How to set meaningful KPIs

We all know it’s important to set goals and track success – or failure – but how do we know what is worth measuring? This article explores the importance of KPIs and how to ensure that the KPIs you set are meaningful to your charity.

 

 

What is a KPI?

 

KPI stands for ‘key performance indicator’. Essentially it is how you measure if something is successful or not, in a quantifiable way, over a period of time. They are milestones to gauge your progress towards a goal. 

 

 

Why set KPIs?

 

Before setting KPIs, you will need to set goals or objectives. Your KPIs will form part of your strategy to reach your objectives as they indicate progress at different milestones.

 

KPIs are important because they help you to benchmark and compare against your current performance. They also clearly illustrate whether or not you are reaching your goals – or are on track to reach them.

 

 

What should you set KPIs for?

 

KPIs can be set for all sorts of things – from campaign performance to employee performance.

 

Depending on your charity, you may be asked to set a number of objectives for the year on what you’d like to achieve in your role. These objectives should always align with the organisational goals of the charity.

 

Similarly, you will need to set goals and KPIs for campaigns throughout the year. If your campaign is an annual one, revisit the previous year’s performance to help you set your goals and KPIs for this year. If your campaign is brand new, look to similar campaigns to try to benchmark against and set your goals.

 

Remember, with KPIs, you will be continuously monitoring progress towards your goals and can, therefore, adjust your goals accordingly. If you’re not on track to reach your goals, you’ll need to look at ways to optimise your performance.

 

 

How to set meaningful KPIs

 

Here are three ways to help make your KPIs more meaningful.

 

 

Align with your strategy

 

There is no point setting KPIs if they don’t align with your strategy. KPIs should be helping to meet a strategic goal, otherwise they are irrelevant. So before you set any KPIs, ensure that you have a clear strategy with objectives and tactics to reach those goals. Once you have your strategic plan, set KPIs around how you will measure if you’re on track to reach your goals.

 

 

Involve others

 

Your organisation cannot achieve its objectives without everyone working towards the same strategic goals. In the same way, campaigns are working towards a strategic goal and often involve multiple teams or people.

 

Campaigns will be made up of many components, such as email marketing, paid search, organic social media – to name a few.

 

The KPIs for each component should be set by those with expertise in that specific area, as they will know what is meaningful (and possible) to measure. This also gives them ownership and accountability for those KPIs.

 

 

Looking beyond the average

 

There are lots of KPIs, especially in marketing, that are standard ones to measure – such as click through rates (CTR), open rates, engagement rate, and so on. While they are useful, they are typically just averages. So how can you make averages more meaningful to you? Dani Hughes, founder of Digital with Dani, explains.

 

“If a click through rate on the whole looks good, it doesn’t mean it is for the entire audience who saw your content.

 

For some who really engaged with it, they were much more likely to click, but for others it didn’t resonate at all. So what you are left with is the average of those highly engaged and those who weren’t. So does it mean it’s a good CTR in that scenario?

 

It would be more meaningful to look more holistically at metrics around CTRs. For those that didn’t click that’s ok because they still saw the content, so it’s front of mind. That’s brand investment.

 

For those that did click, we usually look to measure whether they converted but we often don’t consider that it might not have been the right moment to do so. Digital Marketing expert Avinash Kaushik talks about the other metrics and offerings for those people who aren’t in the ‘do’ stage. Could they take another action, which is still a success, such as an email sign up, store look up, recipe download or video view? This scenario takes you from reporting an average CTR to building out more meaningful KPI.”

 

 

Setting KPIs leads to better decision-making

 

If you’ve set meaningful KPIs, based on strategy and data, and you are constantly monitoring and reviewing them, this will ultimately lead to better decision making. This is because your decisions will be based on insight, rather than intuition, which will improve performance and outcomes.