Key takeaways
- A KPI is a number tied to a goal, with a target, an owner and a review date. Every other number is a supporting metric.
- Track five to eight: one or two for each funnel stage you are working on, plus one cost KPI.
- Judge channels on cost per qualified lead, not cost per lead. Cheap leads that never qualify are expensive.
- Every lead KPI rests on a tracked key event. Test it in GA4’s DebugView and reconcile it with the CRM each month.
- Set a three-month baseline before any target, and review each KPI at the speed you can act on it.
Don’t start by collecting more data. You probably have too much already: dashboards in GA4, Search Console, every ad platform and the CRM, each showing dozens of numbers. The hard part is choosing the handful that actually show whether marketing is working, and measuring them the same way every month.
This guide groups the most useful digital marketing KPIs by funnel stage. For each one you get a one-line definition, the formula, where to read it and how often to review it. It starts with how to choose five to eight for your stage, then gives a one-page table of KPIs by funnel stage and ready-made KPI sets for five kinds of business. Then it covers how to turn each KPI into a tracked event and how to put them all on one dashboard.
What is a KPI in digital marketing?
A KPI in digital marketing is a measurable number tied directly to a marketing goal, with a target, an owner and a review date. Cost per lead, organic clicks from search and customer retention rate are typical examples.
The difference between a KPI and a plain metric is intent. Page views, followers and impressions are metrics: useful context, easy to collect. They become KPIs only when they map to a goal and someone will change something if they move. A good test is to ask, “If this number dropped by a third next month, what would we do?” If nobody has an answer, it is a supporting metric, not a KPI.
How do you choose the right digital marketing KPIs?
Choose digital marketing KPIs by starting from the business goal, then picking one or two numbers that show progress at each stage of the buyer’s journey you are working on. Five to eight KPIs in total is enough for most teams.
Five steps, in this order:
Want KPIs you can act on?
If you would like a hand choosing your KPIs, tracking them in GA4 or reporting leads by channel each month, talk to us.
Digital marketing KPIs by funnel stage
The four groups below follow the journey a buyer takes: they find you, they come to trust you, they enquire or buy, and they stay. Most businesses need at least one KPI from each group, weighted towards the stage that is holding them back. The table puts the four stages side by side; the detailed tables after it give each KPI’s formula.
1. Be found: visibility and reach KPIs
These tell you whether the right people can find you in search, on social platforms and in ads.
| KPI | What it tells you | Formula | Where to read it | Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organic clicks | How many visits search brings you | Clicks from Google search results | Google Search Console, Performance report | Monthly |
| Impressions for target queries | Whether you appear for the searches that matter | Times your pages were shown for those queries | Search Console, filtered by query | Monthly |
| Average position for target queries | How close you are to the top of the results | Average ranking across impressions | Search Console | Monthly |
| Organic click-through rate | Whether your titles and descriptions earn the click | Clicks ÷ impressions | Search Console | Monthly |
| Paid reach and CPM | How many people your ads reach, at what cost | Spend ÷ impressions × 1,000 (reach comes from the platform’s reporting) | Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, LinkedIn Campaign Manager | Weekly |
| Branded search clicks | Whether more people look for you by name | Clicks on queries containing your brand | Search Console, filtered by query | Quarterly |
Branded search is one of the few honest measures of brand awareness. If campaigns are working, more people start searching for your name, and Search Console shows it directly.
Search clicks may not show all of your visibility, because AI answers can cite a page without sending a click. Our guide to generative engine optimisation covers how to check whether AI search cites you.
2. Be trusted: engagement KPIs
These show whether visitors find what they came for and come back.
| KPI | What it tells you | Formula | Where to read it | Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engagement rate | Share of visits that were meaningful | Engaged sessions ÷ sessions | GA4, Traffic acquisition report | Monthly |
| Average engagement time | How long people actively use the page | Total engagement time ÷ active users | GA4 | Monthly |
| Returning users | Whether people come back | Users with more than one session in the period | GA4 | Monthly |
| Key content views | Whether people reach the pages that sell | Views of pricing, case study or service pages | GA4, Pages and screens report | Monthly |
| Email click rate | Whether your emails are worth opening | Unique clicks ÷ emails delivered | Your email platform | Per send |
| Social engagement rate | Whether posts start conversations | (Reactions + comments + shares) ÷ impressions | Each platform’s analytics | Monthly |
A note on GA4 definitions: GA4 counts a session as engaged when it lasts longer than 10 seconds, includes a key event, or has at least two page or screen views. Its bounce rate is simply the share of sessions that were not engaged, so engagement rate and bounce rate always add up to 100%. Pick one of the two and report it consistently. For a deeper look at reading these numbers, see our guide to website analytics for data-driven decisions.
