I was doing some research recently on how to measure the ROI of one’s marketing efforts on Twitter and I was surprised at the dearth of information on the subject. So I decided to create a framework that others could use. Whether you’re engaging in organic Tweeting or using Twitter’s new paid advertising offerings, you’ll want to measure reach, engagement and conversion. Reach is defined as the number of people that are exposed to your brand through Tweets or Retweets that contain your brand name (including @brandname tags). Engagement is a key metric that Twitter is starting to measure in their analytics and it is only offered to paid advertisers on their platform. The key engagement metrics are “click throughs”, “follows”, “favorited Tweets”, “Replies” and “Mentions”. Here’s an explanation of each:

Twitter Marketing Funnel and Key Twitter Metrics

  • Click Throughs – Occur when someone clicks on a URL in a tweet that resolves to your website
  • Follows – Occur when someone visits your Twitter account and subscribes to your Tweets
  • Favorites – Occur when someone likes one of your Tweets and clicks the star associated with it.
  • Replies – Occur when someone clicks the “Reply” link next to your Tweet and submits a response to your Tweet.
  • Mentions– Are similar to “Replies” in that they both contain “@YourAccount” in the Tweet body.

If you’ve got some ideas that could improve this framework I would welcome your input. Also, please feel free to poke holes in it and suggest any inconsistencies. Thanks!