The crucial issue with social networking marketing is that there is no shared factor to quantify its ROI. In view of this, the viability of online networking has been measured haphazardly, best case scenario, and not at all in some cases. Five steps to measure the effectiveness of social media efforts:1. Identify  key performance indicators (KPIs)                                                                           2. Align social media goals with business objectives                                                          

  3. Set up Google Analytics to track conversions
4. Assign values to KPIs                                                                                                              

 5. Benchmark against competitors

 For more read:  http://www.adageindia.in/digital/digitalnext/five-steps-to-measuring-your-social-media-roi/articleshow/52016847.cms

In today's highly competitive online marketplace, marketers must utilize every advantage they can get. Business intelligence (BI) software can help you look at your data in different ways, and draw actionable insights to allow allocating resources more effectively. BI software can use large amount of datasets, so you can execute successful strategies on the basis of information. By controlling the right key performance indicators (KPIs), businesses can look at trends that would otherwise be hidden. Online marketers have different indicators which are : 1)The Basics  2)Return On Investment 3)Incremental Sales 4)Conversions by Campaign 5)Cost per Lead 6)Visitor to Buyer Ratio 7)Sales by Lead Source 8)Social Media 9)Tracking Keywords. By visualizing sales funnel with business intelligence software, you can get a good view of how your customers move through the sales process from an initial lead to a sale. Having the correct data displayed in a dashboard format can enable your company be proactive instead of reactive.Read more about this aspect at Jayson DeMers (Founder and CEO, AudienceBloom)'s article link: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jayson-demers/how-business-intelligence_b_3507510.html