Share |

Tips article

Tips for Digital Marketing Managers


With 2020 gone, digital marketing managers face a higher rate of competition creating organic growth opportunities across social media. To help them rise to the top, here are a few simple tips to help navigate, and succeed, in 2021.

Set realistic KPIs according to client needs

KPIs (key performance indicators) set foundational benchmarks when measuring success throughout a marketing campaign.

Below are ten core KPIs every digital marketing manager should be using.

  1. Lifetime Value Of A Customer (LTV) - This metric defines the revenue a company will make from a customer over a determined amount of time. Understanding a client's LTV will also allow you to create a clearly defined ROI's or ROAS report.
  2. Return On Investment (ROI) - ROI takes the LTV of a customer, minus the cost to acquire the customer within the marketing process.
  3. Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) - Return On Ad Spend or ROAS is the amount spent on an ad campaign subtracted by the LTV set by a client. This number will model the total gross profits a company makes after the cost of the ad spend.
  4. Social Media Engagement Rate - The measurement of actions taken by users on a specific social media post within a certain time frame. These actions can consist of "Likes," comments, and shares by individuals following your social media account. The engagement is divided by follower count to give an exact percentage.
  5. Social Media Reach - Used to measure the number of impressions an account received during a select timeframe.
  6. Organic Traffic - Having a grasp of organic traffic (or non-paid traffic) streams indicates how well marketing is naturally performing for a brand. The goal over time is to grow organic ratios compared to paid media results.
  7. Paid Traffic - The amount of traffic purchased through online mediums. This metric must be followed closely to align with a client's budget.
  8. Conversion Rate - A target set by a Digital Marketing Manager with a designed end goal. Parameters may include link clicks, form fills and direct purchases resulting from paid media campaigns.
  9. Bounce Rate - The number of single-page sessions divided by the total page sessions on a web page destination. Higher bounce rates can emphasize an ad currently running for a client. Understanding why potential customers bounce away from a website is imperative for understanding how to optimize marketing campaigns in the future.
  10. Cost Per Lead (CPL) - One of the single most important metrics used in paid advertising. A marketing manager needs to consider the CPL of their campaigns along with the LTV of a customer. These metrics will give a defined ROAS percentage.
    The formula is: CPL = Total Ad Spend / Total Attributed Leads

Have a Clear Understanding of Content Marketing Flow Paths

Digital marketing managers need to understand how different content platforms interact with each other. They need to strategize how to incorporate social media, paid advertising, email marketing and SEO into branded campaigns.

Having a grasp on these four key content marketing stages will offer more reliable campaign results.

  1. Early Adopters - This group is looking for new opportunities within the local market to test a product. Using paid ads or influencer marketing is a recommended method to target new adopters. Both paid ads and influencer marketing bring social proof to the eyes of the consumer. The more an early adopter interacts with social proof, the more likely they will make their first purchase.
  2. Nurturing - Once an audience is built through social media, the goal will shift to building an email list. Using social media, traffic can be directed to landing pages or direct links to newsletters. Once a customer joins an email list, automated newsletters can be sent to drive awareness to other upsell and down-sell opportunities.
  3. Retargeting - Tracking Pixels are cookies that send metrics back to platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and are used to build marketing campaigns. Creating "events" through paid media platforms will enable the creation of custom conversion analytics. Using collected data from paid advertisements will allow digital marketing managers to create retargeted ad campaigns for individuals who didn't convert on a landing page, resulting in an increase in sales, traffic and visibility.
  4. Analytics - Managing marketing campaigns often consists of many moving parts. Every collected metric within a marketing campaign tells the story of the strategies in action. Digital marketing managers are responsible for explaining data to their clients to remain credible and successful at running marketing objectives.

Be a proactive leader.

Let's focus on something other than metrics for a moment. At the core of your role as a marketing manager, you are the leader of a team. Becoming an effective leader starts with listening. The best digital marketing managers listen to marketing trends and the suggestions of their teams. Taking in the considerations of your team members will broaden the possibilities of upcoming marketing campaigns.

Always be a step ahead of the needs of your clients and team.