How to Keep Tabs on WordPress Marketing Campaigns

WordPress
1

Having trouble monitoring your marketing campaigns in WordPress? You’re not the only one.

Many find it challenging to gauge their website’s performance, especially those just starting out. As a business owner, managing a website is just one of the many responsibilities on your plate.

Consequently, crucial tasks like monitoring marketing campaigns can easily be overlooked, leading to disappointing results that hinder future growth.

Many new website owners concentrate on the user-facing aspects and neglect essential behind-the-scenes tasks.

Everyone desires an appealing site with outstanding content, and there is nothing wrong with that desire.

But do you understand what users do when they visit your site? How do they interact with your content? Do you know their origin or the content they truly desire?

Does your site provide a great user experience? Are you wondering why some users leave without making a purchase? Or are you simply trying various strategies in the hope that something will be effective?

Tracking your marketing campaigns will provide insights into user engagement, content preferences, and the overall user experience.

This post will guide you on how to effectively track your WordPress marketing campaigns. It also shares some useful analytics plugins and tools to assist you.

Table of Contents

Why should you track your marketing campaigns for WordPress?

Many newcomers create a website and simply hope for the best. Most depend on intuition for decision-making, which often leads to unfavorable outcomes.

Tracking your marketing campaigns is vital for small businesses aiming to make decisions based on data.

Relying solely on intuition can lead to frustrating results, wasted time, and money. It can be disheartening when your marketing efforts fail to produce the desired results.

Here are several benefits of tracking your WordPress marketing campaigns.

Measuring the impact of your marketing efforts

There are various types of digital marketing that involve different strategies and approaches.

While you don’t have to use every marketing strategy to succeed, using several can significantly boost your marketing efforts.

However, executing multiple marketing campaigns without measuring their results would be risky.

Whether it’s SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, PPC, affiliate marketing, TV ads, or any other marketing method, it’s crucial to determine which strategies are effective for your business.

Tracking your WordPress marketing campaigns provides real data that allows you to assess the success of your tactics.

Refining Marketing Campaigns

How can you improve something you don’t measure?

Marketing primarily involves testing and refining strategies. If something doesn’t work for your business, discard it and try something else.

For example, if one page on your site converts five times more visitors into customers than another page, you should improve the second page or remove it.

You can also continue using successful strategies or scale them up for better results.

But how can you identify what’s effective if you’re not tracking your campaigns and conversions?

The data you collect from tracking campaigns helps you improve current and future campaigns.

Make better use of your marketing budget

Marketing your business costs money. Whether paying for advertising, content marketing, UX designers, or influencers, you will incur expenses.

Therefore, you can’t afford to waste money on unproductive marketing campaigns, regardless of your budget size.

Tracking your marketing campaigns helps you identify what’s effective and what’s draining your resources.

The goal is to invest your marketing budget in campaigns that generate a high return on investment (ROI).

Are you spending more than you’re earning back? If you’re earning more than your investment, you’re doing well.

If not, it’s time to review your analytics reports and determine where your business is losing money.

Better Understand Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is essential for any WordPress entrepreneur. If you miss your target audience, you’ll miss every other objective.

“If you want a yellow Lamborghini Aventador, you won’t bother looking at ads selling a red Toyota Prius, now would you? It doesn’t matter how good the pitch is, right?”

Cozmoslabs

If you haven’t yet defined your target market, take the time to learn how to identify a target audience.

Tracking marketing campaigns lets you gather extensive data about your audience.

This data helps you determine who they are, where they come from, their needs, how they use your site, and why they abandon carts.

Additionally, you can identify purchasers, repeat customers, click locations, bounce rates, and the lifetime value of each customer.

This data enables you to personalize user experiences and provide visitors with what they need.

Generate Actionable Reports for Stakeholders

Consider a scenario where you’re working with team members from different departments.

For smooth workflows, all departments must collaborate, which requires comprehensive data.

Tracking marketing campaigns can reveal numerous opportunities for various departments, including sales, tech, product development, customer service, and executive teams.

For instance, tracking data can reveal accessibility issues with your website or product.

Perhaps many engaged users leave a particular webpage because it’s not mobile-friendly.

Or maybe users can’t complete a form due to errors or accessibility issues. Users might also struggle to reach support or complete purchases.

