The 6 best-known marketing KPIs and why you need them

Key performance indicators (Key Performance Indicators, abbreviated KPI) are quantifiable metrics that show a company’s (or its marketing’s) performance in strategic areas. KPIs exist for every department in a company, whether it is production, marketing, sales or another department. Here, however, I will focus only on KPIs suited to the playing field of digital marketing. Marketing KPIs measure how effective your overall marketing effort (marketing strategy) is, but they tend to focus on marketing campaigns and individual tactics over specific periods.

What is a KPI?

KPI is a commonly used abbreviation of the English term Key Performance Indicators. In Czech you may know them as key goals, selected goals, key performance indicators or performance indicators. What matters with a KPI is that it is set for a specific period as a clearly motivating goal, and often for a specific segment too. In marketing, for example, we have KPIs at several levels. KPIs are most often clear, easily measurable quantitative data such as profitability, revenue, income, number of conversions, traffic or sales. This is both a major strength and a weakness of KPIs. There should not be too many KPIs, and the SMART method is ideal for setting them:

Specific: If goals are too broad or vague, they easily miss the mark. If they are defined too broadly, they are harder to measure and also harder to achieve.

Measurable: If you cannot measure something, you cannot tell whether you are doing well or whether you have strayed from the right path and need to change direction.

Attainable: It is important to look at your ultimate goals and plan targets that are realistically within reach. It is also important not to get carried away, not to use far-reaching or unattainable goals as motivation, and not to keep chasing impossible results.

Relevant: A KPI should always contribute to the organisation’s main goal and should be easy to understand.

Time-bound: If your goals have no deadline, you can easily end up putting off the work needed to achieve them. That is why it is so important for goals to be time-bound and comparable with one another.

Defining and tracking marketing KPIs is important because it allows you to:

• Measure progress and compare periods: identify which marketing tactics meet or exceed expectations.
• Optimise your budget: direct spending to the channels that maximise return on investment (ROI).
• Guide decision-making: gain data-driven insights that can inform strategic decisions.
• Identify strengths and weaknesses: spot underperforming campaigns or assets that can be improved. And vice versa.

In marketing, a KPI is often something measurable that sits between the client or manager on one side and the marketing specialist or agency on the other.

Another option is to set KPIs according to the marketing funnel you use.

Which KPIs should you choose for marketing?

Here are 6 examples of KPIs that I use. This is certainly not a complete, comprehensive overview.

1) Turnover

A very simple KPI with a clear benefit for the business. However, you can also work with turnover in more depth. Turnover can be set for a specific marketing campaign or for a selected marketing channel. Right from the start, this KPI defines what the campaign or channel should deliver in the given period. At the same time, setting the KPI should not be a matter of sticking a pin in a map and saying you want to grow by 15% a year. In my view this KPI makes sense, but it must be justified and grounded. Turnover can be the main KPI running through the entire marketing mix.

If margins differ significantly between individual products, it makes sense to track revenue for each product.

2) Leads

A qualified lead is an organisation or individual with the potential to become your customer. It is someone who has knowingly shown interest in your offer. For example, a person who filled in the contact form on your website or signed up for a free trial. That is a lead. The same applies when someone on my website, for example on the homepage, clicks the CTA “I’m interested and want to know more” and then fills in the form. Spam does not count as a lead, and neither do enquiries that are obviously off the mark at first glance. Do not distort your data with them.

There are two broad categories of leads:

Marketing qualified leads (MQLs): These are potential customers who have engaged with your marketing initiatives. For example, they downloaded an e-book or clicked on a Facebook ad.
Sales qualified leads (SQLs): These are potential customers who have shown an intention to buy (for example by booking a demo) and are ready to talk to a salesperson.
Tracking the number and quality of potential customers (leads) helps you estimate potential future revenue, effective channels and the general development of your business. More potential customers can mean more paying customers.

Also track which channels and campaigns bring in leads. There can also be more specific KPIs here that focus precisely on cost per lead or conversion rate (where a conversion is a lead).

