If you're obsessed with marketing metrics, this article is for you. If you HATE marketing metrics, this article is also for you. Why? The fact of the matter is that in 2023, any marketing campaign piloted purely on intuition is sure to come crashing down in a ball of fire.
But you already knew that. As we move into the new year, it's time to start thinking about which marketing metrics to track in your campaigns. While you can't forget classics like click-through rate or dwell time, this might be your year to experiment with monitoring some new classics...
Here are seven essential marketing metrics you should keep an eye on in 2023:
- Marketing qualified leads
- Velocity
- Average weekly frequency
- Click reach
- Revenue per subscriber/follower
- Customer lifetime value
- Subscriber/follower acquisition cost
We'll cover the tools you need to find each metric, the insights you can draw from it, and how to implement the findings into your marketing organization.
Ready? Let's go!
Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
MQLs measure the success of your lead generation efforts. Typically, a marketing-qualified lead is a lead that has made it past a certain level in the sales process and is deemed more likely to convert into a paying customer.
Often, this means they've engaged with your brand in more voluntary measures — examples include opting into an email series or downloading gated content.
Tools
You'll want to use a CRM system like Salesforce or HubSpot to track these marketing metrics. Alternative tools include Leadfeeder and Freshsales.
Insights
By tracking MQLs, you'll see how effective your lead-generation strategies are in terms of marketing ROI.
You'll also be able to identify which channels are producing the most high-quality leads by looking at the conversion rates for each channel.
Insights & Actions
First, let's unpack how MQLs are identified. Generally, it's a good idea to identify the behavioral trends you see in your customers-won.
Let's say many of your leads who follow a given buyer journey (e.g., Instagram ad to gated content to sales demo) tend to convert successfully and fall into a similar demographic. Future prospects who mimic these habits and features are more likely to be MQLs.
Here are some actionable tips:
- If you notice a steep drop off from your MQLs to your SQLs (sales qualified leads), there's likely a weakness in your sales team operation or closing process — consider alternative scripts or strategies.
- Notice one buyer journey seems to generate the most MQLs? Double down — A/B test at every stage to uncover where the success is coming from. Once you have the answer, you can make lightning strike twice.
Velocity
Velocity measures the speed at which leads are engaging with your marketing efforts. It's essential to keep an eye on this metric as it can indicate any bottlenecks or friction points in converting leads into customers.
Note: this is different from funnel velocity, the speed at which prospects move through your digital marketing funnels.
You can track velocity by looking at engagement or conversion rates over time or by setting up automated processes within your marketing platform.
Tools
Google Analytics is an excellent tool for tracking velocity on your website. You'll want to look at the user journey over time and see where users drop off or speed up in their journey.
On social media, you can track engagement with metrics like average weekly posts or comments per post (check out social listening tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social for this).
For your overall marketing function, centralized suites like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Segment CDP are solid options for getting a global view of your customer's journeys.
Insights & Actions
- By monitoring where your audience’s campaign engagement is accelerating or decelerating, you can identify potential problems that might slow them down. This could include anything from unclear messaging to difficult-to-navigate landing pages.
- Once you've identified the problem areas in your funnel, it's time to start optimizing — try testing different calls-to-action, adjusting page elements, and experimenting with different messaging.
- You can prioritize or customize messaging to customers depending on if their velocity is increasing (try upselling or cross-selling) or decreasing (offer discounts and promo codes).
Average weekly frequency
Average weekly frequency shows how often a customer interacts with your marketing messages (in a week). It can be used to assess the effectiveness of campaigns and identify opportunities for improvement. You can track these marketing metrics by recording how often customers open emails, click links, visit web pages, or take any other action related to your business over a set period.
Tools
Your marketing teams can track the average frequency of customer engagements using analytics tools like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics. You'll want to look at how frequently users visit specific pages on your website, how much time they spend on them (dwell time), and whether they've purchased anything during that period.
