The Most Important Conversational Marketing Chatbot KPIs For Success

Chatbot analytics help determines the success of the chatbot. They can also provide valuable insight into opportunities for business growth and retention strategies. Businesses must be aware of the chatbot’s benefits and capabilities by constantly measuring its performance. This can only be done by knowing the key chatbot metrics, which is an important aspect and a decisive factor for business success.

Chatbot success metrics are important because they offer a wealth of data about the bot and its customers. Businesses should monitor how customers interact with the chatbot to ensure they continuously improve their experience, meet the set goals, and get a good ROI.

In some cases, businesses do not get the desired results from chatbots because they have been optimized for the wrong metrics. Chatbot analytics helps businesses track important KPIs and make data-driven decisions.

The following are some significant areas where chatbot analytics are critical:

1. Understand customer satisfaction

By using conversational AI customer analytics, businesses can understand customer satisfaction after interacting with the bot. Artificial intelligence allows the chatbot to measure user sentiment. 

2. Measure business ROI

57% of businesses agree that chatbots deliver significant returns on investment (ROI) for minimal effort. Chatbot analytics helps measure the KPIs such as total leads generated, total issues resolved, estimated time to handle individual queries, and annual handling costs that aid in comparing its performance with other channels. Using these metrics, businesses can make calculated business decisions on the additional investment in required areas.

3. Understanding customer journey

Businesses need to visualize key aspects of the customer journey to make data-driven decisions such as user paths and exit points.  

Most Important Conversational Marketing Chatbot KPIs 

Merely automating business tasks with an AI chatbot isn’t enough. Automation should focus on implementation and customizing the chatbot to achieve the desired goals. 

There are 25 chatbots KPIs that can help brands maximize the success of conversational marketing chatbots. These measurements are indispensable for tracking the chatbot results, identifying problems, and improving performance. 

1. Total Number of Users

This KPI represents the total number of active, engaged, returning, or new users who have used or are using the chatbot. The total number of users who interacted with chatbots is one of the primary KPIs businesses should track. 

Active Users 

Active users are the number of users who interact with a chatbot without waiting for the bot to initiate a conversation. This can reveal helpful information about customer preferences. These users interact with a real purpose and thus will be more engaged.

Engaged Users 

Engaged users are significant because they represent active users who have repeated sessions in a short period. These users see the value in using the chatbot. They are satisfied using the bot and keep returning to the business. 

Returning Users 

Returning users are neither new nor engaged. After using it, these users came back to the chatbot but are not yet using it at regular intervals. The higher the number of returning users, the better, highlighting the number of users who find the helpful chatbot engaging.

New Users 

Equally important is the amount of new users the chatbot receives. High new user engagement can be an indication that the chatbot is popular. This metric shows the number of unique first-time users in a defined time frame. Using this metric helps assess the success of marketing or bot promotion efforts. New users help maintain a strong customer base as customer preferences change over time. 

Tracking metrics related to users helps capture insights about the number of customers using the chatbot. Additionally, it also assists the business in understanding the overall impact and chatbot success. This is a fundamental KPI metric, but it gives an understanding of the popularity of the chatbot. This metric can also calculate other metrics such as conversion rate. 

2. Brand Interactions per User

Brand interactions per user describe the frequency of customer interactions with the chatbot during a given time. Interactions are defined as an active engagement a user has with a brand via the chatbot. This includes interaction using a quick reply chip, button, carousel call to action, or messaging. However, it does not involve seeing visuals or messages.

Brand Interactions per User = Total Interactions / Total Users

For instance, if a marketing chatbot generates 25,000 interactions from 10,000 users that engage with it, that equals 2.5 brand interactions per user. The number of brand interactions per user is essential as it helps to measure the depth of engagement with the marketing chatbot for each conversation. Measuring the brand interactions per user helps improve marketing chatbot performance and customer experience with each successful conversation as every touchpoint from discovery to conversion can be optimized. 

