ARR, MRR, fundraising, organic traffic...? Here are, in my opinion, the 3 indicators to monitor to measure the performance of a good web agency.

"Long story short

The 3 most important KPIs:

1. SEO position on strategic keywords
2. Customer reviews
3. ARR and MRR

A site that is well positioned on search engines, with social proof (customer reviews, partner companies, certifications, etc.) ensures recurrent customer acquisition. These two indicators are therefore essential for measuring the performance of a web agency in the short, medium and long term. The third and final indicator, ARR or recurring revenue, is an indicator to be monitored in the famous challenge of scaling up the services offered by agencies and their ability to build loyalty.

"Long story long"

1 - Keyword position (SEO)

There are two main strategies that companies use to find new customers.Outbound marketing andinbound marketing. At Digidop, we have tried both strategies and the one that works best for us is definitely inbound.

Inbound vs Outbound: the difference

Outbound consists of going out to find customers. This is the famous "prospecting". An excellent example of outbound is door-to-door salespeople. These people go directly to the doorstep of their potential customers and talk to them about their products until the sale is made. Here is an example of outbound actions:

• Telephone canvassing (cold call, etc...)
• Mailling
• Trade fairs
• Etc...

This method is quite invasive and usually interrupts your prospect's daily routine.

Inbound marketing is about attracting customers in a non-invasive way. Inbound marketing is usually accomplished by creating content and sharing information online. An example of actions that can be effective for inbound marketing:

• Blog post,
• Position on search engines
• Podcast, youtube video, webinair
• Etc...

Why focus on inbound?

An inbound marketing lead is a lead that is much easier to convert because they already know you. They have read your content, watched your videos and/or listened to your podcasts. And usually, it's the customer who asks you for help. And that changes everything 😉

For a web agency, we consider organic search traffic as the best source of inbound traffic acquisition. The position of our website on our strategic keywords is therefore the most important KPI to follow to ensure the acquisition of our current and future clients.

Bonus: as a web agency, expert on SEO, what better selling point than the famous :

"-How did you find us?

- You were first on Google."

💡 S EO checklist before publishing your Webflow project

2 - Customer reviews (qualitative indicators)

Customer reviews are an important performance indicator that can have both internal and external effects.

• Internally: measures customer satisfaction, highlights strengths and areas for improvement
• Externally: reassures the prospect, customer reviews improve the conversion rate by 30%.

Learn more about the impact of customer reviews on a website.

Bonus : Partner company

Backlink, social proof, reassurance, etc. There are many reasons to form strategic partnerships with companies in your industry. For example, when it comes to your conversion rate, being able to display certification badges or strategic partnerships with excellent companies will help you appear more credible to new visitors.

This is an additional indicator to be followed.

3 - ARR, MRR? Recurrence indicators

ARR is an acronym for Annual Recurring Revenue. It is a key metric used by SaaS or subscription companies that have fixed term contracts, meaning that there is a contractual obligation to continue using the product.

MRR is an acronym for Monthly Recurring Revenue. Monthly recurring revenue is a term used to define the ongoing revenue of a business. It allows a business to have visibility into the recurring revenue received by a business. It excludes temporary customers as well as variable and one-off invoices.

We like to share our experience. However, our agency is still young, so if you are looking for an experienced perspective on ARR (annual recurring revenue) or MRR (monthly recurring revenue), we apologise in advance. We are just starting to implement subscription services to ensure recurring revenue. For the time being, we prefer to wait another year before telling you how to correctly analyse the recurring revenue of a web agency!

Ps: And also share with you the recurring services that work best for "scaling" a web agency!

Conclusion on the KPIs of a web agency

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used to monitor the performance of an agency. In our opinion, the 3 most important KPIs are (1) the SEO position of strategic keywords on search engines such as Google, (2) the agency's customer reviews, (3) its recurring revenue or loyalty rate.

Bonus: an increasingly important key performance indicator is the degree of engagement of people in your community (such as the number of subscribers you have on social media or YouTube, for example).

Highlight your agency's KPIs with a Webflow animated number counter