Find out what the the best marketing KPIs for your business should be. We'll introduce you to the KPIs marketing managers should be using and the ones C-level executives care about
Marketing KPIs
Marketing KPIs can be daunting to track and report. There are many different types of KPIs in marketing, and not all of them matter for everyone at your company. But don’t worry, we will walk you through it!
We’re not going to go through an exhaustive list of different KPIs and explain what each means. The critical thing here is to make sure you're aware of what matters most in your organization, so you get buy-in from your team and management.
Now, let’s take a look!
First, what is a KPI?
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measure that assesses how your company performs in achieving specific goals or objectives. KPIs exist for every aspect of business, whether financial, marketing, sales, or operations; there's one to fit any need!
Also read our dedicated post: what are KPI's?
The ten most common marketing KPIs
Below you will find a list of some of the most common KPIs used in marketing.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) - how much does it cost to convert a lead to a customer.
- Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV) - the amount of revenue you can make per customer during their time with you.
- Return on Investment (ROI) - money you gain compared to the marketing cost.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) - revenue generated versus the amount spent on digital advertising.
- Conversion Rates - the percentage of visitors who completed a desired action on your website.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) - measures customer satisfaction and how likely customers are to recommend your company.
- Organic Traffic - measures the success of your SEO and brand efforts.
- Social Media Reach - measures the number of leads you generate by channel.
- Customer Retention - measures how many customers your business can keep.
- Leads - measures the number of potential customers you have in your pipeline.
To read more about these KPIs, check out this article.
KPIs for a digital marketer
As a digital marketer, you need to know what’s driving performance. You have to ask yourself daily: What’s performing well? What isn’t? Your objective is to make quick decisions and take immediate actions to get more out of your marketing efforts.
Performance marketing regularly checks by channel, campaign, asset, and creatives. Typically, you’ll get a lot more granular in your data to gather insights on how you can optimize your campaigns.
KPIs for a manager
A manager doesn’t need to know all the nitty-gritty details. They are probably not interested in how each channel, asset, or campaign performs. High-level insights on which marketing channels and campaigns drive growth are good enough.
Most marketing managers want to see and understand how marketing is performing overall. Tell them how much you’ve spent and what you’ve got in return for that spend. And more importantly, provide a summary of what is driving performance.
Some examples of marketing KPIs a manager will want to know are:
- Number of leads per week or month
- Total revenue from campaigns per week or month
- The average cost per lead or customer
- Cost tracking against budget for the month
- Number of potential customers in the pipeline
Again, it’s essential to consider what type of manager you are addressing - what’s important to them, and what do they need to know?
In short, most managers worry about the marketing strategy and ensuring that all marketing campaigns meet the overall goals and targets. You’ll need to reassure them that everything is on track in your reporting.
KPIs for CMOs and CEOs
CMOs and CEOs need to know how marketing is contributing or affecting the bottom line. They should be able to recite top-level numbers like cost per acquisition -or lifetime value-, as well as payback time for acquiring new customers through paid channels.
There are several differences in how marketing reports at the C- level. CEOs want to know about sales growth, whereas a CMO is probably more preoccupied with brand awareness and strategy. As for the finance department, worries about the cost of goods sold and other financial considerations keep them up at night. In short, each C-Level person will want to know different things about marketing.
Create various reports and dashboards
There are many different types of KPIs in marketing, and not all of them matter for everyone at your company.
Ultimately, you need to provide different analyses for different stakeholders throughout the business year.
The easiest way to do that is with a marketing data platform like Funnel. That means no more manual sorting through spreadsheets or pulling up reports on Google Analytics every time someone has a performance question.
With Funnel, you can create dashboards for each stakeholder containing the data they care about most, automatically updated with no effort.