Your Conversion Rate Increased 2 Points. So What?

We had a Zoom call today with a client for whom we're helping with a Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) implementation that another agency completed. Unfortunately, the previous agency provided very little documentation, and there was no training from either the agency or Adobe. Part of today's discussion focused on helping the client build site health dashboards in Workspace.

I mentioned that those dashboards, especially at the executive summary level, should focus on more than just "KPIs" in the generic sense. They should focus on S.M.A.R.T. KPIs (more on that below) and, more importantly, what the data actually means. Does the data indicate that the organization is achieving its business goals, or does it show that something needs attention?

The client's Senior Director of Digital Experience responded by releasing the floating hearts reaction in Zoom. It was a small moment, but it confirmed that the discussion resonated.

The Practical Takeaways

• You can’t measure success if you don’t define success.

• KPIs are not simply metrics, and should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

• Targets or goals should be based on existing data where possible and standard industry baselines.

• KPIs should be periodically reviewed and updated.

• Executive dashboards should focus on performance versus KPIs.

In my years working in analytics and martech, one of the most consistently overlooked aspects of reporting, by both organizations and consultants, is the ability to answer a simple question:

"So what?"

If an analyst reports that Metric X increased 12% month over month, but no target was ever established for that metric, how do you know whether that's good, bad, or simply noise? Without context, a number is just a number.

In short, how do you know whether your analytics indicate success if you never defined what success looks like in the first place?

The first step is understanding the difference between a metric and a KPI.

A metric is simply something you measure. Page views, form submissions, appointment requests, average order value, and bounce rate are all metrics. A Key Performance Indicator is a metric that directly measures progress toward a business objective. Every KPI is a metric, but only a small percentage of the metrics you collect should be considered key performance indicators.

The emphasis should be on key.

A useful KPI should also be S.M.A.R.T.:

• Specific. Everyone should understand exactly what is being measured.

• Measurable. The data must be reliable and consistently collected.

• Achievable. Goals should be ambitious enough to encourage improvement without becoming unrealistic.

• Relevant. The KPI should support a business objective that matters.

• Time-bound. There should be a defined period over which success is evaluated.

A good KPI will generally take the form of:

“Increase [metric X, defined] by [Y % or percentage points] over [Z timeframe]”.

For example - “Increase form conversion rate (form completions / sessions) by 1.5 pp over the next 6 months”.

That naturally leads to the next question.

"What should our targets be?"

If you're implementing a new analytics platform or have never formally established KPIs, you may not know yet. That's perfectly normal.

The best approach is to begin by establishing a baseline. Collect enough data to understand what "normal" looks like. Depending on the metric, that could mean a month, a quarter, or even a full year if seasonality is a factor.

Once you have a reliable baseline, establish realistic growth targets. If your current online appointment completion rate is 42%, jumping to 80% next month probably isn't realistic. Improving to 45% over the next quarter while making targeted improvements to the user experience may be.

Here’s where the internet and AI agents can come in handy - you can research typical online baseline metrics for your industry, and make inferences if the exact metric you’re looking for isn’t defined industry-wide.

The important part is that the target is defined before performance is evaluated. Otherwise, it's far too easy to decide after the fact whether the results were "good."

KPIs should evolve as your organization does. What was an ambitious target a year ago may simply be today's baseline, particularly in cases where major changes are made to your site - after all, if you’re redesigning your site, you should expect improvements in engagement and conversion metrics. Periodically reviewing your KPIs helps ensure they continue to align with your business objectives and encourage meaningful improvement.

This philosophy should also guide executive dashboards.

An executive dashboard is not the place to display every interesting metric available in Customer Journey Analytics. Its purpose is to give leadership a quick, meaningful view of whether the organization is meeting its most important business objectives. If the dashboard doesn't make that clear, it probably contains too many metrics and not enough key performance indicators. I'll cover executive dashboard design in more detail in a future post.

At Heavey Digital Consulting, we don't just help organizations implement analytics platforms. We help ensure they're measuring the things that matter. Whether you're implementing Customer Journey Analytics, redesigning your reporting strategy, or simply trying to determine which metrics should become true business KPIs, we can help you establish meaningful baselines, realistic targets, and reporting that supports better decisions.

If you'd like to discuss how we can help your organization define and measure success, please contact us.