The 15+ social media KPIs you should be tracking
8min • Sep 6, 2024 • Last updated on Nov 14, 2024
Alexandra Augusti
Strategy & Operations Manager
In the current digital era, social media remains a highly effective channel for acquiring new customers and increasing conversions. As with any marketing strategy, the key goal is to target the right person, at the right time, with the right message. To achieve this, leveraging social media audiences is fundamental for executing successful strategies.
Knowing and tracking KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) is essential to assess the impact of your marketing efforts and adjust your campaigns for optimal success.
This article focuses on the key KPIs you should track to measure your impact on social media, divided into two major categories: awareness and conversions. These indicators allow you to gauge the reach of your posts as well as conversion and engagement rates.
These KPIs will be invaluable for analyzing your campaign performance, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and optimizing your marketing strategy to achieve your goals.
Awareness KPIs
Brand awareness is a fundamental pillar to assess your presence and influence on social media. Social platforms are saturated with brand messages, making it crucial for your company to stand out.
Below, we list the essential KPIs that will serve as a compass for measuring and boosting visibility by analyzing impressions and audience engagement.
Follower Count
A direct reflection of your brand's popularity, your follower count is the primary gauge of your community size on different social platforms. This is the #1 KPI to monitor on your pages! It helps measure audience growth and adjust your strategies accordingly.
The ideal number of followers depends on your industry and company size. Keep an eye on this KPI for your competitors to see how you rank in the market.
However, steady, healthy growth is always a good sign. Thus, you should also track two additional KPIs: the new follower rate and the unfollow rate.
To improve this KPI, focus on creating original, captivating, and audience-relevant content. Don’t hesitate to launch targeted campaigns (such as contests or exclusive offers) to attract new followers.
The follower count should be calculated across all social platforms and per platform. If you notice disparities between accounts, you’ll know which platforms need improvement.
Post Reach
Reach indicates the number of unique individuals who have seen your post on their screen. It’s a critical data point for measuring the true extent of your brand awareness.
Calculation: Typically provided by social platform analytics, it refers to the count of unique users exposed to your post.
Satisfactory values: The quality of this KPI should be considered relative to your total follower count. A reach encompassing 10% to 20% of your audience is considered satisfactory.
Recommendations to improve this KPI: Incorporate relevant keywords, create innovative content, post at optimal times, and encourage interactions to increase shares and comments. Your goal is to reach both existing followers (to engage them more with your brand) and new individuals (who could become your future followers and customers).
Impressions Rate
A key social media metric, impressions rate measures the total number of times your posts appeared in users’ feeds, offering a comprehensive view of your content visibility.
Calculation: This KPI is reported by the social platforms themselves.
Satisfactory values: These vary depending on your posting frequency and audience size. However, the aim is consistent growth and lowering your cost per impression (the next KPI).
Recommendations to improve this KPI: Post regularly, diversify content formats (videos, stories, posts), and optimize for each platform’s algorithm (timing, format, etc.).
Engagement Rate
Engagement rate is a key metric that indicates how much your followers interact with your content. This KPI is critical for assessing the resonance and effectiveness of your posts. For a more in-depth analysis, categorize interactions: likes, comments, shares. This breakdown will help you understand which types of engagement are most common and refine your strategy.
Calculation: (Number of interactions / Post reach) x 100. Interactions include clicks, likes, comments, and shares.
Satisfactory values: The goal is to aim for the highest possible engagement rate that improves over time. While industry standards vary, targeting an engagement rate between 2% and 5% is a good start.
Recommendations to improve this KPI: To boost your engagement rate, create engaging content, ask questions, launch polls, run contests, and actively participate in exchanges with your followers.
CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions)
A financial metric, CPM reflects the cost incurred for every thousand impressions of your ad. It’s essential for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of your social media campaigns.
Calculation: Total campaign cost divided by the number of impressions, multiplied by 1,000.
Satisfactory values: These vary by industry and market, but a lower CPM is always preferable. However, balance it with other conversion and engagement KPIs depending on your marketing goals.
