3 Marketing Metrics New Businesses Need to Know

Guesswork doesn’t grow a business.

On the outside, your marketing might look solid. You’re showing up on social, sending emails, and staying consistent. But underneath it all, you might still be wondering which of those efforts are actually working.

This week, we’re breaking down the essentials for tracking and improving your marketing performance.

Key Metrics to Track

Tracking your marketing isn’t about analyzing every single number. It’s about focusing on the metrics that give you the clearest picture of where your efforts are paying off and where they might need a little work. Here’s a breakdown of the essentials.

Website Traffic and Sources

• Total website visits: See how much traffic your site is receiving in a given timeframe.

• Traffic sources: Understand whether visitors are coming from organic search, social media, email campaigns, paid ads, or other channels.

• Top-performing pages: Find out which pages are driving the most visits and ask yourself why. Is it because of the content, keywords, or layout?

Knowing this information helps you fine-tune your website for more traffic and conversions.

Social Media Engagement

Social media is one of the easiest places to measure your audience’s interest in your brand. Your goal here is to track engagement, not just vanity metrics like follower count.

Pay attention to these:

• Likes, comments, and shares: A high engagement rate means your content is resonating with your audience and sparking interaction.
• Follower growth rate: This is different from follower count. Rather than the total sum of followers, look at the changes to that number over time. That helps you measure how quickly your audience is growing and how well your social strategy is expanding your reach.

Most platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, offer built-in analytics tools that make it simple to see your social performance. Use them to identify what types of content your audience loves and double down on it.

Email Campaign Performance

Email marketing continues to deliver some of the highest ROI among all marketing channels. Metrics here let you know whether your messages are connecting with subscribers. 

Pay attention to these:

• Open rate: See how many people are opening your emails. A low rate might indicate it’s time to rework your subject lines.
• Click-through rate: This tells you how many people are clicking the links in your email, letting you know how compelling your content and offers are.
• Unsubscribe rate: If this is creeping up, it could signal issues with your messaging or audience targeting.

By tracking these metrics, you can refine your campaigns, deliver more value, and better connect with your ideal audience.

Tools to Use

Here are a few straightforward, user-friendly tools that make it easy to track your marketing performance.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a goldmine for understanding how your website is performing. It’s free and shows you traffic trends, what people do on your site, and which channels are bringing them there. It’s ideal for spotting what’s working and where you should focus your energy.

Native Social Media Analytics

Every major social platform includes its own analytics. Instagram Insights, Facebook analytics, and LinkedIn analytics show you how your posts are performing and what your audience is engaging with. If you want everything in one view, tools like Buffer or Hootsuite let you track and compare engagement across multiple platforms from a single dashboard.

Email Marketing Platforms

If you are already using platforms like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and Constant Contact, these also include analytics tools that are great for tracking email performance. You’ll see open rates, click rates, and audience behavior in their reports. Many of these platforms also highlight patterns over time, so you can see what’s working and where to fine-tune your strategy.

Marketing doesn’t have to be a guessing game when you look at the right numbers with the right tools. Start by picking one or two key metrics to follow this week. Over time, you’ll start to see the trends, find out what's working, what’s not, and where to focus next.

Let BrightPulse Help You Get Started

At BrightPulse Marketing, we specialize in helping businesses grow with clear, creative marketing strategies.

Ready? Let’s talk. Reach out for a no-strings-attached consultation. See you there!