An acronym for Key Performance Indicators. This term refers to the metrics used to measure progress towards defined organizational goals. After a company has defined its mission and subsequent goals, the KPIs are metrics that measure the business’ progress towards those goals. While this term is a broad business-level term, it is included here because often the goals that are being measured in today’s business climate deal with web site performance. For example, a targeted number of site users over a period of time may be a KPI. Or, a user conversion percentage may be the KPI that ties in with an overall sales objective.
One of the factors that separates the Internet from traditional marketing and sales channels is its ability to be quantified. We can track rankings, site users, sales, and the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns in a way that simply isn’t possible in offline advertising. We encourage you to include KPIs in your business planning for your online property. It requires that you set goals and measure your progress towards those goals. In that way KPIs can help maintain a marketing campaign’s focus and momentum.
