A marketing KPI (key performance indicator) is a numerical measure that tells you if your marketing actions are truly moving towards a goal (leads, sales, retention, awareness...).
The idea is not to accumulate numbers, but to track the right key performance indicators at the right point in the customer journey. To provide a complete and relevant analysis, marketing KPIs must be aligned with the company's strategic issues and adapted to the specifics of its sector.
In this guide, you will understand the role of KPIs, discover the most useful marketing performance metrics (acquisition, conversion, retention...), and learn how to build a simple, readable, and actionable KPI dashboard.
What is a Marketing KPI?
A KPI is not "just any metric".
A metric = a data point (visits, likes, impressions...)
A KPI = a priority metric linked to a goal, with a target, a tracking rhythm, and an associated action
A good KPI answers 3 questions:
Does it measure a useful result (business, growth, profitability)?
Can I act on it (optimize, test, correct)?
Is it comparable over time (week vs week, campaign vs campaign)?
Keep in mind: a SMART KPI is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound. It's better to have 8 solid KPIs than 40 numbers "just in case".
SMART Method: Guide for Marketing Excellence Objectives in 2026
SMART Criterion 🎯
Strategic Explanation 📝
Practical Application & Value ✅
Specific
– Precise delineation of a single marketing lever
– Total clarity to avoid multiple interpretations
“Increase the click-through rate (CTR) of abandoned cart reminder emails” instead of “improve emailing”.
Measurable
– Definition of a quantitative unit of measure ($, %, unit)
– Requires a reliable and auditable tracking system
– Allows comparison of performance from month to month
– Facilitates ROI calculation
– Makes success or failure indisputable
Acceptable
– Feasibility validation according to budget and staff
– Consensus between marketing and sales teams
The goal motivates the teams because it is seen as a challenge that can be overcome with current resources.
Realistic
– Consistency with the current state of the market and competition
– Direct impact on final profitability (business KPI)
– Avoids "Vanity Metrics" that don't bring revenue
– Prioritizes actions with high strategic added value
Time-bound
– Setting a firm deadline
– Establishing regular checkpoints
– Creates a positive sense of urgency
– Allows analysis of seasonal trends
– Triggers corrective measures if the goal is not met by the set date
What are the Roles of KPIs in a Marketing Strategy?
Marketing KPIs play several essential roles in your strategy:
🎯 Measure Real Performance — Use KPIs to measure the effectiveness of your marketing actions, lead generation, and customer satisfaction to accurately assess what works and what doesn't in your campaigns.
📊 Make Informed Decisions — Marketing KPIs help businesses evaluate the performance of their marketing efforts and make thoughtful decisions to improve results, relying on reliable data to adjust strategy rather than guessing.
💰 Justify Investments — Prove the ROI (return on investment) of your marketing actions to management
🎯 Align the Team — Create a common goal for the entire team to work towards
🚀 Identify Improvement Opportunities — Quickly spot bottlenecks and optimize your efforts
List of common metrics by business model
4 Main Categories of Marketing KPIs
Every marketing KPI falls into one of these four categories, corresponding to the stages of the customer journey:
Each category groups KPIs related to a specific stage of the customer journey, allowing precise measurement of marketing actions' performance at each phase.
Acquisition measures your ability to attract new visitors and prospects interested in your products or services. Effective lead management is essential to optimize acquisition and maximize the return on investment of marketing campaigns.
Main Acquisition KPIs:
Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of clicks received compared to impressions
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The total investment needed to acquire a new customer. This KPI is crucial for measuring the profitability of marketing campaigns and identifying the most effective acquisition channels.
Organic Traffic: Visitors coming from free search results
Number of Leads Generated: Qualified contacts collected
Cost per Lead (CPL): Amount spent per prospect
Example: A SaaS agency aiming for 500 leads/month with a budget of €10,000 has a target CPL of €20.
2️⃣ Engagement KPIs: Capturing and Maintaining Attention
Once visitors are on your site, you need to keep them engaged — that's the role of engagement KPIs.
