Track These 5 Google Analytics Metrics to Measure Your Blog’s Success
Don’t waste your time tracking vanity metrics. Instead, track these 5 blog metrics to reveal the content that attracts, engages, and converts your visitors.
Marketing | Aug 19
What are the essential KPIs to track in any marketing reporting template?
It’s a question many people have, regardless of job function, within their companies.
Fifteen months ago we launched the Template Gallery so that marketers, agencies, and consultants could share their expertise with everyone else in an effort to help assist others in creating meaningful reports.
Now, only six months into 2018, marketers have used over 27,000 templates from our directory to get real-time access to their KPIs.
Even though we create some of these templates ourselves, the directory became much more useful when our top partners shared their work. Many of them also write up a corresponding blog post to explain how to use the template. (More on that in a bit.)
So where should those that are new to Databox get started?
To help make that easier, we’re sharing the most popular report templates, based on downloads, over the last 18 months.
All of these templates automatically pull data from their source. So, if you use Google Analytics, HubSpot, Facebook Ads, AdWords, or Google Search Console, you’ll see your data populate within the template in seconds after downloading it.
Alternatively, if you use another data source, check out the last section (or our Template Gallery) to see if we have an existing report. You can always customize a template after you download one, however these offer a quicker way for getting started.
Top Marketing Reports by Data Source
Google Analytics Reports
Here’s the good news- pretty much EVERYONE uses Google Analytics for one reason or another, so we have the greatest number of downloads from this category. Most of the top templates relate in some way to growing website traffic.
By the way, if you need a quick refresher on Google Analytics metrics, check out our guide to the top Google Analytics metrics.
1- Google Analytics KPI Dashboard
Author: Pepperland Marketing
Problem it Solves: This one helps you determine if you are prepared to grow traffic every month. If you feel like you are continuously releasing new content but not seeing enough impact, you will be able to tell what is going wrong by using this dashboard.
Perhaps your session count is growing but you are not bringing in new users. That means the same people are reading your content over and over again! Or perhaps your bounce rate is steadily increasing. That means quality is going downhill, and visitors are not staying on your site.
How To Use It: You can align both acquisition metrics (traffic) and behavioral metrics (what people do on your site). In the table on the right, you can check whether visitors are actually enjoying your content while they are on your site. If session duration or pages per session are low, you may need to overhaul your content rather than search for more traffic.
On the right side, you can see the top pages by pageviews. If traffic is decreasing, perhaps one popular page is not getting as much traffic as it acquired last month.
Questions It Can Answer:
- Do I need to improve copy or images?
- What topics are popular with visitors?
- Am I reaching a new audience?
Key Metrics:
- Sessions, Users, % New Sessions, Pages/Session, Pageviews
- Conversion Rate, Goal Conversions, Goal Conversion Rate
- Bounce Rate, Pageviews
New Users (Organic Traffic) Dashboard
Author: Yello Veedub
Problem It Solves: If you want to grow traffic reliably every month, you will probably need to rely on organic channels. That means visitors continuously find your site after searching Google. And, you want to make sure that you reach a new audience each month. Although it feels great to have visitors that continuously come back to your site… you probably need to reach new visitors if you want to increase sales, rather than please people that are already familiar with your brand.
How To Use It: The top two charts will show if you are successfully reaching a new audience. You may want to measure your success in the chart on the right, new users from organic channels.
The tables on the bottom show the actual pages that are driving traffic. Hopefully, you have a few high-ranking pages that deliver new users every month without any work on your end.
Questions it Can Answer:
- Which pages deliver a new audience?
- Do organic visitors enjoy my content after they reach a page?
- Which pages give me opportunity to create more conversions?
Key Metrics:
- Organic sessions
- Organic New Users
- Organic Audience Overview
- Organic New Users by Device
- Landing Pages by Organic Sessions
- Landing Pages by Organic Users
Mobile v. Desktop Traffic Quality
Author: OverGo Studio
Problem it Solves: It is probably reasonable to expect that mobile users will spend less time on your site than desktop or tablet user. But do you know how big of a gap there is? In other words, if you just look at overall metrics like “Time on Page”, you won’t be able to tell if one particular type of device is performing poorly. You could have an excellent desktop experience, but have absolutely no chance of gathering leads from mobile. This dashboard will show you if your responsive or adaptive designs are engaging visitors.
