Essential Marketing Manager KPIs: A Comprehensive Guide (2024)

You start digging through reports to understand the data. It’s a frustrating experience—the struggle to track marketing efforts.

But what if you had a system for tracking and measuring the performance of your marketing strategy?

That’s why marketers usekey performance indicators (KPIs).These are specific, measurable metrics used to track the performance of marketing campaigns and goals.

This post was written to help marketing managers and teams choose which KPIs to track and how to use them to increase ROI.

What Are Marketing KPIs?

Marketing key performance indicators gauge the past, present, and future performance of growth campaigns and strategies. You can also use these metrics to set goals and create budgets. For example, key performance indicators help companies optimize marketing ROI. Others measure channel-specific activity.

Tracking these numbers is also useful when evaluating digital marketing contractors. Brands can even use marketing KPIs to assess their culture and customer experience.

Companies use some marketing metrics to assess big-picture growth goals. Other indicators measure specific campaign performance. For example, "landing page conversions" may be a big-picture goal. The marketing department can then use web traffic analytics to create specific goal-oriented KPIs tied to higher conversions.

Marketing Manager KPIs: Benefits and Uses

Marketing managers can use KPIs to track almost anything. But it's easy to get lost in the numbers. So, the best approach is to start with basic KPIs that apply to all aspects of a marketing strategy.

They are:

These metrics help you make minor adjustments that have more impact over time.

Before we go any further, let’s examine how to set the right marketing KPIs using Objectives and Key Results.

Key Objectives vs. Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators vs. Objectives and Key Results for Marketers

Understanding the difference between a key performance indicator (KPI) and objectives and key results (OKR) is essential.

An objective is usually associated with a broad growth goal. A key result is a smaller goal that supports the effort to achieve the broader objective.

Here’s a simple example:

Suppose your company wants to increase revenue by $100,000 over the next quarter. You might need to get 50 new customers over the next 90 days to do that.

The revenue goal of $100,000 is an objective.

The key result needed to achieve the goal is 50 new customers.

Now, let’s say you launch an email marketing campaign to get 50 new customers. You should establish KPIs for the campaign. With these metrics in place, you can adjust and improve the campaign.

A KPI for the email marketing campaign might be the number of leads generated. For example, suppose the lead conversion rate (also a KPI) is 20 percent. That means you must get 250 leads over the next 90 days to hit the objective of $100,000 in revenue.

(250 leads x 20% conversion rate = 50 new customers)

To optimize ROI, you could focus on improving the lead conversion rate. You can use other KPIs that measure email conversions to get more responses. The click-to-open rate is an example. Improving conversions will help you reduce expenses associated with the email campaign.

Many companies aren’t sure how to develop a structure for OKRs and KPIs. That’s why they struggle to optimize performance. Following this framework for OKRs and KPIs will make the process easier.

Marketing Manager KPIs: Types of Indicators

In this section, we’ll focus on four categories of marketing KPIs. Each one serves a unique purpose. They provide a well-rounded assessment of your growth marketing strategy when used together.

Indicators fall into one of the following categories:

Leading KPI: These numbers provide insight into future performance. These come into play when creating the marketing budget or forecasting sales projections.

Lagging KPI: Data that confirms what has already happened. But lagging KPIs reveal why a marketing activity may have been a success or failure.

Quantitative KPI: An indicator used to evaluate progress.

Qualitative KPI: These marketing KPIs are usually based on opinions or educated guesses.

You’ll need to use a combination of these metrics to optimize campaigns.

Types of KPIs

Leading and Lagging Indicators

Lagging indicators provide feedback related to past performance. "Units sold over the last 30 days" is an example.

Others are:

• Gross or net revenue
• Percentage of revenue collected

Most business owners and companies track lagging indicators. But these don’t help an organization prepare for what may lie ahead. You also need data that sheds light on trends or issues impacting future performance.

Examples of leading KPIs are:

• Customer retention rate
• Percentage of revenue growth
• Percentage of new user trials

Leading and lagging indicators will be more reliable if you’ve been tracking them for an extended period of time. That’s why you should get them in place as soon as possible.