Main Engagement KPIs:
Engagement Rate: Percentage of interactions (likes, comments, shares) compared to reach
Click-Through Rate (CTR): % of people clicking on your links
Pages per Session: Number of pages visited in a single visit
Average Time on Site: Average time spent per visitor
Bounce Rate: % of visitors leaving without interacting
A high bounce rate (>60%) often signals an issue with UX, content relevance, or targeting.
3️⃣ Conversion KPIs: Turning Interest into Action
Conversion is the key stage where the prospect becomes a customer (purchase, subscription, quote request, etc.).
Main Conversion KPIs:
Conversion Rate: % of visitors completing the desired action
Average Order Value (AOV): Average amount spent per customer per transaction
Cost per Conversion: Budget spent per conversion
Average Order Value: Revenue per transaction
Micro-Conversions: Intermediate actions (download, newsletter signup) before the final sale
Benchmark: A conversion rate of 2-3% is decent for e-commerce, while 4-10% is a good performance for B2B.
Acquiring a customer is costly. Retention KPIs measure your ability to keep them and bring them back.
Main Retention KPIs:
Retention Rate: % of customers retained over a given period
Churn Rate: % of customers lost
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): Total revenue generated by a customer during their relationship
Repeat Purchase Rate: % of customers making a repeat purchase
Engagement Rate in Loyalty Programs: Participation in loyalty offers
Why it matters: Increasing retention by 5% can boost profits by 25-95% according to HubSpot.
Summary: Marketing KPIs by Category
Marketing KPIs by Category: Definitions, Formulas, and Reference Benchmarks
Marketing Performance Indicators (KPI): The 2026 Management Guide
Indicator (KPI) 📊
Definition 🧠
Calculation Formula ➗
Performance Threshold ✅
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) 💸
Average total investment needed to convert a prospect into a paying customer, including marketing and sales expenses.
$$\frac{\text{Marketing + sales expenses}}{\text{Number of new customers}}$$
• When it's significantly lower than LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)
• If it shows a downward trend due to channel optimization
• If it's quickly amortized (short payback period)
Return on Investment (ROI) 💰
Measure of the net profitability generated by your marketing campaigns compared to the invested amounts.
• If it decreases on strategic landing pages
• If it's correlated with an increase in average time spent on the site
Note: For a marketing strategy to be considered profitable, the CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) must be greater than the CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost).
How to Choose the Right KPIs for Your Strategy?
First and foremost, setting up a marketing KPI strategy must be aligned with the company's strategic objectives to get a clear view of performance.
With dozens of possible marketing KPIs, how do you know which one to follow? Here's a proven methodology:
1️⃣ Identify Your Goals
First, answer these questions:
What is my main goal (traffic growth, sales increase, awareness)?
Who is my target audience?
What problem am I solving for my customers?
What is my evaluation period (3 months, 1 year)?
2️⃣ Select Relevant KPIs
Don't track all marketing KPIs — that would lead to chaos. Focus on 3-5 essential KPIs aligned with your goals.
Example by sector:
Strategic Dashboard: KPIs by Sector in 2026
Industry Sector 🏢
Priority Goal 🎯
Strategic KPIs to Track 📊
Business Impact ✨
E-commerce 🛒
Maximize sales volume and profitability
– Conversion Rate (CVR) 🎯
– Average Order Value (AOV) 🧾
– LTV / CAC Ratio (Lifetime Value / Acquisition Cost) 💰
– Cart Abandonment Rate 📉
Optimizes net margin per customer and advertising campaign efficiency.
Reach / Impressions: How many people see your content
Follower Growth: Evolution of your community over time
Click-Through Rate (CTR): % clicking on your CTA (call to action)
Mentions and Sentiment: Volume and tone of your brand mentions
Social Media Conversion Rate: % converting after clicking from social media
Analyzing market share on social media also helps assess your positioning relative to competitors and identify improvement opportunities.
💡 SEO Tip: Vary your KPIs by network (Instagram vs LinkedIn) — each platform has its own dynamics.
