As the competition for investors and deals has become fiercer, it is crucial for private equity firms to have a strong digital marketing strategy when it comes to finding acquisition targets, raising capital for new funds or to accelerate the growth of their portfolio companies. Whether you have years of experience using digital marketing to tell your story or are simply interested in the process, here are the top analytics you should use to gauge how well your marketing initiatives are achieving your goals.

Email Marketing Campaign Success

In the digital space, email marketing is one of the most profitable tactics. Once you’ve built an email subscriber list, you can keep your private equity firm and investment criteria in mind with investors, business owners, and referral sources by regularly distributing information about your funds, platform investments, add-ons and partners.

While developing engaging content is an integral part of your email marketing program, perhaps tracking what happens after you click send is just as important. Tracking open rates and unsubscribe requests will help you understand if your content is hitting the target – in terms of engagement and interest – and reaching the right audience. Another key metric of interest is the click-through rate of the email. Your email should provide just enough content to engage your readers and entice them to click on links to learn more. Linking to additional content will drive traffic back to your site, giving you additional opportunities to engage with your target audiences.

Social Media Metrics

An effective social media strategy offers a variety of benefits – from creating greater brand awareness and increasing your business visibility to increasing website traffic. Once you’ve finalized your strategy and posted on the appropriate social media channels, it’s time to see how well your posts have engaged your targets.

You can track this performance through a few metrics, including the number of likes, comments, and new subscribers gained after each new post. However, the best measure of success is when your followers share your content with their own social media circle. This expands reach to hundreds or even thousands of additional viewers with a single click, resulting in an exponential increase in audience on your experience and expertise, opening up your private equity firm to a host of new investors and transaction opportunities.

Conversion of digital ad campaigns

A highly measurable and dynamic tool for any business, digital advertising can be used to build brand awareness, generate high-quality leads, and drive product sales even on a limited budget. There are five main types of digital ads that can be useful for your private equity firm, including search (text ads in search results), display (image ads on websites), sponsored posts on social networks, videos and retargeting ads. With retargeting, a tracking code (called a cookie) is placed on the computers of visitors to your website. Once they leave your website, the code will allow you to retarget them with your company’s advertisements as they continue to browse other sites on the Internet.