5 ways to measure return on engagement

Move over, ROI. There’s a new metric in town that’s much more powerful for today’s brands.

Here’s how to track your success.

Return on investment (ROI) is measured mostly in financial and economic ways; today’s brand managers want something grander. That’s where return on engagement (ROE) comes in. ROE is the overall brand strength gained from a particular action, strategy or product.

Here are key indicators of success:

Time spent on page, video or ad

The longer consumers want to interact with you, the more they’ll warm up to your brand. Brand managers investing in good content marketing, native, and storytelling see higher levels of time spent with their content and, hence, the brand message. This is wildly more important than clicks and impressions, and it has the added benefit of increasing brand strength (ROE).

Number of fans transformed into loyalists

Brand loyalists are the Holy Grail of customers for any company. Marketing efforts aimed at increasing your ROE are much more likely to transform brand fans into brand loyalists. Display ads and other similar advertising efforts help create awareness, but they usually don’t sway consumers into becoming advocates.