Paid Advertising KPIs (Google Ads, Facebook Ads)
Paid ads require constant optimization. Here are the essential KPIs:
ROAS (Return on Ads Spend): Amount spent vs revenue generated by an ad campaign. ROAS focuses solely on the revenues generated and expenses of a specific ad campaign. It's crucial to measure ROAS accurately to ensure the reliability of the analysis and optimize the return on investment of a campaign. Ideal target: 3:1 or more
Cost per Click (CPC): Average amount paid per click
Conversion Rate: % converting from the ad
Cost per Conversion (CPA): Amount spent per conversion. To be minimized
Quality Score: Google's assessment of ad relevance (1-10)
Branding and Public Relations KPIs
In a modern marketing strategy, measuring the impact of your branding and public relations actions is essential to drive brand awareness and optimize your investments. The right KPIs allow you to track the evolution of your image, analyze the outcomes of your campaigns, and make informed decisions to strengthen your market presence.
Here are the key indicators to integrate into your dashboard:
Brand Awareness: This indicator measures the visibility and recognition of your brand among your target audience. It relies on awareness studies, surveys, or analysis of search volume on search engines. On social media, the number of mentions and organic reach are strong signals of your progress.
Engagement Rate: Track how your customers and prospects interact with your content on social media, your website, or during events. A high engagement rate (likes, shares, comments, mentions) indicates a strong connection with your audience and the effectiveness of your messages.
Press Coverage: Analyze the quantity and quality of articles, interviews, or citations obtained in the media. This key performance indicator helps you measure the impact of your public relations actions and adjust your strategy to maximize media coverage.
Customer Satisfaction: Customer feedback, reviews, and satisfaction scores are essential for evaluating the perception of your brand and the quality of the experience offered. A high level of satisfaction promotes retention and naturally enhances your reputation.
Conversion Rate: Even for image-focused campaigns, it's crucial to measure your actions' ability to generate leads or sales. Tracking the conversion rate from your branding or public relations campaigns aligns your awareness efforts with concrete business results.
By monitoring these KPIs, you can measure the effectiveness of your actions, identify improvement levers, and steer your branding strategy to maximize impact on your customers and prospects. Regular analysis of these indicators helps you make strategic decisions, adjust your campaigns, and sustainably strengthen your brand's awareness.
Summary: KPIs by Channel
Performance Indicators (KPIs) by Marketing Channel in 2026
Marketing Lever 🚀
Essential KPIs 📊
Objective & Added Value 🎯
SEO (Organic) 🔍
– Average position & organic traffic 📈
– SEO CTR via Search Console 🖱️
– Organic conversions (Sales/Leads) 💰
– Strategic pages generating MQL/SQL
– Monthly organic traffic (growth rate)
– Keywords ranked in the top 10/20 ✨
– Backlinks and domain authority 🔗
– Measures the sustainability of acquisition outside advertising
– Identifies content that truly captures purchase intent
– Evaluates domain strength against competitors 🛡️
– Anticipates high-potential traffic opportunities
– Evaluates the relevance of subjects and offers
– Monitors the health and engagement of the contact base
– Measures the ability to retain and grow the list 💎
– Quantifies the financial ROI of each campaign
Social Media 📱
– Engagement rate (reactions/shares) ❤️
– Reach & impressions 📡
– Clicks to the website 🔗
– Follower growth (growth rate)
– Sentiment and tone of mentions ✨
– Video views and completion rate 🎬
– Quantifies brand power and virality 🚀
– Measures the ability to turn the audience into proprietary traffic
– Evaluates the quality and loyalty of the community 🤝
– Identifies high-potential viral content
Advertising (Ads) 💰
– CPA (Cost per acquisition) / CPL 💶
– ROAS (E-commerce) or ROI (B2B) 📊
– Landing page conversion rate 🎯
– CTR & CPC (diagnostic indicators)
– Quality Score (ad relevance) ⭐
– Impression share
– Average frequency and audience burnout ⚠️
– Ensures direct profitability of the invested budget
– Detects frictions between the ad and the landing page
– Optimizes budget allocation according to performing segments 📈
– Identifies levers to improve Quality Score
Marketing Automation ⚙️
– Lead Velocity (entry speed) ⚡
– Lead Scoring (evolution & distribution)
– MQL → SQL conversion rate 🛠️
– Scenario completion rate (nurturing)
– Average response time to new leads ⏱️
– Pipeline generation per campaign
– Optimizes alignment between marketing and sales 🤝
– Measures the effectiveness of the prospect nurturing cycle
– Accelerates commercial responsiveness to seize opportunities
– Identifies sources producing qualified leads 💎
Website / UX 🌐
– Average time per session ⏱️
– Bounce rate on key pages 🧱
– Visit depth 🧭
– Overall and per-page conversion rate
– Core Web Vitals (technical performance) ⚡
– Mobile vs desktop performance 📱
– Analyzes retention and interest in content
– Detects pages with friction to prioritize optimizations 🛠️
– Ensures a fast and smooth experience across all devices
– Improves SEO via technical signals 📈
How to Measure and Interpret a Marketing KPI?