How To Use It: The pie chart in the top right will tell you how your visitors prefer to access your website. IF you have a small fraction of mobile users, it could mean one of two things:
- Your visitors tend to use desktop
- You have a bad mobile experience, so Google will not give your pages a high ranking for mobile searchers
The 4 tables on the bottom show behavioral metrics. They will show the range of experiences across devices. And, when you combine this data with the sessions totals from the pie chart in the top right, you will see where to prioritize your time. If one particular device has a large share of sessions but poor performance on behavioral metrics, you should start there.
Questions This Can Answer:
- How long do new users spend on your site?
- Does new traffic comes from mobile or desktop?
- Does the first-time user experience grab the visitor’s attention?
Key Metrics
- Bounce Rate by Device Type
- Pages per Session by Device Type
- Sessions by Device
- % New Sessions by Device Type
Landing Page and Lead Tracking Metrics
Author: Stream Creative
Problem it Solves: You might think that landing pages have just one goal: to get someone to fill out your form or book a demo. While that may be true, there are actually a series of metrics that will help you pinpoint opportunities for improvement. For example, if the bounce rate on the page is high, most visitors may not be considering the form. They are leaving before that point. Also, not all landing pages are equally valuable. Some collect much more organic traffic over time.
How To Use It: Use the table on the right to first determine which landing pages are generating the most traffic. Then, check the behavioral metrics in the bottom left to make sure those pages are getting engagement from those visitors. Finally, look at the “goal conversion rate” gauge at the bottom to see if visitors are actually converting.
Questions It Can Answer:
- Where is my traffic coming from?
- How many pages are visitors viewing on the website?
- How does landing page traffic compare to other website pages?
Key Metrics:
- Landing Page Views
- Sessions by Source
- Goal Completions
- Visitor-Contact Ratio
- Avg. Session Duration
- Bounce Rate
- Top Pages by Pageviews
Organic v. Direct Traffic Dashboard
Author: SmartBug Media
Problem It Solves: Direct traffic is the “kitchen sink” of traffic sources. In other words, it is made up of many types of traffic that cannot be properly categorized by Google. Ideally, it would just include people that are directly typing your URL into their browser. But, in reality, it could come from many sources. You need to analyze it separately from the organic channel to make sure that it is high quality.
How To Use It: Use the two tables to check your traffic to individual landing pages. If a specific landing page has a lot of direct traffic, you may want to check its conversion rate using Google Analytics or HubSpot.
Let’s say that one of your top landing pages seems to have a high percentage of direct traffic. After you check the conversion rate, you may find one of two things:
- The conversion rate is high because a lot of that direct traffic is actually uncategorized organic traffic
- The conversion rate is low because the direct traffic is coming from mobile browsers that cannot be categorized or your existing customers
Full article on how to use this dashboard
HubSpot Reports
Although many marketers enjoy HubSpot’s full funnel tracking, these templates strictly focus on top of the funnel. Many of them combine with Google Analytics data to investigate:
- Where visitors come from
- How they engage with your site
- Which pages generate the most leads and subscribers
Marketing Overview- HubSpot and Google Analytics
Author: Kuno Creative
Problem It Solves: Let’s say that you get plenty of traffic from your site. Or, at least enough to keep you satisified. But, you aren’t sure whether you are getting enough leads. In other words, you conversion rate isn’t high enough.
This dashboard will show whether lead conversions and traffic are moving at the same pace. Let’s say that you increase traffic by 10% in a month. Would you also expect leads to rise by 10%? That’s a tough question, because it depends whether the traffic went to top of funnel, mid-funnel or bottom-of-funnel pages. But you can start the investigation here.
How To Use It: Use the charts on the left side to see the trends in contacts and sessions. You should see some correlation between the two, even if leads do not rise at the same pace as sessions.
Use the table in the middle to see the full funnel, from sessions to sales. If there is one conversion point that seems to be too low, you will be able to find it before it clogs up your funnel for weeks or months.
