Cracking the Code: How Smart Marketing Agencies Track KPIs and Stay Sane
Running a marketing agency comes with its own roller coasters, even if you have your lead generation strategy and sales pipeline locked down – the stomach-dropping lows when a campaign doesn’t go as planned. It also comes with the pressure of keeping up with all the trends – new social media features, AI to name a few.
With all of it, it can be easy to lose sight of the goals we’ve set for ourselves. Goal setting becomes something we talk about at mid-year or end of year planning but in the months in between, we don’t really know if we’re making the progress we want to. We just know if we’re busy and burnt out or hungry for more clients.
This is where staying on top of our KPIs, Key Performance Indicators, becomes crucial to the success of our strategies and goals.
What The Heck Are KPIs Anyway?
KPIs are like the heartbeat monitor of our goals. They are not the beat (or goal) itself, but rather the measurement that helps us understand how well we are doing in relation to our goals. Knowing our KPIs puts our hard work into perspective by giving us a clear picture of how far we’ve come and how far we may still have to go.
Client Data Vs. Our Own
It’s a bit funny how we all struggle to take our own medicine sometimes. It happened to me – a few weeks ago I shared how I failed my team with some organization basics and processes…which is my area of expertise! I’ve met countless marketing agency owners that are pros at staying on top of metrics for their clients but really struggle to track and analyze data for themselves. You have to turn a spotlight on your own performance to honestly evaluate where you’re falling short and what areas of your business need more attention.
KPIs Every Agency Owner Should Know
I’m not going to school you on the marketing metrics you’re already an expert in. You know how to measure effectiveness on your latest campaign or your site’s SEO. But there are other crucial metrics you need to be tracking beyond conversion rates or acquisition costs. For example:
Close Rates
Revenue Growth & Profit Margins
Team Productivity
Operational Efficiency
Client Retention
Employee Satisfaction
Other KPIs might be specific to your goals or to the areas of improvement you’ve identified in your processes.
Making Data Fun (Yes, It’s Possible!)
Data doesn’t need to be dull. What’s dull is looking at a spreadsheet and trying to analyze it during a meeting in order to make a big decision. Consider tracking your KPIs on a project management board like Monday.com in order to make easy-to-understand, visually appealing reports. Even if your individual systems – like your CRM, social media scheduler, and accounting tool – track the data you need, bringing it to one central system allows you to create reports to show correlation between your efforts.
Sending the reports out prior to a meeting helps people digest the information and be ready for decision-making conversations during the meeting. You can also up the fun with KPIs by making them a team effort. Celebrate even the small wins to build buy-in from your employees.
Real Talk: Why You Need an Administrative Wingman
The one thing business owners and your high-level managers don’t need to get bogged down with is the data entry needed to make decisions. If you don’t have a project coordinator or office manager with the capacity to take this on, consider a part-time virtual assistant. They can handle the heavy lifting of tracking down the data points and creating visual reports so your KPIs are always up to date.
Cheers to Your Agency’s Success!
Consider this your official invite to try out project management boards like Monday.com – your golden ticket to efficiency and success – and to get your KPIs, goals, and team in check to conquer 2024. Every step you take toward understanding and improving your performance metrics, is a step toward the growth and success of your agency. So, here’s to your success!