Keep it simple: 7 marketing metrics you should be tracking

In today’s data-driven world, it’s easy to fall into the trap of either measuring too little or too much. A lack of data leaves businesses with little to no insight, while an excess leaves many teams snow-blind and unable to focus on what truly matters. This begs the question: in a world where so much of what we do is measurable, what should we really be measuring? Here’s our take on the 7 most valuable Marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be tracking today.

Marketing Revenue Attribution

Single-touch or multi-touch attribution? The choice is yours. However, if you’re not tracking revenue attribution, you should be. It’s the singular metric that shows which marketing efforts work, making it a great tool when building the case for more budget. Proving ROI is what matters to your CFO.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) simply means how much you have to spend to acquire a new customer. Over time, by optimising your marketing activity and investing in channels with the greatest impact, this is the metric you’ll actively want to see decrease. The lower the CAC, the more targeted and effective your marketing activity is.

Total cost of activity / Number of new customers

Customer Lifetime Value

What is a new customer truly worth? We’re not talking about the first sale; we’re talking about every pound they spend with you ever. Only when you know this can you make an informed decision about how much to invest in new customer acquisition in the first place. This is how you turn misguided perceptions of marketing on their head – from being seen as a cost to being recognised as a sound investment for customer growth.

Customer value* x Average customer lifespan

* Customer value = Average purchase value x Average number of purchases

Traffic-to-Lead Ratio (Website Conversion Rate)

Website traffic alone is fairly meaningless, unless you do something with it. Your traffic-to-lead ratio tells you how many visitors you need to drive to your website in order to generate one new lead. Understanding this is the difference between a website that behaves like a brochure vs one that can prove its worth.

Ask yourself, or better still, ask some users, is it easy for them to find what they’re looking for on your website? Click to call, contact forms, email embeds, downloadable content, data capture – these are all tactics that help turn traffic into leads.

Setting clear website user goals and tracking your website’s performance against these will help you improve your conversion rate (traffic-to-lead ratio) overtime. The more visitors you convert to leads, the harder your website is working. Sweat that asset.

Total amount of traffic / Total number of leads x 100%

Lead-to-Customer Rate (Lead Conversion Rate)

You can track your lead-to-customer rate simply by dividing the number of leads by the number of new customer sales in any given period.

Every industry will have its own benchmark to aim for but the goal here is to continually improve your lead-to-customer ratio. When you’ve invested so much time and money in capturing the lead in the first place, don’t leave the rest up to fate. This is where effective lead nurture campaigns and content strategies come into play.

Total number of new customers / Total number of leads x 100%

Customer Retention Rate

This metric commonly falls through the gaps, but keeping track of it is crucial. Tirelessly attracting traffic, capturing leads and converting these into new customers costs copious amounts of time and money. Keeping customers is critical to building long-term, sustainable success.

(Number of customers at the end of the period – Number of new customers acquired) / Number of customers at the start of the period

Organic Search

The goal of any business serious about long-term, sustainable growth should be for the majority of its website traffic to come from organic search. Sure, there are easier, faster ways to generate traffic, but overly investing in PPC for example, at the expense of other forms of brand building and marketing activity, can leave your business dependent on costly tactics.

Organic search is a key indicator of marketing success and a sign that your brand’s profile and reputation is growing. In short, it’s not traffic you’ve (directly) paid for, so it’s extremely valuable.

The good news is that increasing organic traffic can be achieved incrementally from a combination of activity. This is where investing into and committing to a robust content, social and SEO strategy can really move the dial.

Regularly and consistently tracking these metrics will arm you with the data you need to make key decisions and optimise your marketing investment. If you think we can help your business with all or any of the areas above, let’s chat further.