Questions it Can Answer:
- How many people are seeing your ads?
- How many clicks are you getting to your site?
- How many leads are you collecting from landing pages?
Key Metrics:
- Monthly Visits
- Monthly Contacts Created
- Email Opens/Clicks
- Blog Post Views
- Landing Page Submissions
HubSpot Marketing- High Level Metrics
Author: Square 2 Marketing
Problem it Solves: You are probably running initiatives across at least 4 digital marketing channels- social, email, organic, direct, paid etc.
But, your total number of leads for the month will not give you any clues about which channel is most profitable. You don’t want to spread your time evenly across all channels.
How To Use It: Ultimately, you want your website to generate leads. But, you also need to have an understanding of which channels are scalable so that you can use your limited amount of time as wisely as possible.
The graphs and charts on the right side of the screen- sessions by source, leads by source and conversion rate by source- will show which channels have been most responsible for your total lead count, which is on the left side of the screen. It’s up to you, to figure out which ones will scale up! It will depend on your brand and market trends.
Questions It Can Answer:
- Where are your visits coming from?
- Which sources aren’t converting visits to leads?
- Which channels can you focus on to turn more visits to leads?
Key Metrics:
- Website Visitors
- Leads Generated
- Visits by Source
- Leads by Source
- Conversion Rate by Source
The Value Journey Canvas (Attract)
Author: IMPACT
Problem It Solves: IMPACT used to have a huge marketing scorecard that they used to track all sorts of marketing metrics. But, in early 2017, they took a step back and asked, “Do all these metrics REALLY matter?”. You can’t possibly investigate and improve 10 metrics at once. After this investigation, they realized that they needed a “Value Journey Canvas”. This is a set of metrics that tell a complete story about their marketing initiatives. The Attract dashboard is the first of three parts.
How To Use It: This part is mainly focused on blog performance, which should be the main driver of organic traffic. In the top left chart, you can compare your organic channel against all other channels to see if they are growing at the same pace.
In the third column, you can see how many email subscribers you have been collecting. And in the fourth and final column, you can see which blogs have the most popular offers.
Questions It Can Answer:
- How are your marketing and sales efforts measuring up?
- Where are your visitors coming from?
- When are your blog posts generating the most activity?
Key Metrics:
- Visits by Source
- Organic Traffic vs. Goal
- Device Type Breakdown
- Blog Views
- Blog Subscribers
- Top Blog Posts by CTR
- Subscribers by Day
HubSpot Marketing Free Essentials
Author: ClosedWon
Problem it Solves: Although limited in features, HubSpot Free does allow you to track your full inbound funnel, and provides plenty of tools that your previously needed to cobble together among MailChimp, Google Analytics and other services. If you feel like your marketing data is all over the place, and you don’t have a great way to measure the ROI of your website, this dashboard will help you get organized.
How To Use It: Each of the four columns tracks a stage of the inbound funnel- Sessions, Contacts, Deals and Customers. Each stage is separated by source. This will help you discover which channel is actually creating qulaity prospects, not just volume. And, you can see your improvement from the previous month.
Questions it Can Answer:
- How many people visited the website from different sources?
- How many people are actively engaged in the sales process?
- How many new customers came on board this period, and where did they originally come from?
Key Metrics:
- Number of Visits
- New Contacts
- New People in Opportunities/Deals
- New Customers
Facebook Ads and Adwords Reports
If you are a heavy user of social or PPC ads, you can track your overall metrics here. These templates give you an account-level or campaign-level overview of your ad spend.
Facebook Ads/AdWords Overview Dashboard
Author: Alaniz Marketing
Problem It Solves: If you are a paid ads pro, you probably have experience with both social and PPC ads. The Facebook Ads and AdWords interfaces are notoriously… difficult. That means that if you want to get even basic data, you need to click into multiple screens, select multiple dropdowns… you get the idea.
This dashboard will give a high-level overview that you can check every day, so you can make sure you are not wasting money on the wrong ads.
How To Use It: This one covers pretty much all the high-level social and PPC ad metrics, so it is meant for a person who relies on clicks from those services to hit their monthly goal.
