When you don’t have clear metrics of success, your brand is running a race without a finish line.

But what is a success metric? Success metrics are quantifiable measures of progress toward a specific goal. In marketing, they help us make informed decisions about media strategy and assess the effectiveness of a campaign. They come in many forms depending on the type of campaign. In ecommerce, a good success metric might be the average order value, whereas in a B2B campaign, it might be the number of qualified sales leads.

Many companies, however, still launch marketing campaigns with only abstract notions of success in mind, such as “grow the business” or “increase revenue.” While these may be the desired outcomes of the campaign, they can be difficult, if not impossible, to attribute to any specific marketing activity.

In these cases, the end result is often disheartening. Without objective success metrics, marketers might feel their work is undervalued and stakeholders may dismiss the results as underwhelming — but that is avoidable.

What makes a good success metric?

I’ve found the most meaningful metrics of success in marketing have three components:

  • They are specific.
    Measurements that lack specificity will spoil the end result. Ask any engineer, woodworker or parent whose teen is borrowing their car to learn how to parallel park — precision matters. Marketing success should not only be measurable, but able to be measured with some degree of accuracy.
  • They are widely accepted.
    Complete alignment on the success metric is essential. Different stakeholders often value different outcomes. A marketing campaign that has too many agendas in mind has little hope of succeeding.
  • They are within our sphere of influence.
    Success metrics should fall within the scope of what marketing can actually accomplish. The best brand campaign in the world would still struggle to sell something as necessary as paper towels if it costs $100.

How to identify relevant success metrics

Finding the right metric of success for a marketing campaign is challenging. A lead generation campaign for a large-cap B2B company will have drastically different success metrics than an ecommerce apparel company.

A good place to start is examining touchpoints along the customer journey.

Let’s say you are planning a marketing campaign aimed at increasing in-store sales for a retailer. The desired outcome might be widely accepted (who doesn’t want more sales?) but the ultimate goal will be influenced by a host of factors outside of marketing’s control: hours, location, staffing, etc.

Rather than judging the campaign purely on sales figures, we can examine other figures in order to hone in on the most relevant metric:

  • Advertisement Views: Of great interest to the marketing team when assessing audience targeting, but is too far removed from the end goal.
  • Clicks on Driving Directions: Reflects intent and is readily measurable, but will only reflect a subset of activity.
  • Entries to the Store: Mitigates in-store factors such as price and hours of operation, but is too difficult to measure without foot traffic counters.

In this case, I would recommend using Clicks on Driving Directions as a success metric. It’s not perfect, but it is a specific action that can be influenced by a marketing campaign and directly correlated with the end goal. Not only does it show that an audience member saw your advertisement, but that they also took an immediate next step towards making a purchase.

How to identify a successful marketing partner

Identifying metrics of success can be a nuanced and even tedious task, but it’s a crucial step for any marketing campaign. Thankfully, it’s not a task you have to undergo alone.

If you’re looking for a marketing partner who can establish a measurement plan that provides clear line-of-sight into the performance of your next campaign, reach out to Kelly Ryan, SVP of Business Development

Michael has more than a decade of experience in digital marketing and data analytics. As Director of Marketing Analytics and Operations, he works across the full range of marketing channels to drive measurable growth for MKR’s clients and partners.