3. Customer Insights per User

Each brand interaction with a chatbot provides declared data that can be leveraged to improve the chatbot's performance and other marketing campaigns. This is information voluntarily shared by the consumer during a conversation. Declared data is valuable because it empowers brands to stop relying on assumptions. Declared data can be used to validate assumptions and identify customer requirements. This KPI is called customer insights per user. It is calculated by dividing users' total declared data points for a given time. 

Customer Insights per User = Total Declared Data Points / Total Users 

For example, if the conversational marketing chatbot collects 250 declared data points out of 50 users, it provides 5 customer insights per user. 

Deep customer insights can be collected using a conversational marketing chatbot by defining attributes and values based on the responses collected. This creates a customer database that can be leveraged to segment, recommend tailored products, and provide actionable insights at scale.

4. Chatbot CTR to Website

Conversational marketing chatbots are an effective channel for driving conversions and sales. Chatbots should be programmed to guide customers through each marketing funnel stage and improve conversion rates. Higher CTR leads to an increased volume of qualified traffic redirected to key assets like product pages. Chatbot CTR measures the number of clicks to the website as a percentage of people engaged with the chatbot.

Chatbot CTR to Website = Total Clicks / Total Users x 100

For example, if a marketing chatbot generated 1,000 clicks to the website out of 8,000 users, the click-through rate would be 12.5%.

It is critical to optimize marketing chatbot conversations for click-through rates to increase return on investment. Brands should monitor conversational goals regularly and continually review the chatbot analytics to identify opportunities for improving CTR, conversion rates, and performance. 93.67% of calls to action use verbs like buy, visit, find, try, schedule, discover, browse, view, see, etc. 

5. Matched Response Rate

Each customer has unique wants, needs, and demands. Unfortunately, many chatbot platforms cannot accurately map responses to tailored suggestions. They utilize generic approaches to natural language processing (NLP), making them unable to deliver answers and information tailored to the situation. Matched response rate is how often a marketing chatbot accurately fits customers with what they ask for. This KPI can only be analyzed for marketing chatbots utilizing machine learning and NLP. 

Matched Response Rate = Matched Responses / Total Messages x 100

For example, if a conversational marketing chatbot accurately matches 500 messages from a pool of 1000, then the matched response rate is 50%.

NLP-powered chatbots can determine specific intents in different contexts. Brands can leverage customer input and data to create more accurate templates for the chatbot to make better predictions and match suitable responses. FAQs are one way to improve matched response rates. They’re questions on products, shipping, and returns.

6. Cost per Conversion

The cost per conversion is the total cost of acquiring a new customer. This includes the customer making a purchase, watching a video, or filling out a form. Since marketing chatbots drive conversions through guided shopping and personalized experiences, it’s essential to know the cost of each conversion action. This empowers the brand to discover ways to decrease cost per Conversion while generating revenue.

Cost Per Conversion = Total Cost of Generating Traffic / Total Conversions

For example, if the total media spend on a conversational display ad campaign was ₹5,000, resulting in 100 conversions, the cost per Conversion would be ₹50.

Conversions and the associated costs can be tracked using UTM parameters on URLs in the chatbot. 

7. Conversion Rate

The conversion rate of a marketing chatbot is the rate at which traffic from the chatbot is converted. These include a completed purchase, reaching a particular page, or scheduling an appointment. It’s calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total traffic and multiplying it by 100 to get a percentage.

Conversion Rate = (Conversions / Total Visitors from Chatbot) x 100

For example, if a business generates 100 conversions from 2,000 total visitors to the chatbot, that would equal a 5% conversion rate. 

Brands can track the conversion rate to understand how marketing chatbots perform compared to other marketing channels. It is a key performance indicator for the chatbot. 

8. Conversation Duration

The conversation duration may depend on the chatbot's intention. For example, if the chatbot is required to guide a visitor to a demo request fast, a short time is good. It shows that the chatbot understands what is needed. A chatbot programmed to handle support questions related to products or services may have a longer average duration. Therefore, the ideal length of a chatbot session should be long enough to solve the user's problem and short enough to prevent them from giving up. The chat duration measures the length of the bot and user interaction. Monitoring this KPI helps to gauge the chatbot's effectiveness using the size of the conversation. It shows whether the bot can have meaningful discussions and keep the user engaged.  