Analyzing this data can help you identify and resolve such issues early on.

These are just a few reasons why you should track your WordPress marketing campaigns.

Let’s continue.

Marketing Metrics You Should Track

Now that you understand the importance of tracking marketing campaigns for WordPress, let’s examine what you should measure.

There are numerous marketing metrics you can track. The metrics you choose will depend on your specific business goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).

1. Traffic

The first key metric to track is traffic. Without traffic, your WordPress site is essentially inactive. You need visitors to market to.

Traffic refers to the number of people who visit your website or other online properties. There are different types of traffic to track:

  • Direct: Visitors who enter your website’s domain directly into the browser.
  • Organic search: Visitors who find your website through unpaid search results on search engines like Google.
  • Referral: Visitors who arrive at your website through links on other websites.
  • Social referrals: Traffic from social media platforms.
  • Paid search: Visitors who click on paid advertisements on search engines.
  • Email: Visitors who click links in your email newsletters.

2. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your site.

For example, if you want visitors to fill out a form, and 100 people visit your site, a conversion rate of 5% means five people completed the form.

Examples of conversions include:

  • Form submissions
  • Newsletter signups
  • Event registrations
  • Content downloads
  • Trial signups
  • Purchases
  • Link clicks

Attracting a lot of traffic to your website is meaningless if nobody converts.

3. Revenue

Revenue is crucial for any WordPress business, making it a key marketing metric to track.

If many people visit your website but leave without making a purchase, you’re likely wasting resources on ineffective marketing campaigns.

High traffic volume is insignificant if you’re not converting visitors into customers.

4. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a single page of your site and leave without interacting with it or visiting any other page.

A high bounce rate often suggests a problem with your website or the landing page.

In many cases, high bounce rates stem from usability and user experience issues.

5. Chatbot Analytics

Chatbots are increasingly popular, and businesses use them to provide 24/7 customer service, improving user engagement and retention without straining the support team.

Metrics to measure include:

  • User retention.
  • Chat handoff.
  • Average conversation length.
  • Missed messages.
  • Total number of conversations.
  • Human takeover rate.

Chatbot analytics is the conversational data generated when your chatbot interacts with customers.

6. Device Type

Device Type data displays the devices visitors use to access your site during a specified period. This data typically includes:

  • Device types such as Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows
  • Number and percentage of visitors per device type

These stats are essential for optimizing your site’s performance on different devices.

7. Page Views

The page views metric represents the number of times a visitor views a specific page on your website.

Each time a user loads the page, your analytics software records a page view. If a visitor reloads the page, it counts as two page views.

Popular pages usually have high page view counts.

8. Top Pages

Top Pages data shows the most popular pages on your website, which typically have high traffic and page view counts.

The top pages metric shows you the pages with the greatest impact on your website.

This information can help you improve underperforming pages and inform your marketing campaigns.

9. Average Time on Page

The Average Time on Page metric indicates the average duration visitors spend on a specific page.

This data can help determine if your content is engaging. Longer times indicate greater interest, while shorter times suggest the need for page improvements.

10. Pages Per Session

Pages per session is the number of pages a visitor views per session on your website.

You want visitors to find more of your content, so a high Pages Per Session is a positive sign.

Encourage visitors to explore more pages through internal linking and effective Calls To Action (CTAs).

11. Average Session Duration

This metric measures the average time a visitor spends on your website, regardless of whether they view a single page or interact with multiple elements.

A high average session duration is desirable, as low durations suggest that visitors spend less time on your site, indicating the need for improvements.

12. Exit Rate

You can’t expect visitors to remain on your site indefinitely, so visitors will exit your site on various pages.

The exit rate metric is the percentage of visitors who leave your website from a specific page. Every website has an exit rate, but a high exit rate on a specific page may indicate issues with that page.

13. Keyword Ranking

Keywords are the foundation of search engine optimization. People use keywords to find information on search engines.

It’s vital to identify the keywords that visitors use to find your website through keyword research.

14. Email Marketing Metrics

Email marketing is an effective way to reach your target audience and tracking email metrics is crucial. Metrics include:

  • Number of email subscribers.
  • Open rate.
  • Click-through rate.
  • Unsubscribe rate.
  • Email traffic.