Recommendations to improve this KPI: To reduce CPM, refine your ads with high-quality visuals and targeted messaging, and experiment with different campaign variants. It’s crucial to work efficiently with audience segments to exclude unlikely converters and send strong signals to media platforms.
Conversion KPIs
The main objective of social media campaigns is to drive qualified traffic to your website for conversions.
Different KPIs help assess the direct impact of your social media efforts on your numeric goals.
Generated Traffic
Generated traffic quantifies the number of visitors directed to your website via social media campaigns. It’s a key indicator of the influence your activities have on attracting qualified traffic.
Calculation: Typically measured with analytics tools like Google Analytics, tracking traffic sources and isolating social media traffic. It’s important to monitor traffic by platform and compare it to the overall traffic volume.
Satisfactory values: This depends on your overall traffic and marketing budget allocation, but aim for constant growth in traffic, particularly on high-conversion pages.
Recommendations to improve this KPI: To boost traffic, consistently include redirects in your posts, create high-value content, and refine your ads to encourage clicks.
Be cautious of generating traffic at all costs—ensure the quality of your landing page as well. Analyze the bounce rate for user experience insights, as a high bounce rate might indicate poor content or an unoptimized landing page.
Clicks, CTR, and CPC
Click-through rates (CTR) and Cost Per Click (CPC) play an essential role in measuring the performance of your social media campaigns.
CTR reveals the percentage of people who click on your ad or post after viewing it, while CPC represents the average cost per click. These metrics are crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your traffic and conversion initiatives.
Essential formulas:
CTR: (Number of clicks / Number of impressions) x 100
CPC: Total campaign cost / Number of clicks
Performance goals: Strive for a high CTR and low CPC. While benchmarks vary by industry, aiming for a CTR of 1% to 2% and a favorable CPC compared to industry averages is typically valued.
Strategies to optimize these KPIs: To improve your CTR and lower CPC, use high-quality visuals, engaging formats, and optimize ads for mobile devices.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
CPA highlights the average cost of acquiring a new customer or lead through social media campaigns. It’s a key indicator of your advertising investment efficiency.
Calculation: CPA is calculated by dividing the total campaign cost by the number of conversions. This KPI is often provided in social media performance reports.
Satisfactory values: While this varies by industry and objectives, a lower CPA is ideal, but it should be analyzed in conjunction with other conversion KPIs and return on investment.
Recommendations to improve this KPI: To reduce CPA, optimize ads with targeted messaging, high-quality visuals, and experiment with different ad variations to identify the most effective ones.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
ROAS evaluates the revenue generated for every dollar spent on social media advertising. This metric is crucial for assessing the profitability of your ad spend.
Calculation: ROAS is determined by dividing the revenue generated from a campaign by its total cost, then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.
Satisfactory values: A higher ROAS is always preferred. Industry benchmarks vary, but recommendations generally suggest minimums between 300% and 400%.
Recommendations to improve this KPI: Focus on well-targeted campaigns, use messages and offers that resonate with your audience, and refine your ads to maximize conversion rates.
Cost of Sales (COS)
The COS (Cost of Sales) examines the percentage of revenue allocated to sales costs, including social media ad spend. This indicator is important for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of sales efforts relative to the revenue generated.
Calculation: COS is calculated by dividing sales costs by revenue, then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage. Be aware that sales costs may include actions beyond social media, making this KPI more complex to calculate.
Satisfactory values: A lower COS is always favorable. Standards vary by industry, but a COS under 20% is often considered good.
Recommendations to improve this KPI: To reduce COS, optimize campaigns for higher conversions, use effective sales strategies, and cut unnecessary costs.
Turnover
In the vast world of digital marketing, revenue generated stands as the ultimate measure of your social media campaign success. This key indicator shows the direct monetary value of conversions achieved through your online initiatives.
To calculate revenue, simply add up all the revenue from conversions that can be linked, without a doubt (that's maybe the most complicated part), to your social media campaigns.
Conclusion
In today’s competitive digital landscape, mastering social media KPIs has become essential to accurately measure and improve the performance of your marketing efforts. Whether it’s increasing brand awareness or improving conversions, these key performance indicators are invaluable tools that guide your strategic decisions and drive your results upward.
