Are you looking for the best performance goals for copywriters to track?
Being a great copywriter is more than being “clever.” It’s about putting your money where your mouth is. Literally.
And yet, I see all too many copywriters who judge their campaigns’ success based on how creative they found it.
That’s why, in today’s post, I wanted to share 15 of the best performance goals for copywriters to track.
We’ll break these down by channel to make things easier, including:
- Landing page copy
- Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaigns
- Email copy
- Social media posts
- Long-form blogging
Ready to get started? Let’s dive straight in.
Performance Goals for Copywriters by Channel
The following KPIs is NOT a comprehensive list. It is, however, the most valuable metrics that I find broken down by each channel.
You won’t find any “vanity” metrics here. Everything is ALL growth-oriented.
A) Landing Pages
1) Time on Page/Bounce Rate
Bounce rate measures how many people are leaving your landing page without taking any action on it, while time on page shows you what percentage of people actually read beyond the first couple sentences.
There’s no point in optimizing a landing page if nobody reads it!
Understanding this data will give you an idea about whether or not your copy resonates with your target audience.
2) Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is a metric for measuring how many people took the action you wanted them to take.
In other words, if your goal was to get prospects to request a demo from you, conversion rate would show what percentage of visitors actually requested that demo or made an inquiry in-app.
This data can be used as a powerful indicator of how effective your copy is at encouraging visitors to take the action you want them to.
B) PPC Campaigns
3) Impressions
You’ve probably heard of this one before — and for good reason.
This metric shows you how many times your ad was shown, which is a crucial step in improving your PPC campaigns because it gives you an idea as to whether or not people are even seeing what you’re putting out there (and thus more likely clicking on it).
4) Quality Score
Quality score is a metric that Google uses to measure the relevance of your PPC ads. The higher this number, the more relevant people find your ad and thus are more likely to click on it (and convert).
This data comes in particularly handy when you want to see how well your copywriting efforts are doing at increasing quality scores.
That’s because this score also takes factors into account like the strength of your landing page.
That means your copywriting can have a direct impact on you Quality Score, which can have an impact on your impressions, which has an impact on your CTR, which…
5) Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR measures the number of clicks that your PPC ads got divided by total impressions.
This metric can be extremely helpful in determining how well you’re writing ad copy because it combines two crucial factors: relevance and exposure.
The higher your CTR, the more relevant your ad was to searchers and the more often it’s shown.
6) Conversions
Conversions show how many times people took the action you wanted them to take on your landing page (just like conversion rate).
This data is especially useful when it comes to measuring whether or not your PPC ads are working because, along with CTR and Quality Score, conversions have a direct impact on click costs.
7) Cost-per-Acquisition (CPA)
CPA measures the total cost of your PPC campaigns divided by how many conversions you got.
This data is especially important to track because it shows what percentage of money you’re spending on ads are paying off with actual conversions (as opposed to just impressions).
It’s also helpful in determining whether or not your copywriting efforts are doing anything for you. A higher CPA means could indicate that your copy is not cutting it and needs to be reworked.
8) Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
ROAS is another useful metric for tracking whether or not your PPC ads are actually giving you a return on what you’re spending.
It measures how much revenue each dollar spent brings in by dividing total conversions (or sometimes orders) by the cost of those conversions (or orders).
This data can be extremely helpful because it forces marketers to reevaluate their campaigns if ROAS is lower than they expected it to be.
C) Email Copy
9) Subscriber Growth Rate
This metric tells you how many new subscribers your email campaigns brought in.
Essentially, it helps marketers track whether or not their copywriting efforts are helping them get more people on the list (which is exactly what they should be doing).
As with all of these metrics, this data can help determine if there’s room for improvement and whether or not your copywriting is effective at bringing in more subscribers.
One thing to keep in mind is that you should calculate this in the percentage of growth rather than raw numbers.
Getting “50 new subscribers” in one week is GREAT if you only have 100 people on your list.
But those same 50 leads would be less impressive for a company with 10,000+ subscribers.
10) Open Rates
Open rates tell you how many people opened up your email campaigns.
This metric is useful because it gives marketers an idea of whether or not their copywriting efforts are making a difference when it comes to getting in front of more eyeballs (which should correlate with conversions, but that’s another story).
That said, this data can also help determine whether your copywriting is doing its job by showing how engaged people are with what you have to say.
If they’re not opening it, then you’ve usually got a problem with your subject lines.
Start A/B testing your copy and resend emails to people who DIDN’T open previous messages. Only in these follow-ups, use a new subject line with the same body content as the message before.
11) Click-Through Rates (CTR)
This metric measures the number of clicks your emails got divided by total impressions.
Similar to CTR in PPC, this data can be extremely helpful for determining how well you’re writing email copy because it combines two crucial factors: relevance and exposure (just like conversions).
The higher your CTR is, the more relevant your subject lines and content must be to your subscribers because you’re getting in front of more people (which kind of goes back to open rates).
12) Conversions
This metric measures the number of conversions from your email campaigns.
In addition to just tracking how many people have taken action, this data is especially helpful because it’s a good way of seeing what kind of ROI you’re getting on everything that you spend on marketing (whether or not you track costs).
Higher conversion numbers mean more income for your business, which should always be the goal.
D) Social Media
13) Follower Growth Rate
With this metric, marketers are able to track how many new followers they get on social media.
This data is useful because it’s a good indication of marketing results for your copywriting efforts in terms of exposure and engagement (just like open rates).
The more engaged people are with what you have to say, the better chance you have of converting them into customers (if you’re using social as a sales channel).
14) Engagement Rate
Engagement rate measures the number of engagements divided by your total followers.
This data can be extremely helpful because it’s another way of determining how well people like and share what you have to say on social media. T
his metric is a good way to see if you’re getting in front of more of your audience (just like open rates) and whether or not your copywriting is doing its job.
15) Conversions
This metric measures the number of conversions you get from your social media efforts.
Social media can be a great sales channel, but only if it’s done right.
Just like with email marketing, this data gives marketers an idea of what kind of ROI they’re getting on their content creation and promotion activities by showing how much money comes in from leads that are generated on social (just like conversions).
Higher conversion numbers mean more income for your business.
And that’s all for right now. These have been 15 of the best performance goals for copywriters to track.
Did you notice anything about each of these channels?
They all include CONVERSIONS.
It’s important to stay away from vanity metrics that don’t tell you anything but “feel good.” Usually this comes in with follower growth rates or engagements, but any channel can have pointless metrics.
Instead, get clear on your goals, keep your eye on the prize, and keep experimenting as you grow.
And speaking of conversions, why not convert yourself to one of my subscribers?
Unlike this blog, I have a ZERO tolerance for fluff policy. I concentrate on ONE copywriting tip per week in 300 words or less (which is actually a lot harder than it sounds).
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