9. Average Daily Sessions

This KPI tells how often users (new, returning, or engaged) are starting a conversation with the chatbot each day. It is preferable to have many daily sessions to show the chatbot's effectiveness. The chatbot metric measures the interactions sent and received between the users and the chatbot. It monitors and provides information on its ability to engage in a conversation. Comparing this to other daily metrics, like average daily traffic to the site, estimates the percentage of users using the chatbot on any given day. 

10. Bounce Rate

The Bounce Rate corresponds to the volume of user sessions that fail to result in the intended use of the chatbot. It refers to the number of user visitors who enter the website and leave without interacting with the chatbot. A high bounce rate shows that the chatbot fails to provide correct answers, help users with their requests, or is not engaging enough. This should prompt the business to update its content, rethink its placement in the customer experience, or both. This chatbot KPI needs to be observed closely, impacting the customer experience. 

11. Fallback Rate

Fallback is defined as the number of times the chatbot cannot understand what the user needs and cannot complete the task or redirect correctly. The fallback rate captures insights into those scenarios where the bot cannot understand the user request and provide a relevant solution. This metric measures the percentage of messages when the bot didn't get user intent or failed to answer the user's question. This metric is important because it helps to understand how often the bot has no answer and find areas for improvement. The higher the fallback rate, the lower will be the user satisfaction. If this rate is high, the business may need to add more content or reassess the chatbot's natural language processing abilities. 

12. Activation Rate

The activation rate allows companies to determine how customers are selecting the chatbot option accurately. It refers to how many customers engaged with more than one question. This metric counts the number of unique users who sent a message within a specific time frame. As well as with total users, businesses can track the active user number to calculate the percentage of active users out of total users. Multiple metrics are included in this KPI, such as the number of users, how many opened a chatbot message, and the number of users who responded to the chatbot. Comparing these monthly data sets will enable brands to substantiate the merit of their investment or find better ways to use the technology more engagingly.

13. Chatbot Response Time

Chatbot Response Time is the time taken for the chatbot to respond to a question or comment. This shows how quickly the chatbot can start responding to the user. Ideally, businesses want this number to be on the low since customers are using the chatbot with the expectation that they’ll receive a quick response. However, an immediate response means nothing to the customer if it’s not correct or doesn’t fully address their issue.

14. Human vs. Chatbot Interaction

The human vs. chatbot interaction rate will indicate how efficiently the chatbot redirects conversations to a human agent.

The human takeover of the interaction is one of the critical chatbot evaluation metrics that determine the bot's success. It refers to two main scenarios:

• The conversations that the bot cannot understand are transferred to the human agents as a fallback scenario. 
• To have a comprehensive discussion, customers prefer to communicate with a human agent rather than a chatbot.

Businesses can know whether the customers are happy conversing with the bot by understanding the chatbot analytics. If the ratio of human handover increases, it is better to switch back to live chat and use the bot to collect the initial details of customers. Businesses should monitor the number of human interactions vs. chatbot interactions to gauge whether the chatbot has managed to reduce the number of human interactions required.

15. Ticket Deflection Rate

If the chatbot is being used to reduce customer support agents’ workload, businesses should focus on ticket deflection rates. This shows the average number of tickets the customer support team has had over time due to the chatbot. The deflection rate is calculated by dividing the number of chatbot conversations by the number of conversations transferred to a customer support agent. If the deflection rate is high, businesses may need to program the chatbot better to answer customer questions. 

16. Most Frequently Asked Questions

Businesses can analyze the chatbot metrics and evaluate customer journeys to see which questions are being asked closely and how the chatbot is addressing them. Data like this can show whether the chatbot is equipped to answer customer or prospects’ concerns. Thus, businesses can program the chatbot to specialize in the subjects that come up most commonly and thereby improve its performance. Analyzing recurring questions will allow the company to focus on the topics of most significant interest to the users and improve the quality of bot responses and its overall comprehension levels.