3. Get enquiries: conversion and cost KPIs
For most B2B and services businesses, this is the group that matters most, because it connects marketing to revenue.
| KPI | What it tells you | Formula | Where to read it | Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leads (key events) | How many real enquiries marketing produces | Count of lead events: form submissions, booked calls, WhatsApp or call clicks | GA4 key events, checked against the CRM | Weekly |
| Conversion rate | How well the site turns visits into enquiries | Sessions with a lead event ÷ sessions | GA4 | Monthly |
| Cost per lead (CPL) | What each enquiry costs | Spend ÷ leads | Ad platforms and GA4, by channel | Weekly |
| Lead-to-qualified rate | Whether the leads are the right ones | Qualified leads ÷ all leads | CRM | Monthly |
| Cost per qualified lead | What each enquiry worth following up costs | Spend ÷ qualified leads | Ad platforms for spend, CRM for qualified leads, by channel | Monthly |
| Customer acquisition cost (CAC) | What a paying customer costs | All sales and marketing cost ÷ new customers | CRM and finance | Quarterly |
| Return on ad spend (ROAS) | Revenue earned per unit of ad spend | Revenue from ads ÷ ad spend | Ad platforms with conversion values, or CRM | Monthly |
Cost per lead on its own can mislead. A channel with cheap leads that never qualify is more expensive than it looks, which is why the lead-to-qualified rate sits beside it. The fairest view reports cost per qualified lead by channel. That figure has its own trap: it is only as honest as the rule for what counts as qualified, so agree that rule with sales and don’t change it mid-quarter without noting it. That is how performance marketing measured in cost per lead should be judged.
4. Keep customers: retention and value KPIs
Acquisition gets the attention, but retention decides whether marketing spend pays back.
| KPI | What it tells you | Formula | Where to read it | Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer retention rate | Share of customers who stay | (Customers at end − new customers) ÷ customers at start | CRM or billing | Quarterly |
| Churn rate | Share of customers who leave | Customers lost ÷ customers at start | CRM or billing | Monthly or quarterly |
| Repeat purchase rate | Whether buyers come back | Customers with 2+ orders ÷ all customers | Store or CRM | Quarterly |
| Customer lifetime value (CLV) | What a customer is worth over the relationship | Average order value × orders per year × years retained | CRM and finance | Quarterly |
| CLV to CAC ratio | Whether acquisition is worth what it costs | CLV ÷ CAC | Calculated from the two above | Quarterly |
Our post on customer retention metrics covers how to set these up in more detail.
Which metrics are not KPIs?
Metrics that move easily but don’t connect to a goal are poor KPIs, however good they look in a report. Common examples:
- Follower counts. They grow with spend and giveaways, and say little about enquiries.
- Total page views. A popular blog post can double page views without a single extra lead.
- Impressions without context. Useful for diagnosing reach, but not a measure of success on their own.
- Time on site as a goal. Longer isn’t always better: a visitor who finds the phone number in ten seconds and calls is a success.
Keep them as supporting metrics. Look at them when a KPI moves and you need to know why.
Which digital marketing KPIs fit your business type?
The right KPIs depend on how your business sells: a services firm lives on qualified enquiries, a store on orders and repeat buyers, a SaaS product and an app on activation and retention, and an early-stage startup on proof of demand. Pick your type below for a set of four to eight to start from, with where to read each one and the trap to watch for.
If you fit two types, start from the one that brings in most of your revenue, and borrow one KPI from the other.
How do you turn a KPI into a tracked event?
You turn a KPI into a tracked event by naming the exact user action behind it, sending that action to your analytics tool as an event, and marking it as a key event so it counts as a conversion. Then you check it against a second source, usually the CRM.
In GA4 (which now calls conversions “key events”, a name Google introduced in 2024), the steps are:
A worked example: a services website’s key events
Here is how a measurement plan might list the key events for a services company’s website:
| Event | Fires when | Counts as a lead? |
|---|---|---|
generate_lead |
The contact form is submitted successfully | Yes |
book_call |
A consultation slot is booked | Yes |
click_whatsapp |
The WhatsApp button is clicked | Yes, but checked against chats received |
click_call |
The phone number is tapped on mobile | Yes, but checked against calls received |
job_application |
A careers form is submitted | No: tracked, but kept out of every lead KPI |
The last row is an easy detail to miss. Job applications come through the same website, and if they are counted as leads, cost per lead looks better than it really is.
How often should you review digital marketing KPIs?
Review each KPI at the speed you can act on it: weekly for paid spend and lead volume, monthly for search, engagement and conversion rate, and quarterly for acquisition cost, retention and lifetime value. Reviewing slow numbers weekly only produces noise.
A rhythm that works for most teams:
- Weekly (15 minutes): leads by channel, spend and cost per lead. Pause or fix anything clearly broken.
- Monthly (an hour): every KPI against its target and last month, with one decision recorded for each one that moved.
- Quarterly (half a day): CAC, retention and CLV, plus a check that the KPIs themselves are still the right ones.
How do you put digital marketing KPIs on one dashboard?
Put all your KPIs on one page, grouped by the four funnel stages, with each KPI showing its current value, its target and a trend line for the last six to twelve months. Everything else goes on supporting pages behind it.
Three ways to build it:
- Looker Studio, which connects to GA4, Search Console and Google Ads directly. A good fit when most of your data lives with Google.
- Power BI, for teams that also need CRM and finance data in the same model. Our guide to Power BI for marketing analytics covers the set-up.
- A custom dashboard, when the data comes from your own product or several systems no BI connector reaches, or when the dashboard needs to sit inside your own app. See our KPI dashboard development service for when that is worth it.
Whichever tool you use, write each KPI’s definition on the dashboard itself. A number without its formula invites the same debate every month.
Common mistakes with marketing KPIs
Most KPI mistakes are not about choosing the wrong number. They come from counting it inconsistently, or reading it without its context.
Where to start
If you are setting up KPIs from scratch, do three things this month: write your measurement plan on one page, check that every lead action fires a key event in GA4, and set a three-month baseline before any targets. If you would like a hand with the set-up or the reporting, see our digital marketing services that report leads by channel.