What Can You Learn From Lead Nurturing Metrics?

As much as marketing sometimes seems like an ancient art, it is also a science. Decisions should be based, whenever possible, on data and actual results from past campaigns.

By using closed loop marketing you can trace a world of metrics and use them to foster continuous improvement in your marketing efforts, including the effectiveness of lead nurturing emails and campaigns.

Nearly all of your marketing metrics have a lesson to teach that can improve your results. Learn how in our ebook, Unlock Your Marketing ROI with Analytics.

Two metrics to start with when examining the ROI of your lead nurturing efforts are click-through rates and conversion rates. Let’s look at what they can tell you.

Click-Through Rates for Lead Nurturing Emails

CTRs—or click-through rates—are a commonly-tracked metric for any number of marketing channels or tools, from social media posts to paid search and blog post calls-to-action. But the CTR we are focusing on now refers to the portion of your lead nurturing email recipients who click on a link in those messages.

For example, how many of the website visitors who converted into leads on an offer to download a case study then clicked on the link to a webinar that was included in the automated lead nurturing email triggered by their original conversion.

If few of your leads click on the subsequent offer, it could be a sign that you aren’t closely linking your next offer in the sales funnel to the original download. Take time to consider all of the reasons why a prospect might download your original offer: Could there be needs that you haven’t considered which you could address by changing the secondary offer?

It is essential when planning a lead nurturing workflow that you keep secondary offers tightly linked to the original offer so that you are offering relevant information and tools to your leads. Don’t get off track.

Conversion Rates for Lead Nurturing Emails

Now, how many of those who clicked on the link in the lead nurturing email completed the desired action? That is the conversion rate.

Conversion—completing the desired action, usually completing a landing page form, once on the targeted page—can be influenced by a wide range of factors:

• Do the offer and landing page reflect what is promoted in the CTA? (See Point #5 here.)

• Is the landing page text, images or video optimized to highlight benefits? (More tips.)

• Have you made it easy for leads to convert with short or pre-filled form fields. (See more here.)

If your lead nurturing emails are generating a high CTR, but conversion is lagging, examine the points I mentioned, change one thing you think could be hampering performance, and then perform an A/B test to see if conversion improves with a small modification.

Of course, CTR and conversion rates aren’t the only metrics to track to improve your lead nurturing. You will also want to track and analyze time to customer conversion and cost per customer (one of the 6 Marketing Metrics Your Boss Actually Cares About).

Our free ebook, Unlock the ROI of Your Marketing with Analytics, goes into more detail about using each of these metrics, plus two dozen more. Start putting all of the information you are gathering to work beyond the quarterly report.