The digital marketing world is on the verge of the next big shift in analytics. Data collection methods are evolving, as are user search behaviours, and your tried and tested KPIs may no longer capture the full picture.

In this article, we explore how analytics change over time and detail the developments responsible for the latest reshuffle in metric priorities.

How metrics evolve over time

Analytics for marketing are constantly evolving, and every so often, developments change the way we define success.

These developments can be related to industry updates, such as changes in search engine algorithms; to marketer demand; or both.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

Traffic vs. engaged traffic

Only a few years ago, traffic was considered an essential metric for measuring website performance, yet all it reveals is that people are arriving at your website. Traffic doesn’t tell you anything about how users are actually engaging with your website - or if they’re engaging at all.

Around this time, search engine algorithms were updated to factor user intent and satisfaction into their quality assessment criteria. This meant that websites with higher levels of user engagement were often rewarded with better search visibility.

From this grew the need for more granular metrics capable of measuring and optimising for user engagement.

Then ‘engaged traffic’ arrived on the scene and became the priority metric, showing the amount of visitors that were actually interacting with your website interface.

This metric gives you a much deeper understanding of how your website is performing.

Event tracking vs. conversion tracking

Event tracking, used to monitor all user interactions across a webpage or site, followed a similar trajectory. While it’s a great way to better understand user behaviour, it doesn’t necessarily indicate whether interactions are translating to business outcomes.

Over time, demand grew for a more accountable and attributable approach to marketing. When tracking technology progressed, a solution was presented in the form of conversion tracking.

Conversion tracking allows you to track user actions that align with specific business goals, giving you a clear picture of user behaviour as it relates to your bottom line.

Why is now the right time to evaluate KPIs?

As shown above, this is by no means the first time analytics has had to pivot to accommodate the shifting dynamics of digital. However, the significance of the following factors necessitates an unusually thorough rethink of how progress is measured.

GA4

With Universal Analytics long gone, its successor, Google Analytics 4, is now used for monitoring website and campaign performance - but ‘successor’ doesn’t always mean ‘superior’.

GA4 has its uses, but riddled as it is with privacy-centric limitations and strange, glitchy behaviours, it cannot provide the depth nor accuracy of insight offered by Universal Analytics.

From rampant sampling to unhelpful data modelling and thresholding, the restrictions of GA4 are making it increasingly difficult to track many of the metrics you may be familiar with, and it doesn’t look like things will get any better in this regard.

Rather than spending resources in an uphill battle to sufficiently track generic SEO metrics that have little to no real impact on your core goals, at TDMP, we want to hone in on those that do - and find cutting-edge methods of measuring them with precision.

Cookieless tracking

Despite Google deciding not to deprecate third-party cookies, given the clear choice, many users will likely choose to block cross site tracking. This means that there will still be gaps in data that cookieless tracking, in it's current state, cannot sufficiently fill.

For those who don’t know, cookies are little bits of tracking code assigned to users when they visit a website. There are two types:

1. First-party cookies - are assigned by the website the user is on. They’re used primarily to improve the user experience of the website in question.
2. Third-party cookies - are assigned by domains outside the website the user is visiting. Their purpose is to gradually create a profile of user behaviour across multiple websites, enabling targeted advertising and advanced analytics.

Analytics tool providers are scrambling to reimagine measurement for effective marketing. It’s much harder to do using first-party cookies. And, in some cases, it’s simply no longer possible to accurately measure certain metrics.

Again, this means a rethink of KPIs is needed in order to maintain the potency of measurement moving forward.

AI Search

It’s not always developments so closely linked to tracking that alter the course of analytics. Sometimes, broader changes within the digital ecosystem can indirectly influence analytics from afar — and AI search stands to do just that.

With Google’s AI Overviews set for UK release any day now, it’s important to acknowledge how generative search assistants will impact search behaviour, and by extension, how we measure user engagement and interaction with content. 

Traditional metrics like click-through rates and bounce rates may become less relevant as users receive more direct answers to their queries from AI. Instead, new metrics will emerge to gauge the effectiveness of AI responses and the quality of user satisfaction. 

This shift will require a rethink of how we collect, analyse, and interpret data to accurately capture the nuances of AI-driven search interactions.

The risk of outdated KPIs

As user behaviour, data collection methods, and technology continue to advance, relying on metrics that no longer capture the full spectrum of your audience’s interactions can lead to a skewed understanding of your campaign's performance.

This stagnation can prevent you from identifying emerging trends, adapting to new opportunities, and ultimately, achieving your marketing goals.

Without regularly re-evaluating and updating your KPIs, you risk falling behind competitors who are more agile in their approach to analytics.

Revising measurement priorities: TDMP can help

At its core, selecting the right KPIs for your campaign is about deciding what truly matters to your business within the context of the current digital landscape — that’s the easy part. Reverse engineering these priorities in order to find the most relevant metrics is more challenging, but TDMP is here to help.

Analytics is the cornerstone of each and every one of our services, and we take pride in our ability to tailor KPIs to individual campaigns. We have adopted a multipronged approach to marketing attribution, using a combination of state-of-the-art measurement tools to capture the most accurate and meaningful data. This ensures that all our clients receive bespoke insights that clearly illustrate progress towards business goals.

Contact TDMP today for assistance in refining your KPIs and developing a measurement strategy that aligns with the latest digital marketing trends and technologies.