For your other channels, like SMS, email, or social media, you'll benefit from using tools like Klaviyo, Mailchimp, and Sprout Social.
You can gather a 360-degree view of your customer touchpoints and marketing metrics from a CDP (Adobe, Segment, HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.).
Insights & Actions
- What types of campaigns tend to drive higher frequency levels — Are they leveraging influencers? In-app notifications? Perhaps a combination of both? Once you've identified the most effective campaigns, try testing new ones using different channels and strategies.
- Your marketing teams can also use average frequency to measure customer satisfaction — if customers engage with your brand more often, they're likely having a positive experience.
- If you notice that some of your most engaged customers are receiving redundant communications, it may pose a risk — like a dreaded email unsubscribe. Check the frequency per segment and ensure you're not overloading your customers with messaging.
Click reach
This metric shows how many people are responding to your campaigns and is usually measured in terms of clicks per message sent. Tracking this allows you to gauge how successfully each campaign draws attention from potential customers. (Note: this is different from the click-through rate, we're looking at whole numbers here).
Tools
You'll need an email marketing platform like MailChimp or Constant Contact to track click-reach metrics.
Insights & Actions
- High dwell time with low engagements/clicks per contact might mean the copy and visuals at the bottom of your funnel are the bottlenecks.
- Test different subject lines and calls to action to see which ones draw more clicks. Make sure the visuals used in your campaigns are eye-catching and engaging.
- It's also essential to remember that specific customer segments may have higher average click rates than others — it could be worth segmenting your list and focusing on increasing engagement for these particular groups of customers.
Revenue per subscriber/follower (RPS)
Revenue per subscriber/follower (RPS) is a metric that measures the amount of money generated by each visitor, subscriber, or follower. It's essential to keep an eye on this metric to identify which channels drive the most revenue for your business.
Moreover, a loyal audience is a superpower in an economy increasingly driven by creators with followings. After all, the difference between selling to a customer and a fan is monumental.
In short, RPS tells you how productive your YouTube/Instagram/email list subscribers and followers are for your business.
Tools
You can track these metrics using tools like Google or Adobe Analytics. General CRM tools like Salesforce or HubSpot can also track RPS across all channels.
Insights & Actions
- Once you have identified the channels that generate the most revenue, focus on them and continue optimizing.
- Observe which products, messages, and services generate the most revenue per subscriber/follower — is there a particular one that appeals more to this audience? Test different promotions and messaging to see what resonates best with your subscribers/followers.
- Try testing different kinds of content, like videos, photos, polls, surveys, etc., to keep your followers engaged and encourage them to take action. The key is finding out what kind of content will inspire them to purchase more of your products or services.
- Tracking RPS over time can tell you which parts of your campaign need reassessment — if the metric seems to fall during the later months, perhaps your marketing team needs to work on your closing elements.
Subscriber/follower acquisition cost (SAC)
Forget customer acquisition cost — it's all about the followers now. (Okay, slight exaggeration; they're both critical.)
SAC measures the money you spend to acquire each new subscriber or follower (on email, SMS, social media, etc.). Keeping track of this metric is essential to ensure your marketing investments are paying off and that you're not spending too much on unproductive campaigns.
In an age where content is king, you want to ensure your SMS/email marketing/social media spend brings in the right amount of traffic, views, or follows. If your marketing strategy is primarily driven by content marketing, SAC is a marketing metric you absolutely need to track.
Tools
To determine your SAC, you can divide your content marketing or SMM spend by the number of new followers it generated over a given period. Some tools that can do this for you include HubSpot, Google Analytics, and Twitter Ads.
Insights & Actions
- Look out for campaigns with a high SAC — it could indicate that your content isn't resonating with the right people or that your targeting efforts need to be adjusted. Test different types of ads on different channels and see which ones bring in the most followers. Experiment with different messaging approaches as well; you'll likely find that some messages generate more leads than others.
- Be mindful of the timeframes you use to determine your SAC; whereas organic SEO can take months or years to show results, TikTok content marketing tends to accelerate more quickly.
