Infographics are a powerful tool for conveying information in a visually compelling way. However, creating an infographic that looks great and communicates effectively is only part of the equation. The true measure of success lies in how well your infographic performs after it’s published. Are people engaging with it? Is it driving traffic, increasing shares, or influencing conversions? These are the kinds of questions you need to ask in order to assess whether your infographic is truly successful.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the various ways you can measure the success of your infographics, including key metrics, tools, and strategies for tracking performance. We’ll also discuss how to interpret these metrics to gain insights that can help you optimize future infographic campaigns.
1. Define Your Goals and Objectives
Before you can measure the success of your infographic, you need to define what success looks like for you. Every infographic campaign should have clear goals and objectives, which will help guide your measurement process. Here are some common goals for infographics:
- Increase brand awareness: You want your infographic to be shared widely, increasing visibility for your brand.
- Drive website traffic: You aim to use the infographic as a tool to send traffic to your website or landing page.
- Boost social media engagement: You’re hoping to generate likes, shares, comments, and other forms of engagement on social media platforms.
- Educate your audience: You might want your audience to learn something new, making it important to measure knowledge retention or engagement with the content.
- Lead generation or conversions: Your goal could be to convert viewers into leads, subscribers, or paying customers.
Once you’ve set clear objectives, you can tailor your success metrics to match these goals. For example, if you’re aiming for social media engagement, you’ll focus on metrics like shares, comments, and likes. If your goal is lead generation, you’ll be looking at how well the infographic drives conversions.
2. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Infographics
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable measures used to track the performance of an infographic against your goals. Below are several KPIs you can use to evaluate the success of your infographic.
i. Social Shares
Social sharing is often one of the most important indicators of an infographic’s success. It indicates that your content is resonating with your audience and is compelling enough to be shared within their networks. Here’s how you can measure social shares:
- Share Counts: Track the number of times your infographic has been shared across social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram. Tools like BuzzSumo or Shareaholic can help you measure shares.
- Platform-Specific Shares: Analyze which social platforms your infographic performs best on. For instance, Pinterest is a goldmine for infographics, but how well does it perform on Twitter or LinkedIn? Understanding where the shares come from will help you refine your social media strategy.
ii. Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics allow you to measure how well your audience interacts with your infographic. Engagement is a strong indicator of content relevance and effectiveness. These metrics include:
- Likes/Reactions: This is one of the most basic engagement metrics. A high number of likes or reactions signals positive reception, but it doesn’t tell the full story.
- Comments: Comments show a deeper level of engagement. If people are commenting, it indicates that the infographic is sparking discussion or prompting curiosity.
- Clicks: If your infographic includes a link (such as a CTA button or a link to a blog post), tracking how many clicks it generates can give you insight into how effective it is in driving further interaction with your content.
- Shares vs. Comments Ratio: This is the ratio of shares to comments. While a high share count is great, a higher number of comments indicates deeper engagement and interest in your content.
iii. Website Traffic
If one of your goals is to drive website traffic, then the number of visitors your infographic sends to your website is a crucial metric to track. This is especially important if your infographic links back to a specific landing page, blog post, or product page.
- Referral Traffic: Use Google Analytics or similar tools to track how much traffic your infographic generates. You can do this by setting up UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters on the links in your infographic, so you can distinguish traffic coming from the infographic versus other sources.
- Bounce Rate: After visitors land on your website via the infographic, how many leave immediately without interacting with the content? A high bounce rate could indicate that the infographic wasn’t engaging enough or that the landing page doesn’t provide what users expected.
iv. Lead Generation and Conversions
If your goal is lead generation or conversion, you need to track how many people took action as a result of viewing the infographic. This could be subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a resource, or completing a purchase. Here’s what you can track:
- Lead Sign-Ups: Did your infographic drive users to fill out a contact form, subscribe to your email list, or register for a webinar? Using a call-to-action (CTA) and tracking lead sign-ups is one of the clearest ways to measure success for lead-generation-focused infographics.