The two tables in the middle give a little more insight. The “Campaigns Overview” shows which campaigns are being shown most often on Facebook. The “Keywords Overview” shows which keywords have generated the highest click-through rates.
Questions it Can Answer:
- Where should you be spending more money? Which source has a lower cost per click?
- Are your campaigns succeeding in bringing people to your site?
Key Metrics:
- Facebook Impressions, Amount Spent, Cost per Click, CTR, Link Clicks
- Facebook Campaigns Overview
- Google Adwords Keyword Overview, Basic Overview, Total Spend, Cost/ Conversion
- New Web Visitors, Total Website Sessions
AdWords Competitive Health Template
Author: Revenue River
Problem It Solves: Google is constantly trying to decide which ads will be served first. This is determined not only by your automatic bid for a placement, but also the quality of the ad itself. If you create an ad that is earning a high clickthrough rate, Google can give you a higher position. This becomes even more important for competitive keywords. A high-quality ad could determine whether your ads are more visible than your competitors.
How To Use It: This dashboard does a great job of giving you an overview of your whole AdWords account. But there are two specific charts that will give you an idea as to whether you are outcompeting similar companies.
The “Average Position” and “Clickthrough Rate” charts will reveal your ad quality. If you are seeing a high clickthrough rate, you should see a corresponding bump in position.
Questions It Can Answer:
- Are competitors aggressively bidding up CPCs?
- Are competitors displacing your ads?
- How do campaign quality and conversion metrics change based on actions of competitors?
Key Metrics:
- Cost, Clicks, Impressions
- Avg. CPC, Avg. Position, CTR
- Conversions, Cost/ Conversion
- Total Conversion Value
Search Console Reports
If you are serious about growing organic traffic, you are hopefully tracking Search Console data! It’s free, and gives you data directly from Google itself. You don’t need to use a separate SEO tool to estimate your performance.
Search Console Overview Dashboard
Author: Pepperland Marketing
Problem It Solves: It is fair to expect that 20% of the pages on your site will generate 80% of organic traffic. Use that information to grow your organic traffic more quickly. Id you have a high performing page, spend a little time to earn a backlink to it, or create another internal link. Or, you can refresh the content. Regardless, that small activity will likely have a greater impact than building a whole new page. This dashboard will show you those high-performing pages.
How To Use It: Check out the two columns on the right side of the screen. These are called “Queries by Clicks” and “Pages by Clicks”. The Queries table should show the major keywords that are generating traffic. You should dig further to see if you rank 1st, in the top 3, or in the top 10. After that, you will be able to tell if there is room for improvement.
Individual pages might rank for many long-tail keywords, so they will not align directly with your top keywords. But, if a page ranks highly, you might want to add another section and refresh the content to see if you can rank for even more keywords. You can use the main Search Console interface to dig into this.
Questions it Can Answer:
- Is your content helping you reach new prospects through Google Search?
Key Metrics:
- Clicks by Queries, Pages by Clicks
- Impressions, Clicks, CTR
- Position, Crawl Errors
Other
All of our most popular templates are related to free tools, since those services attract a larger audience compared to paid tools.
But, if you are an experienced marketer, you are probably using a few tools outside of the 5 listed above. Some examples might include:
- MailChimp
- CallRail
- ActiveCampaign
- Twitter Ads
- SEMrush
We also have templates for those data sources, along with 40 others, in our Template Gallery.Those can at least provide a starting point for your own reporting, although they may not have a full explanation like the templates above.
Build A Complete Marketing Report
These report templates may give you some ideas on how to measure your work, but you still need to create an internal system to make sure that team members are taking action based on data… not just checking it.
At Databox, we have 10 goals across all departments- marketing, sales, product and customer support. We track them in a Carousel, like this:
At a monthly meeting, each team member will show the report that they have been tracking throughout the month. Since each metric also has a monthly goal attached to it, team members can share they actions they took over the course of the month to hit the goal, and what they might do differently the next month.
You can learn more about setting goals for your marketing team here. Dashboards can easily overwhelm your boss or client with all the metrics, colors and charts. That is why it is important to choose a small number of metrics that will determine success each month. After you create monthly goals for each metric, you will have a clear story to tell in the monthly presentation.
