Marketing Metrics Defined: 10 Marketing KPIs to Track

Marketing metrics are measurable values you can use to assess the performance of content marketing and other campaigns. They operate as key performance indicators (or KPIs) that enable you to gauge whether or not you’re hitting all your goals for a given initiative. For example, imagine you want to drive up your target audience’s page views. By keeping a close eye on them as you try different strategies, you can see what works best to meet your goal metric.

Marketing metrics are key to marketing campaign optimization. They provide core insights into areas of success and indicate where there’s room for improvement. When you focus on marketing metrics and implement relevant strategies in relation to them, you can elevate brand awareness, increase your engagement rate, and improve your overall marketing plan in an effective, data-driven way.

Marketing teams use various important metrics to ensure they optimize their strategies. Here are ten of the most common:

1. 1. Bounce rate: Marketers might want to analyze how often certain website visitors access their company’s landing page and then immediately leave right after. By keeping an eye on this metric, marketers can do more to make that initial page engaging. The goal is ultimately to entice users to access other areas of the site, where they might be more likely to complete a purchase.
2. 2. Click-through rate (CTR): Whichever marketing channels you use, at least some of your advertisements will likely feature a call to action (or CTA), which you want users to click. The click-through rate is a metric tracking how often users click through to the site toward which your ad is directing them.
3. 3. Content download rate: Throughout the course of your marketing activities, you might hope to get a number of customers to download a piece of content. By interfacing with customer-provided data, you can see how many people chose to do so. This allows you to gain a better understanding of how effective your marketing is with people of various demographics and dispositions.
4. 4. Conversion rate: This marketing KPI is somewhat broad in scope since a conversion rate can apply to many different specific metrics. Conversions are simply actions you hope people will take when they interact with your marketing materials. For example, you might want to see how often a person sees a piece of social media marketing and then goes on to make a purchase through the ad. Monitoring the conversion rate becomes an important way to monitor your overall success, too.
5. 5. Cost per acquisition (CPA): This metric tracks the customer acquisition cost (or CAC), so you can better iron out an official marketing budget. Once you realize exactly how much it costs you to bring in a new customer, you can start to strategize ways to maximize your return on investment (ROI).
6. 6. Cost per lead (CPL): Marketing is all about finding new customers and lead generation. One of the most useful metrics you can use that’s related to tracking lead generation is the cost per lead (CPL). This allows you to see the number of leads you generate and how much it costs you to generate each lead. Companies try to reduce costs where they can, and CPL is one area where you can try to optimize the cost-to-benefits ratio. For example, if you have a high CPL, try a new strategy like incentivizing current customers to make referrals to your company—essentially bringing in new leads for free.
7. 7. Customer lifetime value (CLV): This metric enables you to track how much a customer will spend on your business’s products and services over an extended amount of time. You can also broaden the scope to assess the average customer value overall. This sort of metric helps you discern the most profitable types of customers for your business, which helps you focus on how to reduce churn, increase customer retention, and properly allocate marketing investment.
8. 8. MQL to SQL ratio: The marketing qualified lead (MQL) to sales qualified lead (SQL) ratio indicates where new leads and potential customers are in the marketing funnel. MQLs are in the initial interest period, whereas SQLs are on the verge of or actively talking to a member of the sales team to make a purchase. Comparing the two helps you determine where to focus your efforts and resources to increase overall profitability.
9. 9. Unsubscribe rate: In email marketing initiatives specifically, it’s just as important to see how many people are unsubscribing as are signing up in the first place. If you see a substantial number of people asking to cut ties with your company’s updates over a short period, it’s time to ask how you can improve your email marketing strategy.
10. 10. Website traffic rate: You probably want to keep an eye on just how much traffic your website generates on any given day. To boost the number of visitors, work on a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to increase your rankings in organic search engine results. You can also consider paying for targeted ads.

Learn more about advertising and creativity from Jeff Goodby & Rich Silverstein. Break rules, change minds, and create the best work of your life with the MasterClass Annual Membership.