- Conversion Rate: If your infographic includes a CTA for a product, service, or event, you can track how many people converted based on that interaction. Use tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot to track these conversions. A high conversion rate suggests that your infographic did a good job persuading the viewer to take action.
v. Time on Page and Engagement Depth
If your infographic is hosted on a webpage, you can also analyze user behavior through metrics like:
- Time on Page: The longer someone stays on the page, the more engaged they are likely to be. If your infographic leads to a blog post or article, measuring how long visitors stay can help you gauge how effectively the infographic captures and holds attention.
- Scroll Depth: For infographics embedded into a webpage, scroll depth can help you measure how far down the page users are scrolling. If they’re not scrolling through the entire infographic, it could indicate that it’s either too long or not engaging enough to compel them to stay.
vi. Brand Mentions and Awareness
Tracking brand mentions and awareness helps you understand how well your infographic is contributing to your overall brand visibility. Here’s how to measure it:
- Mentions: Use social listening tools like Mention, Brand24, or Google Alerts to track when people mention your infographic or brand in social media posts, blogs, or forums.
- Hashtag Tracking: If you create a branded hashtag related to your infographic, you can track how often it’s being used and whether people are engaging with it.
- Sentiment Analysis: Not all mentions are created equal. Sentiment analysis tools help you gauge whether people are talking positively, negatively, or neutrally about your infographic. Positive sentiment typically means your content resonated well with your audience.
2.7. Download Numbers
If your infographic is available for download (for example, in a PDF format or as a high-resolution image), it’s worth tracking how many people have downloaded it. Download metrics can be a good indicator of how valuable your audience perceives your infographic to be.
3. Tools for Measuring Success
To effectively track the performance of your infographics, you’ll need the right set of tools. Below are some popular tools and platforms you can use:
- Google Analytics: Use this to track website traffic, bounce rate, and conversions.
- BuzzSumo: This tool allows you to track social media shares and engagement for your infographic across multiple platforms.
- Social Media Insights: Most social platforms (Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Instagram Insights, LinkedIn Analytics) have built-in tools for measuring likes, shares, comments, and reach.
- HubSpot: For lead generation, HubSpot provides detailed metrics on how your infographic drives conversions and sign-ups.
- Hootsuite/Buffer: These social media management tools allow you to track engagement and share metrics on social media, providing insights into how your infographic is performing across platforms.
- Mention or Brand24: These tools track brand mentions across social media, blogs, and news websites, helping you measure the impact of your infographic on brand visibility.
4. Interpreting the Data and Making Adjustments
Once you’ve gathered the necessary data, it’s time to analyze and interpret it. Here are a few things to look for:
- What is the correlation between the visual design and engagement? Did the most engaging infographics have specific design elements (e.g., a certain color scheme, type of chart, or illustration style)?
- Where did the traffic come from? If the infographic was successful on Pinterest but not on LinkedIn, it might indicate that your audience is more visually oriented and prefers content on image-driven platforms.
- What are the patterns in social shares and comments? Look at which infographics were shared the most and ask why. Was it due to the timing of the post? Was it the value or emotional appeal of the content?
- Was there a clear ROI? For businesses, a clear ROI (Return on Investment) is crucial. Did the infographic contribute directly to a business goal such as sales, lead generation, or brand awareness?
Use these insights to refine your future infographic campaigns. If an infographic performed well on social media but not in driving traffic, consider adding stronger calls to action or optimizing your landing page. If one design style was particularly successful, use it as a template for future infographics.
Conclusion
Measuring the success of your infographics is not just about counting social shares or website traffic—it’s about understanding how well your infographic served its purpose and engaged your target audience. By defining clear goals, selecting the right KPIs, using the right tools, and analyzing the data, you can get a comprehensive understanding of your infographic’s performance.
With this knowledge, you can continuously improve your infographic strategy to drive more shares, engagement, conversions, and ultimately, greater business success.