- Compare your SAC to RPS; if the delta is negative, it could mean a few different things. You may be putting content on the wrong marketing channels — for instance, maybe your long-form content strategy would do better on LinkedIn than on YouTube. Alternatively, your targeting parameters are off; experiment with different segments to see where you land. If these two possibilities are false, you may simply be overspending on content!
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) measures how much a customer will be worth over their entire relationship with your company. This metric helps you determine the return on investment for marketing campaigns since it tracks how much revenue each customer generates long-term.
Whether you run a SaaS company or are simply trying to build a brand with longevity, CLV is just one of those marketing metrics every executive needs to be aware of.
Tools
You can use tools like Klaviyo to track CLV and ensure you're getting the most out of your customers. It's also possible to extrapolate an estimated CLV for your current customers based on previous customer trends using tools like Salesforce and HubSpot.
Insights & Actions
- Look out for customers who generate a high CLV and reward them accordingly — this could involve offering discounts, free shipping, or providing exclusive access to products/services. You can also analyze the lifetime value of different customer segments: Which ones give you the best return? Is there anything you can do to increase their loyalty even further? Can you replicate that stickiness in other segments?
- Focus on retaining existing customers instead of just acquiring new ones since they're more likely to bring in higher profits over time. Develop campaigns focused on increasing customer loyalty by providing incentives and offers that cater to your current customers.
- A high CLV doesn't necessarily mean a loyal customer — if that were the case, homeowners and car companies would be leading the charts with one-off sales in the tens to hundreds of thousands. Look through the weeds to get the best picture of your audience.
- CLV doesn't necessarily have to come entirely from a customer's spending — if they're a net promoter of your brand and increase your overall business, it may be wise to factor that into your calculations.
Use the Right Marketing Metrics to Get the Biggest ROI
Understanding and tracking marketing metrics is essential for any executive looking to maximize their return on investment.
- SAC, RPS, and CLV will help you determine which campaigns bring in the most leads or followers and how much revenue each customer brings over time. This information is beneficial for campaign planning and targeting.
- Marketing metrics like click reach, average weekly frequency, velocity, and MQLs will help you optimize your marketing investment on the campaign level, ensuring the best experience for every prospect.
By leveraging tools such as Salesforce, Marketo, and HubSpot to track these numbers, executives can gain valuable insights into their customers’ behavior that can then inform decisions about targeting parameters, content strategies, loyalty rewards programs, and more.
Ultimately, with the advanced analytics we've discussed, executives can get maximum ROI from every campaign they launch.
Need some help wrangling your martech stack into a place where you can get all the data you need? Portage Labs can help. Our team of experts in digital strategy and marketing automation can supercharge your tech stack to ensure you get the most out of your marketing efforts. Get in touch today to learn more!
Frequently Asked Questions
What are metrics in marketing?
Metrics in marketing refer to the key performance indicators that businesses use to measure the success of their campaigns. Common metrics include cost per acquisition (CPA), return on investment (ROI), customer lifetime value (CLV), and click reach.
How can I track my marketing efforts?
You can track your marketing efforts using tools like Salesforce, Marketo, and HubSpot to get detailed insights into how customers engage with your content and which campaigns bring the most ROI.
What should I look for when tracking key marketing metrics?
When tracking marketing metrics, look out for high CLV customers and reward them with discounts, free shipping, or exclusive access to products/services.
Additionally, focus on increasing customer loyalty by providing incentives and offers that cater to your current customers.
Finally, use marketing metrics like click reach, average weekly frequency, velocity, and MQLs to optimize your marketing investment on the campaign level.
What are some tips for optimizing ROI?
To maximize ROI from campaigns, tracking key marketing metrics such as SAC, RPS, and CLV is vital to understanding which campaigns bring in the most leads, followers, and revenue.
Additionally, use tools like Salesforce and Marketo to get insights into how customers are engaging with your content so you can optimize parameters as needed.
