Objectives, Goals, and KPIs

Objectives, goals, and KPIs are the next set of concepts we will cover. Objectives represent what you want to achieve for your company. Ideally, objectives should be SMART:

• specific
• measurable
• attainable
• realistic
• time-bound

Goals are actions that you want users to take. We use the vocabulary of goals to designate user’s actions since this is typically how goals are positioned in web analytics (e.g., Google Analytics). Distinguishing between objectives (what you want to achieve) and goals (what you want your users to achieve) just makes things clearer.

KPIs—key performance indicators—are metrics used to evaluate the performance of your company based on a particular objective or activity. KPIs typically have targets, specific values that your company is aiming to achieve within a certain time period.

These concepts work together to help you plan campaigns: Objectives can be used to identify goals for users to achieve, which can be measured using KPIs (Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1 Objective / Goal / KPI

For example, an objective for your company might be to increase product awareness. In order to achieve this objective, you might set up goals for your users, such as subscribing to email updates and engaging in some key features you believe will help raise product awareness. It is then possible to identify KPIs to measure your success for these user goals, such as “number of contact forms submitted” or “use of the key feature of the virtual mirror” (see Figure 4.2 for an example or, for the text version, click here).

Figure 4.2 KPIs Example