As a SaaS marketer, it’s crucial you closely monitor your metrics. There are SO MANY metrics to look at, which ones should you select to review most? Which SaaS marketing metrics tell you if you’re doing a good job?
Below are 5 important SaaS marketing metrics to start with to keep a pulse on what’s working and what’s not.
Lead growth
One metric you’re likely working towards week in and week out, is filling the top of your funnel with quality leads. A SaaS “lead” is often a free trial or demo. These are potential users who express initial interest in your product.
When tracking your overall lead volume, pay close attention to how this data trends. It’s a good idea to track and review your week-over-week and month-over-month trends. This data will tell you which marketing activities are doing a good job of getting prospects into your funnel. Attracting the right visitors and converting to leads costs you either time, money, or both, so be sure you’re using this trend data to spot what’s working and what’s not.
Cost-per-lead
Lead generation is the fuel that keeps the machine going. There are so many different ways to generate SaaS leads, but it’s important to monitor how much you’re paying for them.
Tracking paid advertising campaigns such as Google AdWords can be pretty easy, but be sure to track time cost as well. Activities such as content marketing can be a little trickier to track cost-per-lead, but it’s crucial to monitor to ensure you’re spending budget in the right places.
Lead to customer conversion rate
Of the leads/trials/demos you generated, what percentage of those converted into paying customers?
This data will tell you:
- Lead quality - Sometimes certain channels are good at getting folks in your funnel, but they could be mostly tire kickers and not qualified prospects. Also, some channels may have a higher cost-per-lead, but if a high percentage of those leads convert into paying customers, it still could be a great channel to leverage.
- Lead volume - Knowing which channels are good at generating volume can help you scale when you’re ready.
- Basis for optimizations - Learning which channels have higher lead-to-customer conversion rates enable you to spend more time and money in the right places.
Customer Acquisition Cost
Most all marketing departments have a budget to stay within. It’s important to know what it costs to generate a new customer. For examples on how to accurately run these calculations, download our eBook.
Knowing how much it costs to generate a new customer gives you the opportunity to find ways to optimize your campaigns in order to bring this number down. The more customers you can squeeze out of your budget the better! How else can you scale?
Engagement
Don’t stop with top-of-funnel SaaS marketing metrics, monitor and track how engaged your users are. Get strategic here! Figure out what metrics deems a user engaged, and what influences engagement as well.
As a marketer, you can really help by launching and tweaking campaigns to help keep customers engaged. For example, what content would they need to get started with your product and quickly begin seeing value? If they’re not engaged, they won’t stick around for long.
It’s a good idea to build some sort of dashboard or custom report that enables you to view these metrics quickly, easily and in one place. You’re stretched for time, so don’t waste time chasing these numbers down every week. Building a custom report/dashboard will take you extra time initially, but will save you hours in the future.
Monitoring your SaaS marketing metrics is only worthwhile if it prompts action. After reviewing your metrics, let the data tell you where to optimize. Optimizing based on data is what will help you market smarter and more effectively.
For more important SaaS marketing metrics and KPI’s, download our eBook.
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