Measuring the effectiveness of marketing actions involves using marketing KPIs, which are indispensable tools for tracking an organization's marketing actions and making data-driven decisions.
Having a KPI is good, but measuring it correctly is better. Here's how:
1️⃣ Define the Calculation Formula
Each KPI has a precise formula. Example with email click rate:
Click Rate = (Clicks ÷ Delivered Emails) × 100
If you have 1000 delivered emails and 50 clicks → Click rate = 5%.
2️⃣ Use the Right Tools
You can't measure without tools:
Google Analytics 4: Traffic, conversions, visitor behavior
Google Search Console: Organic traffic, impressions, CTR, positions
Semrush / Ahrefs: Keyword positions, backlinks, SEO visibility
Facebook Insights / LinkedIn Analytics: Engagement, reach, audience data
Business intelligence tools (BI) allow centralizing, analyzing, and visualizing all marketing data while facilitating the creation of personalized and real-time updated dashboards for optimal KPI tracking.
3️⃣ Compare with Your Benchmarks
Don't judge your KPIs in isolation — compare with:
Your history: Were you increasing by 10%, are you now at 15%?
Industry benchmarks: How many others are doing better/worse?
Your set goals: Was your target 20%?
Example: If your SEO conversion rate is 2% but the industry average is 2.5%, you're slightly behind.
Concepts: North Star Metric and LTV/CAC Ratio
🌟 North Star Metric
OMTM: Depends on Maturity and Business Model
The North Star Metric (NSM) is the master indicator of your company — the one that guides all your decisions.
Definition: It's the single metric that measures the intrinsic value you bring to your customers. Unlike general KPIs, it is specific to your company.
Examples:
Netflix: Subscriber retention rate (loyalty)
Hotel: Number of nights booked
SaaS: Number of active users / retention rate
E-commerce: Number of monthly purchases
Why It's Powerful:
✅ Aligns all departments towards a common goal ✅ Measures the true value provided to customers ✅ Guides long-term strategic decisions ✅ Companies with a good NSM see +60% growth
💰 LTV/CAC Ratio
The Lifetime Value / Customer Acquisition Cost ratio is the viability equation of your model.
Definition:
CAC = Customer Acquisition Cost = Marketing budget ÷ Number of new customers
LTV = Customer Lifetime Value = (Average revenue per customer × Frequency × Duration)
Performance Matrix: Interpretation of the LTV/CAC Ratio in 2026
LTV / CAC Ratio 📊
Strategic Significance 📈
Diagnosis & Actions 🛠️
Less than 1:1
❌ Non-viable model
– You're losing money on each new customer acquired
– Immediate danger to the company's cash flow
From 1:1 to 2:1
⚠️ Profitable but fragile
– The margin is too low to cover fixed costs and innovation
– Urgent need to optimize marketing costs or increase retention
3:1
✅ Ideal Target (Gold Standard)
– Perfect balance between growth and profitability
– It's the reference goal for most SaaS and B2B companies
– Healthy model ready for controlled expansion
Greater than 5:1
🚀 Massive growth potential
– You're probably under-investing in marketing
– Exceptional opportunity to accelerate aggressively to capture market share
– Your customers are worth much more than they cost you
How to Build a KPI Dashboard
A KPI dashboard centralizes your key indicators for an instant overview.
