How do you know that your demand generation campaign has been successful? Unfortunately,
it can be hard to tell when it comes to digital marketing efforts, especially when you don’t have
enough data to back up your findings.
While there are several metrics that you can track to measure the success of your digital
the marketing campaign, here are the most important demand generation metrics that you should
be tracking when planning and executing your next digital marketing campaign.
What Should You Measure?
When assessing your demand gen campaign, you should look at key metrics. These include
leads generated, lead conversion rate, conversion rate, and cost per lead. To find the success
of your demand gen campaign, you must measure what matters most to your business.
For example, if leads are king for your organization, then focus on generating as many high-
quality leads as possible by measuring how many new prospects come in contact with your
a company from different channels and convert them into leads by clicking through to a landing
the page or downloading an ebook.
On the other hand, if conversions are more important to your company, then focus on the
conversion rate (converting those leads) and pay attention to which types of emails were
opened and clicked the most often.
If customer lifetime value (CLV) is more critical, you need to pay attention to cost per lead (your
average spend across all sources) and gross margin (what percentage of sales they represent).
The Key Metrics to Track
Business owners need to know how well their demand gen campaigns are doing. Below are a
few metrics that measure campaign success:
The Number of New Leads Generated
Every company wants more customers, and a way to tell if demand gen is working is by seeing
how many leads it generates. The number of leads is one demand gen metric business owners
can track to gauge the success of their program.
Average Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Another way to measure demand gen campaign success is by tracking CPL—the average cost
per lead. This metric helps show how effective a company’s marketing spending is and whether
you need to increase spending on one particular channel.
Conversion Rate
A conversation rate shows what percentage of people responded to a call-to-action and
converted into leads for your business. If this metric isn’t high enough, then the demand gen
campaign isn’t effective.
How many prospects turn into customers? Are you getting enough out of your advertising
budget? Additionally, you may want to change up some of your tactics or adjust budgets based
on this metric.
Cost per Acquisition (CPA)
This measures the amount paid to acquire one customer through a paid ad. If a customer’s
lifetime value is higher than the acquisition cost, it’s worth running ads because you’ll be making
more money long-term. However, if customers have a low LTV and high CPA, companies
should rethink their strategy because there could be other ways to spend marketing dollars.
Lead Conversion Rate (%)
A final demand gen metric to watch is the lead conversion rate (%). This statistic indicates how
many qualified leads were generated from each advertising dollar. For example, if your lead
conversion rate was 50% last month and you spent $500, then $250 of those dollar will result
in qualified leads (or new customers).
On the other hand, if a company has a lower lead conversion rate and spends more money on
the same monthly goal, then it may not have been as successful as anticipated.
Assessing Qualitative Data in Your DMP and CRM
You’ll need a Data Management Platform (DMP) and a Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) system to measure your success. Data from your DMP will provide metrics on what
content is being viewed by your audience.
Your CRM will help you track conversions from those content views. This data can be used in
tandem with qualitative feedback from members of your target market or potential customers to
determine the impact and effectiveness of your demand gen campaign.
Combining Metrics from Different Sources
First, you’ll want to measure pre- and post-campaign performance on your website. In other
words, how many visitors came before and after the campaign? How many leads or
transactions did they generate? What was their average revenue?
Second, you can use social media engagement as a proxy for your campaign’s success. For
example, how many mentions did it get on Twitter and Facebook? How many followers did it
gain on LinkedIn and Instagram? What about brand mentions in traditional press outlets?
You should also look at downstream metrics such as email opens, shares, daily tweets, etc.
These numbers might not correlate directly with business outcomes, but they’re still important to
track.
When considering all these metrics together, it should be easy to determine if demand gen is
working for your company!
Final Thought
A good way to measure the success of your campaign is by tracking the number and quality of
leads. The more leads you get, the higher the likelihood you’ll make a sale. What’s even better
is when those leads are qualified or hot.
Qualified means they’ve taken a step towards buying something from you, like requesting
information or following your social media page. A hot lead means they have shown an intense
interest in your offer.