Then invest more resources in the marketing initiatives that perform exceptionally well. Like many others, this KPI of course has its shortcomings. For example, if you invest in brand awareness among your target group, it will not bring you much directly, but over a certain time horizon you may see leads coming in through your brand, more leads overall or a better conversion rate when turning leads into customers. In my own practice, I have most often worked with lead-focused clients in B2B and with clients focused on investments. For both types, this KPI is essential.

3) Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the total revenue a business can expect from a customer over their entire life cycle, in other words how much value a single customer brings you.

CLV is a key metric for understanding your business, your product and your relationship with customers. CLV is also strongly influenced by how retention-driven your product is. To be profitable, your CLV must be higher than your sales and marketing spend on acquiring one customer.

Here is a simple formula for calculating CLV:

Formula for calculating customer lifetime value (CLV)

Average transaction value = 1,000 CZK (about 41 EUR)
Average number of transactions per year = 4
Average retention = 2 years
Your CLV for this customer is 1,000 x 4 x 2 = 6,000 CZK (about 250 EUR)

This KPI shows you clearly how much you can spend on acquisition in marketing while it still makes sense. You can increase CLV by nurturing potential customers and upselling existing ones, so that you generate more revenue from each customer.

4) Traffic and keyword rankings

To reach a large number of online users, your website needs to appear in top positions in search engine results (SERPs). Rankings directly affect your brand’s visibility and accessibility for potential customers in the awareness stage, as well as hard performance on product pages. This KPI is typical for content managers and SEO consultants.

Thanks to Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Ahrefs and Marketing Miner, marketing managers and SEO consultants have valuable data for measuring search engine rankings. Specifically, they measure:

• Number of target keywords
• Rankings for selected transactional keywords
• Volume of organic traffic
• Number of backlinks (a poor but the only metric for link building)
• Brand search volume (SEO consultants often measure this, but responsibility lies mainly elsewhere)

Tracking these indicators will help you understand the performance of your SEO strategy and how performance-oriented your SEO consultant is. If you have any doubts, you can take a look at my SEO consultant services and contact me via the consultation form.

5) CPA, cost per action or acquisition

Cost per acquisition or action (CPA) is the marketing cost needed to gain a paying customer in a specific channel (or overall). Comparing channels and their CPA is a good way to illustrate the performance potential of each channel.

Tracking CPA helps you understand whether your ads are profitable and effective.

For example, to make a profit, your CPA should be lower than customer lifetime value (CLV).

A high (or rising) CPA may indicate the declining effectiveness of your paid ads.

You can lower CPA by testing different ad targeting, copy and visuals. You can also optimise the conversion rate with improved messaging and landing page designs.

Tracking CPA by individual channel can bring further insights. You may notice that Google Ads campaigns acquire customers much more cheaply than Facebook Ads and SEO. You can then allocate more budget to Google Ads.

6) ROAS, return on advertising spend

Return on advertising spend (ROAS) refers to the revenue generated from the money spent on advertising. It is the best-known performance metric you will come across.

Tracking ROAS gives you a clear picture of how your advertising budget (credit) translates into revenue. Marketers can track ROAS across different campaigns, channels and platforms.

Calculating ROAS is simple. Divide the revenue from an advertising campaign by the total advertising spend.

For example, imagine a clothing shop that sells expensive clothes. It launches a Facebook advertising campaign that costs 5,000 CZK (about 210 EUR). After a month, the campaign has generated sales of 25,000 CZK (about 1,000 EUR). The ROAS would be five, which means that for every crown spent, they earned 5 CZK (about 0.21 EUR).

A positive ROAS means the campaign is profitable, whereas a ROAS of less than one means the campaign is clearly loss-making.

You can prioritise campaigns or channels with a positive ROAS. Unprofitable ads can either be stopped or improved by creating more engaging visuals, better headlines and clearer calls to action.

7) Measuring brand or awareness

A KPI for larger companies and brands. There is certainly a wide range of options for what to measure, how and at what cost. The simplest is the search volume for the brand and revenue from branded search terms. In effect, you are measuring the loyal customers who buy from you. A rising or falling trend shows how successful your company, PR or brand activities are.

For larger companies, surveys make it possible to measure brand awareness and category association.

Euro amounts are approximate, converted at the Czech National Bank rate of 24.34 CZK per EUR on 29 October 2026.