KPIs and the Cost of Acquiring Customers

Cost Per Lead (CPL) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) are the lifeblood of your business. These two key metrics can make or break your marketing efforts, and here's why.

CPL is the cost incurred to get a new lead. To find the average marketing spend per lead, divide the total marketing spend by the number of leads generated. This metric gives you a clear picture of the efficiency of your marketing campaigns. If the CPL is high, it means you're spending too much to attract potential customers. This might not be sustainable in the long run. But, a low CPL indicates that your marketing efforts are efficient.

CLV estimates the financial value a customer brings over their "lifetime" with your brand. This metric helps you understand how much you should spend on getting and retaining customers. A high CLV implies a healthy customer relationship.

But why do these numbers matter so much?

In the grand scheme, your marketing strategy should maximize CLV and minimize CPL. This balance ensures your business is profitable. By reducing the total cost per lead, you can know your marketing budget is spent wisely. By increasing the lifetime value of a customer, you encourage repeat purchases.

Consider CPL as the investment you make to attract customers and CLV as the return you get on this investment. The lower the CPL and the higher the CLV, the better your return on investment (ROI). Optimizing these metrics should be a top priority for any marketer that wants to drive growth and profitability.

Digital Marketing KPIs

It's best to use several marketing KPIs to measure digital marketing campaigns. Here are some examples:

Reach/Impressions: These numbers are usually related to paid advertising and social media. They are recorded when an ad is shown on a search result page or another site.

Return on Advertising Spent (ROAS): This is revenue generated versus the amount spent on ads.

Click-through Rate (CTR): Most often used in paid advertising. This refers to the ratio of users who click on an ad compared to the number of total users who saw it.

Cost-per-click (CPC): The average dollar amount needed to convert one user.

Google Analytics Dashboard

Website KPIs

For a website, certain KPIs are more important than others. Here are the primary ones:

Web Traffic

The number of people visiting your website is critical to its visibility and reach. But raw traffic numbers only tell part of the story. You should also understand:

• Where this traffic is coming from (source)
• Which pages are most visited (page views)
• How long visitors stay on your site (session duration)

Conversion Rate

This is one of the most critical KPIs. This tells you the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action. Making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a form are examples of conversions. Low conversions might mean the site has issues with design, content, or user experience.

Events

Events track user interactions with content on your website, such as button clicks, video views, downloads, and more.

User Engagement

User engagement metrics include average engagement duration, pages per session, and events per session.

Page Load Time

Slow-loading web pages can be a significant deterrent. So, tracking and improving how quickly your website loads is important. Faster load times reduce bounce rates. You can use an online tool like PageSpeed Insights to check page load times.

Returning Visitors

This KPI refers to the percentage of visitors returning to your site after their first visit.

Marketing Manager KPIs for a Sales Funnel

You must use detailed metrics for marketing campaigns to adjust at each stage of the customer’s path to purchase. As a simple example, I’ll use the typical marketing funnel model (illustrated below) and KPIs for each.

Sales Funnel Example

First, we’ll launch a paid search ad campaign to generate awareness and leads. We can use impressions, click-through rate, and cost-per-click to measure the success of our awareness campaign. We could optimize each of these to improve ROI on the ad campaign itself.

Of course, we’ll also need an engagement (consideration) campaign to generate sales. We can use the sales conversion rate to see how many people responded to our campaign.

The cost-per-acquisition tells us the cost of each prospective customer.
Again, this example oversimplifies the process. But, it illustrates how to structure KPIs and how each enables a brand to measure the return on marketing investment.

Marketing Manager KPIs: Aligning Indicators

KPIs won’t be valuable unless they align with the right objectives.

To simplify the process, here are some questions to help you develop them:

Why are you tracking a specific metric? Start by clarifying the goal of marketing campaigns. Then, create KPIs that align with those goals.

Is each KPI clearly defined? Vague or broad KPIs (such as “more leads and sales revenue”) won’t help you improve a growth strategy. Instead, develop KPIs that are clear and concise. You should avoid them if you can’t use them to make improvements.

How will you use the information you get from each KPI? Once you have KPI data, you must know how to use it. For example, knowing what percentage of visitors click on your website’s call-to-action is helpful. But how will you use that metric to increase response rates?

