Key Performance Indicators

Your key performance indicators (KPIs) should be based on your
overall business goals and the role your website plays in achieving
those goals. KPIs should be company specific and not influenced by
industry averages or your competitors’ KPIs.

What are Key Performance Indicators?

Webopedia defines them thusly:

“KPIs, or key performance indicators, help organizations
achieve organizational goals through the definition and measurement of
progress. The key indicators are agreed upon by an organization and are
indicators which can be measured that will reflect success factors. The
KPIs selected must reflect the organization’s goals, they must be key to
its success, and they must be measurable. Key performance indicators
usually are long-term considerations for an organization.”

Let’s summarize the important points of this KPI definition:

• Organizational Goals: It is important to
  establish KPIs based on your own business goals rather than standard
  goals for your industry. Expanding on this, a company whose goal is “to
  be most profitable” will have different KPIs than a company who defines
  their goal as “to increase customer retention fifty percent.” The
  first company will have KPIs related to finance and profit and loss,
  while the second will focus on customer satisfaction and response time.
• Measurement Purpose: It is important to analyze
  KPIs over time, allowing you to make changes to improve website
  performance – then periodically reevaluate performance to verify
  progress. For this reason, KPIs must be measurable. The goal “increase
  customer retention” is useless because there is no quantifiable goal,
  whereas the aforementioned goal, “to increase customer retention fifty
  percent” has a definite quantity that can be tracked.
• Goal Continuity: KPIs are long-term considerations
  designed to help with strategic planning. While it is important to have
  targeted goals, they should be incremental to an overall success.
  Simply because something is measurable does not mean that it is
  significant enough to be a key performance indicator. You must define
  your KPIs and keep their measure the same from year to year. Not that
  you can’t adjust your goals, but you should use the same unit to measure
  those goals.
• Managerial Consensus: It is important to have all
  managers on the same page because personnel from different functions
  within your company will help create the KPIs. If your KPIs truly
  reflect your organizational goals then it is necessary for all levels of
  your company to get with the program. Encourage company unity and
  enthusiasm for the project and make sure that everyone knows what the
  KPIs are.

Regular KPIs

While it is desirable to create very specific KPIs for your business,
there are a few metrics that qualify as regular key performance
indicators. These include the KPIs for measuring reach, acquisition, conversions, and retention.