Most email marketing platforms offer detailed and easy-to-track insights and stats, which you can use to grow your email list and optimize campaigns.

15. Facebook Remarketing Metrics

Remarketing involves displaying ads to people who have previously visited your website.

Facebook allows you to install a tracking pixel on your website to show targeted ads to visitors, and this is known as a Facebook Remarketing Campaign.

The metrics above represent a short list to cover most tracking scenarios.

Now, let’s explore how to track marketing campaigns in WordPress.

Tracking Marketing Campaigns in WordPress

There are several ways to track marketing campaigns in WordPress. One of the most effective methods involves using WordPress analytics plugins, which can provide in-depth insights directly from your WordPress dashboard. Another method is to use Google Analytics. Let’s see how to use Google Analytics first.

Undoubtedly, Google Analytics is a leading analytics tool trusted by numerous websites.

The platform provides all the necessary tools to track various marketing metrics, including:

  • Traffic and traffic sources.
  • Bounce rate.
  • Conversion rate.
  • Average session duration.
  • Search queries.
  • User location.

Google Analytics presents this data in user-friendly dashboards and reports, allowing you to segment data and filter specific metrics.

Here’s how to use Google Analytics to track campaigns in WordPress.

Step 1: Sign in to your Google Analytics account or create one if you don’t have one already.

Step 2: Add your website to Google Analytics.

Step 3: Get your tracking code from Google Analytics.

Step 4: Add the Google Analytics tracking code to your website.

Step 5: Set up goals to track conversions in Google Analytics.

While Google Analytics is a great service, it has a learning curve, and you never own your tracking data. To address these issues, you can use WordPress analytics plugins and other tools that offer more control and ease of use.

WordPress Analytics Plugins & Tools

The plugins and tools below help you track your marketing in two primary ways.

Some tools facilitate easy integration with Google Analytics, enabling you to track data without complex technical configurations.

Other plugins provide analytics directly within the WordPress dashboard, independent of Google Analytics.

Choose a plugin that aligns with your specific goals. Let’s explore some options.

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is an effortless plugin for adding Google Analytics to your WordPress site. Simply add your Google Analytics code and start tracking your traffic.

Notable features:

  • Easy Google Analytics setup.
  • Google Analytics dashboard with real-time stats.
  • Ecommerce tracking.
  • GDPR compliant.
  • AMP support.
  • Affiliate link tracking.
  • Custom dimensions and events tracking.

Matomo Analytics

Matomo Analytics gives you complete control over your analytics data by letting you save web analytics to your servers.

Notable features:

  • Intuitive dashboard.
  • Campaign tracking.
  • Visitor profiles.
  • Ecommerce analytics.
  • Segmentation.

Independent Analytics

Independent Analytics is a lightweight analytics plugin that offers a superb alternative to Google Analytics, and you have complete control over your analytics data.

Notable features:

  • Customizable analytics dashboard in your WP admin.
  • Traffic sources.
  • Geo-data with interactive world map.
  • GDPR compliant.
  • Virtually zero performance impact on your servers.

Slimstat Analytics

Slimstat Analytics is a free WordPress analytics plugin that helps you get reliable answers about your website while protecting user privacy.

It’s the perfect tool to track registered users and returning customers, and you don’t have to create an account on another website.

Notable features:

  • Analyze email campaigns
  • Detect intrusions
  • Monitor Javascript events
  • Geolocation with world map
  • GDPR compliant

The plugin is entirely free.

Campaign Tracker for WordPress

Campaign Tracker for WordPress is a premium analytics plugin with helpful features for understanding your campaigns, and it’s ideal if you want a simple tool to track WooCommerce sales and form submissions.

Notable features:

  • Support for Google campaign URL variables
  • User journey tracking
  • Support for additional custom campaign variables
  • Track and store the Facebook click ID
  • Support for leading WordPress form plugins

Campaign Tracker for WordPress is a premium plugin without a free version.

Tracking marketing campaigns for WordPress doesn’t have to be complicated, and as long as you know the metrics to follow, you should have an easy time measuring your results. Besides, you have many analytics tools to handle the heavy lifting, and the services usually come with guides that show you what to do if you’re stuck.