17. Customer Satisfaction Rate

The customer satisfaction KPI measures the level of user satisfaction with bot conversations. There are various ways to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the bot, including star ratings or providing emoticons with different expressions. It is essential to acquire customer feedback as businesses will be able to identify the flaws in the bot conversation flow and improve it. Companies that provide customer service Chatbots must be evaluated regarding their influence on customer satisfaction. One way to measure customer satisfaction is by tracking chatbot errors and confusion triggers which can indicate problems with the experience, alongside metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), a customer loyalty metric that measures the likelihood of customers recommending the brand to others. 

18. Chatbot Activity Volume 

Chat volume is measured by looking at the number of successful interactions. This indicator is essential for verifying that the brands are achieving their goals. If brands target a specific population, they can measure the penetration rate for this audience to confirm that the intended people are making good use of the chatbot. If the conversation is more extended, it indicates a higher chat volume as the visitors are finding it easy to converse with the bot, and at the same time, the bot can deliver more value to them. The chat volume KPI answers two key questions - 

• How frequently is the chatbot being used?
• Is the user base increasing?

19. Retention Rate

The Retention Rate refers to the proportion of users who have consulted the chatbot on repeated occasions over a given period. It provides a good indication of the chatbot's relevance and acceptance among business clients. The more frequently people come back to use the bot, the greater the retention rate. Businesses can monitor the retention rate by breaking it down into time frames. This will help them identify vital progress in the customer journey and adjust the customer engagement strategy accordingly.

Some ways to increase the bot retention rate are:

• Offer customers a discount based on their behavior
• Deliver hyper-personalized conversations

This KPI can indicate whether the current level of investment in the technology is sustainable and whether aspects of the technology need to be refined to improve the experience.

However, businesses should remember that multiple return visits to the bot might suggest that a customer's issue wasn't resolved.

20. Use Rate by Open Sessions

This is the number of sessions that are simultaneously active with the chatbot. This rate must be weighted with the average number of open sessions during a given period to get a meaningful measurement. 

21. Usage Distribution by Hour

This indicator is beneficial as it demonstrates how this 24/7 channel enables businesses to cover 20%, 30%, or even 50% of the hours during which user support services were previously unavailable. This measures how many times the chatbot is being used during each hour of the day. Additionally, businesses can use this metric to schedule more staff during peak usage hours. 

22. Question per Conversation

This indicator will help determine how many questions the chatbot needs to ask before providing its users with the necessary information. The interpretation of this metric depends heavily on the specific objectives. The lower this number, the more efficiently the chatbot addresses the questions.

23. Interaction Rate & Non-Response Rate 

Interaction Rate allows businesses to measure the average number of messages exchanged per conversation. The higher the interaction rate, the greater the bot’s effectiveness. This is a crucial metric for understanding overall engagement. While the non-response rate measures the number of times the chatbot fails to respond to a question. Such failure may result from a lack of content or the chatbot’s difficulty comprehending user inquiries.

24. Self Service Rate

This rate corresponds to the number of users who were able to obtain the help they needed through the responses given by the chatbot without subsequently having to call Customer Service. It is calculated based on the percentage of completed sessions through an interaction with the bot without being redirected to a live operator. In the process, it enables businesses to evaluate client satisfaction. 

25. User Feedback

Finally, it’s indispensable to know what users think about the chatbot. This feedback will allow businesses to calculate two indicators:

• The Satisfaction Rate - the average score received by the chatbot in user evaluations
• The Evaluation Rate - the percentage of sessions in which the user evaluated the bot responses at least once

This KPI is directly tied to the user satisfaction rate. 

Are these chatbot KPIs enough?

These different KPIs are sufficient to evaluate the ROI and the added value of the chatbot. However, these KPIs should not be the only metrics taken into consideration when assessing the overall impact of the solution. Thus, beyond the KPIs directly linked to a chatbot, businesses should correlate these metrics with pre-chatbot indicators such as the volume of phone contacts, the volume of incoming emails via a contact form, and the volume of chats with agents. 

The Bottom Line on Marketing Chatbot KPIs