Welcome to the Marketing Metrics Marathon: The Must-Track KPIs to Get the Most Revenue

As we kick off the new year, our focus is sharp, and our goal is clear: to delve deep into the world of marketing metrics and unveil the secrets to marketing success. Effective marketing isn’t just about creating a buzz; it’s about turning that buzz into revenue growth.

In the fast-paced realm of digital marketing, tracking, and analyzing key metrics are like navigating a ship through uncharted waters. Every move matters, every decision counts.

Throughout January, join us on this exhilarating journey as we unveil a daily treasure trove of critical marketing metrics that marketing and business leaders must keep a close eye on.

Why? Because understanding these metrics is the compass that guides us toward tangible results.

Importance of marketing metrics in modern marketing

You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

You have no idea how often we’ve said this to teams — marketing metrics are indispensable to the success of any contemporary marketing strategy, and they are the differentiator between great companies and everybody else.

Marketing Measurement: A Game-Changer

In the not-so-distant past, marketing efforts often felt like casting a net into the vast ocean, hoping for a fruitful catch but without the means to truly understand what was happening beneath the surface. TV, radio, and even Public Relations campaigns were strategies you launched and hoped worked, with the only measurement option being increased website traffic or increased sales… if your campaigns worked at all.

Today, nearly every aspect of marketing is measurable. From website visits to email open rates, from click-through rates to conversion rates, marketers have access to an unprecedented wealth of data that empowers them to gain valuable insights into their campaigns. Marketers who AREN’T measuring are missing out on enormous opportunities and ineffectively spending money.

But most marketers will say they measure their work. The real challenge is, what are the key marketing metrics that really matter? With too many options for measurement, teams can easily got lost in the data.

The Competitive Advantage of Marketing Measurement

The saying, “If you don’t measure, you’re missing out,” couldn’t be more accurate in the context of modern marketing. Companies that harness the power of marketing metrics gain a significant competitive advantage over those that do not. They can adapt, refine, and optimize their strategies in real-time, ensuring they stay ahead of the curve. Conversely, businesses that neglect measurement risk falling behind and losing market share to their more data-savvy competitors.

Maximizing ROI with the Right Marketing Metrics

Marketing budgets are a precious resource. Without the ability to measure the impact of marketing activities, allocating these resources effectively becomes a shot in the dark. Tracking marketing metrics enables companies to identify which campaigns, channels, or tactics deliver the best return on investment (ROI). By directing resources to high-performing strategies and reallocating or cutting those that underperform, organizations can optimize their marketing spend for maximum impact.

Fostering Innovation with Marketing Data that Shows Both Success and Failure

One of the hidden gems of marketing metrics is their ability to spark innovation. When you can see precisely what works and what doesn’t, it opens up a world of creative possibilities. Marketers can use data-driven insights to brainstorm new ideas, experiment with different approaches, and refine their strategies. This process of continuous improvement fosters innovation, allowing businesses to stay relevant and resonate with their target audience.

Team Alignment and Focus Using the Right Marketing Metrics

In a marketing team, alignment and focus are paramount. Without a clear understanding of what campaigns, tactics, and content types are driving the most revenue, teams can easily become distracted by projects that “look good” but may not contribute to the bottom line. By sharing and discussing marketing metrics, teams can rally around common objectives, ensuring that everyone is working together towards goals that drive revenue and business growth.

Understanding the Basics of Marketing Metrics

When it comes to marketing metrics, you’ve gotta start with the fundamentals. Without setting your course and identifying your Must Track Marketing Metrics, you’ll fall prey to not measuring enough, or measuring too much and being paralyzed with data-overload.

There are four types of marketing metrics, and understanding the difference is the first steps to creating a metric-driven marketing machine.

Marketing Leadership Metrics: Your North Star of Success

At the pinnacle of the marketing metric hierarchy, are your Leadership Metrics. Think of these as your North Star—crucial for charting the course of your marketing strategy. Leadership Marketing Metrics are marketing measurements that directly impact revenue growth. They are the must-haves that you simply cannot afford to overlook.

Some examples of Marketing Leadership Metrics include:

Trial downloads
Meeting signups
Total inquiries
Leads and opportunities
Total marketing-sourced revenue

These metrics offer the highest level view of your marketing team’s impact on your company’s bottom line. They are the numbers that executives and stakeholders watch closely, as they provide a clear indication of the health and effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Team Metrics: Evaluating Individual Efforts

Just beneath the surface, we find Team Metrics. These metrics help assess the importance of your team’s individual contributions and dive deeper than your high level North-Star marketing metrics. They shine a light on the effectiveness of your marketing tactics and channels.

Examples of team marketing metrics include:

Lead generation by tactic (e.g., leads from email nurture campaigns, website, specific campaigns)
Click-through rates
Bounce rates
Account engagement rates
Trade show lead scans
Number of contest giveaways
Social media engagement per post
Follower growth over time

Team Metrics allow you to dissect your marketing efforts and understand which tactics are driving results. They enable your team to optimize their strategies, focusing on what works best to achieve the broader goals set by your Marketing Leadership Metrics.

Marketing Content Metrics: Unveiling Audience Excitement

Marketing content metrics provide insights into what truly resonates with your audience. They help answer questions like, “What content gets our audience excited?”

Examples of Marketing Content Metrics include:

Number of downloads by specific asset
Number of views for key blog pages
Engagement levels for different content types
Content Metrics empower you to fine-tune your content strategy. They reveal which pieces of content are hitting the mark and which might need a refresh or rethinking.

Marketing Metrics that Kill Performance

Lastly, beware of Marketing Metrics that Kill Performance. These are metrics that either weigh your team down or provide little actionable insight. They are like deadweight, slowing your progress without offering any valuable direction.

Examples of performance-killing marketing metrics include:

Vague social media reports showing followers over time without actionable insights of what content is really driving engagement, and who exactly your content is engaging.
Focusing solely on website traffic without considering visitor-to-lead conversion rates or bounce rates
Tallying up media exposure by touting big logo placements

Metrics that Kill Performance distract you from what truly matters—achieving your marketing objectives. To avoid getting lost in a labyrinth of irrelevant data, prioritize metrics that align with your Marketing Leadership Metrics and goals

Essential Marketing Metrics

This month, we are diving into the essential marketing metrics. We’ll be covering the North Star metrics for any marketing team. Each day, we’ll add a new North Star marketing metric and we’ll :

Explain what stage of the buyer’s journey it is for
Why it’s important
How to measure it
Common challenges
Typical range for good results.

Here’s a sneak peek at the 19 must-track marketing metrics we’ll be covering. As we publish each weekday, we’ll add hyperlinks here so you have one go-to resource:

Additional Resources and References

Join the GOTO Market Institute to turn your marketing team into an A+ dream team. Stop guessing at what will work to drive revenue, and join our battle-tested marketing blueprint that we’ve used to create over $8 Billion in Shareholder value. Including sample North Star dashboards of your must-track metrics, team planning and accountability templates, and how steps to improve your sync with sales to increase lead to opportunity creation – driving more revenue from marketing without needing more budget.