking for inbound marketing and automation, HubSpot can be used to track website traffic, social media channels, landing pages, inbound marketing, calls to action, and more. HubSpot is especially geared toward B2B companies.

Moz. One of the more comprehensive platform for web analytics, Moz offers a broad range of tools for virtually everything a digital marketing team would need to do, including: keyword analysis, SEO competition, SERP features, search volume data, and more.

ClickMeter. As a single virtual platform, ClickMeter aims to be a one-stop shop for businesses seeking to analyze and optimize their marketing links and conversion rates. If Moz is a toolbox, ClickMeter is a comprehensive multi-tool.

SimilarWeb. SimilarWeb is a platform that allows businesses to compare their website to competitors around the world, discover what sources drive traffic to any website (search inquiries, social media, referrals, etc.), and analyze target customer base interests. SimilarWeb has the unique advantage of allowing digital marketing teams to see the organic and paid keywords – even the “Google not-provided” ones – of any website.

Crazy Egg. With a number of unique tools such as Heat Map, Scroll Map, Overlay, and Confetti, Crazy Egg allows heatmap tracking of website usage. Crazy Egg is notable for its visualization features, making it easier to understand the data without getting buried in numbers. Crazy Egg also offers A/B Testing and other editing tools that are designed to help businesses build and modify content features for success.

Ahrefs. Unlike its competitors, Ahrefs is made for maximum ease of use and minimal navigation. A paid SEO software suite, it has various tools for rank tracking, link building, keyword analysis, competitor analysis, and website audits. For many businesses, the biggest draw for Ahrefs is that it is designed specifically to learn why competitors rank highly. Getting that inside information can give companies an edge by showing them what they have to do in order to outrank the competition.

Social Media Marketing Analytics Tools

Social media marketing can seem deceptively simple, but a deeper look reveals that there is much more than meets the eye. There are a handful of good programs to help dig in and gather metrics so help you engage social media users better.

Facebook Business Manager – Facebook Business Manager is your control console for paid Facebook and Instagram marketing campaigns. In Business Manager you’ll build you creatives, add your copy and calls-to-action, set campaign targeting, and set the goals for the campaign. You’ll be able to track progress to goal and see engagement with your paid Facebook promotions.

AdEspresso. Hootsuite’s latest social media management suite, AdEspresso offers a wide range of helpful tools that provide real-time social media performance metrics. Some of the analytics it includes are: engagement, clicks, follow/unfollow statistics, mentions, and the performance of the social media team in responding to visitor messages and comments.

Socialbakers Social Media Analytics. A completely free collection of cutting edge social media analytics tools, Socialbakers is designed to measure social media performance against competitors. It is built on the idea of multi-channel publishing, social media listening, and analyzing competing companies’ social media accounts to learn from them.

Buffer. It can be exhausting to try and keep up with all the different social media accounts that a modern business can have, but Buffer helps by providing a platform to manage them all in one place. Buffer helps social media and digital marketing teams schedule content and publish it automatically, get analytics insights for all social media accounts, and understand how to improve performance. It also has the unique bonus feature of creating reports for managers and clients with pre-designed templates.

Email Marketing Analytics

Email marketing is like Pong: easy to learn, but hard to master. Email marketing analytics fall into several basic categories:

Email service providers (ESPs) – ESPs are the tools you use to design and send out your email marketing. They range from simple, easy to use tools like MailChimp and Constant Contact, up to more sophisticated ESPs like Salesforce and Marketo. ESP analytics generally cover open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate and bounce rate. ESP analytics will also include details on which links or buttons were clicked and some insight into deliverability.

UTM codes – Putting UTM codes on your email CTAs (calls to action) allows you to track how well each CTA does in driving traffic to your site. Using Google’s UTM code builder is the easiest way to generate logical UTM codes. You’ll track UTM codes in your site’s Google Analytics dashboard.

Email deliverability – Deliverability has to do with whether or not your outbound email marketing is being received and, if so, in what tab. If you have a Gmail account you know it has three tabs: Primary, Social and Promotion. Of course, every email marketer would like their outbound email offers to land in recipients’ Primary tabs, but can be difficult to achieve. Use Google Postmaster to monitor your IP and mailing domain reputation for recipients’ Gmail accounts. To assess deliverability across all email clients you can use a tool like Glockapps which will send test emails and measure whether they are delivered or blocked in Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, and more.

Email rendering – Every email client will read your email code slightly differently. This means that your email will look different depending on whether it is received by Gmail, Outlook, AOL, Yahoo, or others. And your email will also look different on an iPhone, Android phone, laptop, desktop, or tablet. Tool like Litmus and Email on Acid will test your email designs across all email clients and viewport sizes to give you clear metrics on how it will look.

Making Digital Marketing Campaigns Work

Often, the reason that digital marketing campaigns don’t succeed is not that they lack quality, creativity, or skilled team members. The actual reason that many campaigns fail is that they do not set the right goals and track the campaign’s performance.

LNP Media Group is a leading Lancaster digital agency with the staff to do all of your digital campaign management in-house. We work with businesses across the Harrisburg-Lebanon-Lancaster-York area as well as businesses up and down in the east coast. During a marketing planning and strategy session we’ll set SMART goals for your campaigns to ensure their success. And, following campaign deployment, we’ll continue to be your partner in mid-campaign optimization and post-campaign analysis. Contact us today for a free consultation.