Best Practices
✅ Limit to 3-5 Main KPIs — The easier it is to read, the more you act
✅ Add Contexts — Show monthly, quarterly, annual evolution
✅ Use a Hierarchy — 1 North Star Metric + 2-3 operational KPIs per department
✅ Update Regularly — Ideally weekly or bi-weekly
✅ Communicate Results — Share insights with the team to align them
Excel/Sheets + Charts: Basic but effective to start
Conclusion
Key performance indicators are not optional — they are the backbone of an effective marketing strategy. Whether it's conversion rates, CAC, engagement rates, or your North Star Metric, each KPI brings you closer to your goals.
Your Action Plan 🎯
Identify Your 3-5 Priority KPIs — Based on your goals and the SMART method
Measure your Baseline — Where are you today?
Set Realistic Goals — +15% vs last month (not +500%)
Implement Your Tools — Google Analytics, Search Console, MailChimp, etc.
Track Regularly — Weekly or monthly, not sporadically
Continuously Optimize — Act on your insights, test, measure the impact
As a digital expert, you know that “what gets measured, gets improved”. Tracking KPIs is essential to evaluate the performance of your actions and ensure the success of your marketing campaigns. Marketing teams must adjust and align their strategies based on KPI results to optimize effectiveness and achieve set objectives. It's now your turn to activate your marketing KPIs and turn your data into real growth. 🚀
Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing KPIs
❌ Mistake 1: Tracking Too Many KPIs at Once
Result: Efforts get diluted, making it hard to take action. Limit to 5 KPIs per team.
❌ Mistake 2: Choosing Non-Actionable KPIs
Example: "Tracking email CTR without ever optimizing subject lines." Your KPI should enable actions.
❌ Mistake 3: Ignoring Industry Context
A 2% conversion rate in e-commerce can be excellent, but low in SaaS. Compare with your industry, not a fashion SME.
❌ Mistake 4: Forgetting Long-Term Customer Value
Acquiring at all costs without retaining is expensive. Keep an eye on LTV, retention, and churn.
❌ Mistake 5: Not Updating Your KPIs
Yesterday's KPIs are not today's. Review your KPIs annually based on your new priorities.
Examples: KPIs to Track Based on Your Marketing Goals
🎯 Goal 1: Increase Online Visibility (Awareness)
KPIs to Track:
Organic traffic (+15-20%/month)
Google Search Console impressions
Social media engagement rate (2-5%)
Brand mentions
Social media reach
Optimization Actions: Create SEO content, increase posting frequency, collaborate with influencers.
Optimization Actions: Segment your database, personalize messages, qualify leads with lead scoring.
FAQ
What are KPIs in marketing?
KPIs in marketing are the key indicators that tell you if your actions are really working: conversion rate, cost per lead (CPL), customer acquisition cost (CAC), ROI/ROAS, open rate (email), engagement rate (social media), or SEO traffic. The right KPI always depends on your goal (leads, sales, brand awareness, retention).
What is a KPI in a marketing plan?
In a marketing plan, a KPI is a figure linked to a goal, with a target and a tracking frequency. Example: “Reduce the CAC to below $60 in 90 days” or “Increase the conversion rate from 1.8% to 2.3% this quarter.” Without KPIs, you execute... but you don't know if you're making progress.
What is a KPI example?
Simple examples:
Conversion rate: % of visitors who make a purchase or fill out a form
CPL: cost to acquire a lead
Click-through rate (CTR): % of people who click on an ad or email
Retention rate: % of customers who remain active over a period
What are sales KPIs?
Sales KPIs track “sales” performance: conversion rate (lead → customer), sales cycle, closing rate, average order value, customer lifetime value (LTV), recurring revenue (MRR/ARR) if SaaS, and churn rate. In short: what measures the ability to convert, collect, and retain customers.
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