Quantitative metrics are results or statistics pertaining to a business or some aspect of its operations. These results can often be represented in numbers and are, therefore, easily digestible by business owners and marketing experts trying to see if the desired results are being delivered to customers. One aspect of these metrics that makes them desirable to companies is the relatively low cost needed to obtain them compared to qualitative metrics, which must be obtained through costly surveys or other aggressive methods. An example of quantitative metrics is the number of times that users click on to a website.
Companies must set up reliable methods to measure the success of their different business initiatives or marketing campaigns. Metrics are the methods by which companies measure the success, or lack thereof, of these disparate campaigns. These companies can set standards for the performance levels that they wish to reach and see if their actual levels come close to matching up. The easiest to measure metrics are quantitative metrics, which can often be broken down into hard numbers or easily measurable data.
Those businesses that choose to employ quantitative metrics can generally sit back and let the data roll into them. For example, a store that wants to see how a particular sale affected business can check out the sales figures during the time the sale was executed. Marketers for a sports team can find out how well a specific advertising campaign has fared by seeing the affect on attendance. These examples illustrate how these metrics can be used to deliver results that businesses can use.
Once the quantitative metrics are digested by companies and their owners, steps can be taken to ensure improvement in the future. Many businesses may choose to install benchmarks, which are standards that they hope to achieve in a best-case scenario. With these benchmarks in place, the metrics can be used to show how close a company is to achieving optimum performance.
Although quantitative metrics have their advantages, there may be occasions when companies choose to pursue other methods. Instead, companies looking to find information that can be interpreted and dissected for more speculative results might choose to go with qualitative metrics. These metrics are often costlier to implement than quantitative ones, relying as they do on testing and surveys. Choosing between quantitative and qualitative metrics may ultimately come down to what types of questions that a company needs answered.