Is the KPI accurate? Believe it or not, accuracy is one of the most common problems our brand audit clients have with KPIs.

Data that isn’t measured correctly will skew results. Many companies aren’t sure how to set accurate KPIs because they don’t have a baseline from which to begin. That’s why it’s best to start tracking them early. In time, you’ll be able to establish performance benchmarks.

Will it move the needle? Many businesses track KPIs that have no impact on driving growth. The number of likes on your Facebook page doesn't reflect how engaged your audience is. Tracking the number of post shares or comments provides better insight.

Conversion Rate Optimization Process

Marketing Manager KPIs: Interpreting the Data

Data alone doesn't always reveal everything you need to know about marketing performance.

Interpreting data is a combination of art and science. A marketing team can get bogged down in the numbers and overcomplicate the process. The key is to keep the KPI process as simple and practical as possible.

In this section, I'll provide a framework for managing indicators.

Primary Marketing Performance KPIs

Primary performance KPIs answer a fundamental question: Is the campaign, strategy, or tactic working?

For example, a primary KPI for a lead generation campaign could be 100 new email signups each month. This number tells you immediately whether your email marketing campaign is on track.

It’s best to start with the essential primary KPIs and add others as needed.

Here are some primary KPIs for specific departments:

Sales Teams

These key performance metrics help a company's sales department capitalize on every opportunity.

• New Inbound Leads
• New Qualified Opportunities
• Total Pipeline Value
• Sales Volume by Location
• Average Order Value
• Sales opportunities vs. closed sales (also called win rate)

Sales Audit Process

Marketing Teams

Conversion rate is one of the most important KPIs because it impacts marketing dollars invested. But there are other metrics to consider as well, such as:

• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
• Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
• Social Program ROI (By Platform)
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Secondary Marketing Manager KPIs

These are sub-sets related to their primary parents. Using the email campaign example above, the primary KPI is to get 100 new signups each month. So, a secondary KPI might be to get your landing page in front of 10,000 website visitors.

Secondary KPIs are important because they provide context and additional insights into the success of your primary KPIs. They help you understand the factors that contribute to achieving your primary goals.

Diagnostic Marketing Metrics

Diagnostic metrics measure marketing campaign effectiveness, efficiency, and progress. They provide marketing managers with information that can be used to optimize marketing costs and improve results. Diagnostic metrics are often quantitative in nature and are typically represented using numbers or percentages.

Staying with our email marketing example, let's say we want to track how much we have to spend to get each new subscriber. Comparing this number to lifetime customer value (LCV) will help us optimize the campaign.

Establish a Baseline

Of course, it isn’t easy to define success until you have a baseline. Begin accumulating data early. As you continue to track results, KPIs will become more accurate and reliable.

To assess our email campaign's success, we must know what a reasonable email subscriber rate is. Is it two percent? Five percent?

We can’t know without a baseline.

So, how long does it take to establish a baseline? Of course, the answer varies, but a general rule of thumb is 90 days.

Reports and Marketing Team KPIs

Here are five popular reporting software tools teams can use for marketing KPIs:

Improvado: An automated marketing reporting software solution streamlining data collection and analysis. Marketers can pull real-time data from many sources. This platform offers customizable dashboards and reporting templates.

Ruler Analytics: This tool integrates with various platforms. You can use it to track customer journeys, phone calls, form submissions, and revenue. It offers insights that show which marketing strategies are driving conversions and ROI.

Klipfolio: A browser-based dashboard reporting tool that supports team sharing. Klipfolio allows you to connect to hundreds of data sources. This makes it easier to track performance metrics in real-time. It also provides pre-built templates and the ability to create custom dashboards.

Databox: This is a marketing dashboard software that excels at KPI visualization. It integrates with over 70 tools to pull data and display it in a user-friendly format.

WhatConverts: WhatConverts lets you report on over 70 data points. The tool offers pre-built marketing reporting templates and a customizable Report Builder. It's designed to provide marketing performance insights, including tracking leads, calls, and sales.

Do You Need Help With Marketing KPIs?

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