The Top 7 KPI’s to measure digital advertising

Tracking key performance indicators (more commonly known as KPI’s) is key to measuring the success of your latest digital advertising campaign, whether that be advertising your annual Christmas event, or your brand-new Scare Maze ahead of Halloween.

At Agility, we have 7 top KPI’s we use to analyse performance of our digital advertising campaigns, which we feel establish the success of the marketing strategy. These are:

• Clicks
• Click through rate (CTR)
• Cost per click (CPC)
• Conversions (number of ticket sales)
• Cost per acquisition (CPA)
• Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM)
• Engagement rate

These indicators provide us with the knowledge to guide us in the right direction to build an effective brand presence by seeing what works effectively through the eye of the consumer. Measuring the success of your digital advertising campaign, helps ensure you are getting a return on your investment – we want to make sure you are achieving the best results possible!

There are a number of different metrics you can use to look at the results of your visitor attractions digital ad campaigns. You will have a top metric to look at depending on the objective, which for the majority of our visitor attractions clients is ticket sales. Unfortunately, since the iOS privacy update recording all conversions from advertising is harder, but you can still track some conversions to give you an idea of what is working well and want isn’t.   Looking at our statistics, unfortunately, we believe we are now tracking between 10-15% of the conversions that are happening as a result of digital ads.

Due to this privacy update it is also important to look at other key performance indicators to help you see the results and improve your digital advertising. Let us explain our top KPI’s in a bit more detail…

Clicks

 A click is any form of click made on your ad and the text alongside it. Clicks are used to measure the amount of times that users click on your ad and directs them to your website. At Agility we recommend, within the Meta platform, looking at the outbound clicks metric as it communicates truly how well your ads are getting people to visit your attractions site.

Clicks assist with understanding how well your digital ad is appealing to the audience seeing it, ultimately making them click on it. Ads that are highly targeted are more likely to receive a higher number of clicks, as they are tailored specifically to a certain type of audience. We find clicks an important metric as it determines whether the ad is effectively engaging or not; helping us adapt strategy in the future.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

The click through rate is worked out through a simple equation:

Number of times ad is clicked divided by number of times ad is shown, as a percentage

Measuring click through rate can be used to compare the performance of the different channels of advertising you are using for your Zoo Park or Theme Park. It also allows you to benchmark ad campaign performance as it isn’t based off your attraction’s digital advertising budget. At Agility we use benchmarking as an overall guideline to understand how businesses in the industry are performing and to set a standard of ad quality.

Click through rate is an important tool as it helps you to understand your customers, and the best ways to reach your target audience. For example, a low CTR could indicate you are targeting the wrong audience or that you’re not speaking their language persuasively.

Cost per Click (CPC)

Cost per click refers to the price charged for each individual click made on your ad. In an ideal world, your CPC would be as low as possible. The ad platforms will try and get you as many clicks as it can within your budget if you choose to optimise for clicks.

CPC is important as it determines the overall financial success of your attraction’s digital ad campaign at getting consumers to your attraction’s website. At Agility we see CPC as one of the most important metrics we believe you should be measuring and optimising to ensure a good return on investment – CPC has a huge role to play in your campaign’s profitability!

Conversions (AKA. Ticket Sales)

A conversion is an action that is counted when someone interacts with your ad and takes action on it which is seen as valuable to your business. As previously mentioned, conversions for most of our visitor attraction clients refers to number of ticket purchases, but can also refer to downloads and sign ups.

Conversions let you see how many times a specific action was completed due to ad exposure. They are important as they are most likely to be the ultimate goal for your campaigns and can be set up to monitor any goal your attraction wants to achieve.

Cost per acquisition (CPA)

Cost per acquisition, also known as cost per conversion measures the costs of a customer taking an action that leads to a conversion. CPA is easy to calculate:

Total cost of campaign divided by number of conversions during that campaign

CPA is an important marketing metric as it gives you an estimate of how much your new customers are costing you, therefore allowing you to determine whether your strategy of getting the conversion needs to be revised or not.

CPA is chosen over other marketing metrics as it is a cost where you are paying for a direct result, due to the result of a conversion. You can also compare performance across channels when you are running ad campaigns across different platforms to see how your Farm Park or Scare Park’s results compare.

CPM (cost per 1000 impressions)

CPM stands for cost per mille, which is otherwise known as cost per thousand, and states the cost you will pay per 1000 impressions on your post.

This particular KPI is an effective tool for comparing the effectiveness of various media channels, as it allows you to see which is more cost effective per 1000 views of your content.

CPM easily explains how much ad space will cost and makes the most sense for a campaign focused on heightening brand awareness or delivering a specific message. It is determined by the platform based on the demand of the advertising space at the time you are placing your ads.

Engagement

Engagement refers to any action taken by a user that somehow interacts with the content you have posted. This can be in the form of clicks, reactions, comments, shares, saves, or 95% video views. Engagement can be measured by individual ad, or for your profile as a whole.

Measuring engagement is important as it gives you insight into how well your content is resonating with your audience, allowing you to optimise posts in the future to improve your communication of your visitor attraction.

Although it doesn’t necessarily translate to sales, engagement is important as it shows that people are enjoying the content you are posting, and becoming aware of your brand, potentially sharing with others to result in a ticket sale.

This blog was written by Drew Batten, Marketing Coordinator of Agility Marketing, a boutique marketing agency specialising in Digital Marketing for Visitor Attractions.