7 easy developer marketing metrics that reveal your campaign’s success

Which metrics should you track to measure the impact of your developer marketing campaign? In this article, we look at key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics you should keep in mind in order to determine the success of your marketing strategies, such as:

1. Clickthrough rate

This metric measures the number of clicks you’ve on your ads per number of impressions. A high clickthrough rate (CTR) is important because it means that you understand your target market and what works when engaging devs.

On the other hand, a low figure could mean that you’ve not nailed your target customers just yet (there are many different types of developers, after all) or that you need to tweak your content in order to make it more appealing to developers, for example.

You can find many other marketing metrics in the “Developer marketing 101: the top terms you should be aware of” article.

2. Average time on page

This is another key metric you should consider. It measures the time people spend on a page, whether it’s a blog, a tutorial or guide, or a landing page. While this metric doesn’t take the bounce rate into account, it’s still important to measure because it can tell you:

Whether you’re attracting the right audience,
If your content is right for them,
If you have enough graphics on the page,
Whether you lack calls to action, and more.

There are several ways to increase the average time users spend on your pages, including by optimizing your navigation, adding media (images or video, for example) that breaks up the content, adding internal links, and ensuring a good site speed.

It’s also worth noting that people will spend more time on certain pages when compared to others. For example, if you wrote an article, then you’ll want the average time on page to reflect the fact that people are actually reading it; but, if you have a landing page that directs people to a newsletter or white paper, you should expect shorter average times, as people follow the call to action.

3. Conversion rates

This important metric refers to the percentage of visitors to your site that complete an action – this could be a purchase, a newsletter sign-up, or downloading something, just to mention a few.

Is your site working to attract users? Do you need more calls to action? Is your audience happy with your offerings? Conversion rate metrics can help you to answer these and other key questions.

You’ll want to have a good conversion rate, although this varies depending on your industry. For example, according to Wordstream, for computers and electronics, the average Google ad conversion rate is 3.16%.

But how do you calculate conversion rate? The formula is simple: conversion rate = (number of conversions / total visitors) x 100%. For instance, if you had 6,439 visitors and 157 conversions in the previous month, your conversion rate is 2.4%.

There are also different types of conversion rates to keep in mind, depending on the data you need to measure the success of your marketing strategies. You can focus on how well your website converts traffic from all sources, whether traffic from Google Ads converts, or if any of your keywords should get more budget for your pay-per-click campaigns.

4. Impressions

Impressions let you know the number of views your content gets even if no one interacts with it. You might think this metric isn’t very important if it doesn’t take into account people clicking on your ad, for instance, but the truth is that impressions can tell you a lot about your content.

It tells you, first of all, how many people are actually seeing it – and whether you want to increase brand awareness or boost traffic to your site, you need developers to see the content you create.

Additionally, you can also get an almost real-time take on how well your content is performing, which allows you to tweak it if you so wish, or to repurpose it and see if it performs better elsewhere.

The higher the impressions, the more likely you are to be able to grow your community and to have developers engaging with your content.

5. Website traffic

You must track website metrics such as the traffic you’re getting, as this can help you understand just how efficient your marketing tactics are – and whether your site is growing or not. If you published a how-to guide and saw a corresponding spike in traffic, then you might want to do more of the same, for instance.

The traffic source is also something to consider. You need to know where traffic is coming from and whether you can capitalize on it. Are people finding you on search engines, LinkedIn or typing your URL directly into the browser?

A good amount of organic traffic means your SEO game is on point, for example, while low values on other sources could mean you need to invest more on them – it could also mean that your audience is simply not there.

6. Free trial conversions

A good way to boost awareness of your product and reach a wider audience is to offer a free trial of your product. Everyone loves a freebie and developers are no different, especially because it allows them to see if your product solves their problem without having to spend money.

But, if you do use this approach, keep an eye on your churn rate, because you may see a decline in users once the free period is over. Free and paid users are very different audiences and you want people to convert and become paid members.

After all, it’s hard to succeed if none of your customers are paying for your product! Keep track of your free trial conversion rate, and adopt measures that can help developers convert.

For example:

Support developers during the free trial by answering questions in a timely manner,
Remind them when the trial period ends,
Offer a discount for signing up as a paid member of your software (or a discount on the total price of the product),
Make it easy for people to use your product and avoid any barriers to access, etc.

7. Customer Lifetime Value

Simply put, the Customer Lifetime Value (or CLV) refers to the total revenue a customer can generate for a business for as long as they’re a client. You calculate this metric by multiplying the customer’s value (i.e., the average value of the purchases the customer has made with you) by their average number of purchases.

This metric helps you measure the impact of your marketing efforts because you can better see what will give you a higher return on your investment. Should you choose tactic A or B? Is it better to focus on a particular segment of your audience instead of another?

Tracking the CLV also allows you to understand how much would it take to win back a customer and whether your product offerings match devs’ needs.

To conclude

You have to measure both developer relations and developer marketing strategies, so that you can better understand what works for you and what doesn’t.

There are many different metrics and KPIs to choose from, so the list above is not, by any means, comprehensive – however, it’s a good starting point to make sure you’re capturing all the data you need to improve future marketing campaigns!

Want to share your expertise with other developer marketers like yourself? Why not contribute an article to the Developer Marketing Alliance?