20 Marketing Metrics Every Marketer Should Master

20 Need-To-Know Marketing Metrics

Marketing is essentially a “pointless” activity without measurable results. This final article focuses on the metrics that marketers must understand to evaluate success and optimise campaigns.

This article follows on from:

• “20 Marketing Terms Every Marketer Should Know”
• “20 More Marketing Terms Every Marketer Should Know”
• “20 Advanced Marketing Terms for Professionals”
• “20 Essential Digital Marketing Terms for the Modern Marketer”

Here we go…

The Marketing Made Clear Podcast

This article features content from the Marketing Made Clear podcast. You can listen along to this episode on Spotify:

1. Return on Investment (ROI)
   Measures the profitability of your marketing campaigns relative to the cost. The simplest way of analysing ROI is sales divided by marketing costs for the channel that is being analysed.
2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
   The cost of acquiring a new customer, including all marketing and sales expenses.
3. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
   A customer loyalty metric that measures how likely customers are to recommend your brand – usually marked out of 10.
4. Cost Per Lead (CPL)
   The cost of acquiring a new lead through your marketing efforts.
5. Customer Retention Rate
   The percentage of customers who continue to do business with your company over a set time. Also referred to as return customer rate.
6. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
   The predictable income generated from subscriptions or ongoing services each month. This can be particularly important when valuing a business.
7. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
   The total cost of acquiring a customer, including all marketing and sales activities.
8. Sales Conversion Rate
   The percentage of leads that turn into paying customers. Contentious discussions between Sales and Marketing departments can arise when looking at the sales conversion rate, as quality of leads vs. sales proficiency/performance comes into question.
9. Churn Rate
   The percentage of customers who stop doing business with your company during a given period – also known as “drop off”.
10. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
    Leads deemed likely to become customers based on engagement and fit.

11. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
    MQLs that have been vetted and are ready to be contacted by the sales team – relevant to my notes on sales conversion rate.
12. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
    A metric for gauging customer happiness with your products or services.
13. Social Media Engagement Rate
    A measure of how users interact with your social media posts (likes, shares, comments).
14. Impression Share
    The percentage of total possible impressions your ad receives compared to competitors – often a very hard metric to determine.
15. Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)
    The percentage of opened emails that result in a click, a deeper engagement metric.
16. Page Load Time
    The time it takes for a webpage to fully load, impacting user experience and SEO rankings.
17. Traffic Sources
    Categories of website visitors (e.g., organic, direct, referral, paid) that show where your traffic is coming from.
18. Email Bounce Rate
    The percentage of emails not successfully delivered to recipients.
19. Form Abandonment Rate
    The percentage of users who start but don’t complete a form on your site.
20. Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
    The cost of 1,000 ad impressions, used for budgeting and evaluating ad reach.

Final Note

It’s the end of this series of articles!

Hopefully the series has provided a comprehensive foundation for marketers at every stage of their career. By mastering these 100 terms, you’ll be equipped with the language and insights to excel in the fast-paced world of marketing.

If you have questions or want to explore more, let me know—happy marketing!