• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 13, 2022

Brands spent an average of $7,296 last year to track their KPIs. But only 41% of marketers were very confident they accurately calculated them, according to “Do You Know Your KPIS,” a recent study by analytics platform Unsupervised. 

Part of the problem may be lack of training: 68% taught themselves how to track their KPIs.  

And maybe they should look at them more often: 38% track them weekly, 38% monthly and 23% quarterly or less.  

Here’s what they are tracking when they get around to it:

• Social media engagement — 61% 
• Website traffic — 60%
• Site visits — 42% 
• Conversion rate — 42%
• Followers — 39%
• Click-through rate — 39%
• Page views — 38% 
• Leads — 36%
• Returning visitors — 33%
• Return on advertising spend (ROAS) — 28%

Marketers have a different set of benefits: 

• Better goal setting — 49% 
• Improved customer experience/satisfaction — 45% 
• Improved social media presence — 44% 
• Faster weakness identification — 36% 
• Greater understanding of business — 35% 
• Strength identification — 34%
• Increased ability to build on strengths — 31%
• Faster weakness resolution — 27%
• Team motivation/incentivizing — 20% 

Business owners, who are perhaps more interested in strategy, track a different set of KPIs:  

• Revenue — 68% 
• Net income — 59% 
• Expenses — 56%
• Sales growth — 52% 
• Client/customer satisfaction — 48% 
• Website traffic — 41% 
• Social media engagement — 41%
• Return on investment (ROI) — 39%
• Cash flow/operating cash flow —37%
• Budget vs. actual —29%

These are serious concerns, given that 25% of business owners expect their expenses to worsen over the next six months.

Business owners’ schedules are also slightly different from those of marketers: 31% track their KPIs weekly, while 49% do so monthly and 20% do this quarterly or less frequently. As for time spent, 35% spend six or more hours per month on this, while 34% devote from one to three hours, and 16% less than one hour on it. 

How do they track them? They use:

• Spreadsheets — 63% 
• Computer programs — 34% 
• Software — 33% 
• Apps — 31%
• Manual calculations on paper — 27% 

But here are the benefits enjoyed by companies that accurately track their KPIs: 

• Better goal setting — 61% 
• Increased revenue — 53%
• Greater understanding of business — 51% 
• Increased ability to build on strengths — 50% 
• Strength indication — 49%
• Faster weakness identification — 46%
• Improved customer experience/satisfaction — 43%
• Faster weakness resolution — 35% 
• Reduced expenses — 33%
• Improved social media presence — 31%

Unsupervised surveyed 226 marketers and 567 business leaders in the U.S.

The full report can be accessed here.