Marketing Metrics Glossary

The average number of times each person sees your ad during a campaign period. Too low and people might not remember you; too high and you risk annoying them, making frequency management crucial for campaign effectiveness.

The rate at which your audience shares your content to their own networks, calculated by dividing shares by total followers or impressions. This metric indicates how valuable and share-worthy your content is, as shares significantly extend your organic reach beyond your existing audience.

The rate at which your social media following is increasing over a specific period, calculated by dividing new followers by your total followers. This metric helps you measure how effectively your content and marketing efforts are attracting new audience members and expanding your brand's reach.

The average amount customers spend per transaction, calculated by dividing total revenue by number of orders. Increasing AOV is often the fastest way to boost revenue without needing more customers or traffic.

Where your ad typically appears on the search results page, with position 1 being the very top. Higher positions get more visibility and clicks but cost more, requiring you to balance prominence with budget efficiency.

The average amount of time visitors spend on your website during a single visit. Longer durations typically indicate more engaged visitors who find your content valuable and relevant to their needs.

Links from other websites pointing to your website, which act like votes of confidence that help search engines determine your site's credibility and relevance. Quality matters more than quantity, as links from reputable sites carry more weight.

The percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page without taking any action. A high bounce rate might indicate your landing pages aren't relevant to visitors' expectations or that your site has usability issues.

The percentage of emails that couldn't be delivered to recipients' inboxes, divided into hard bounces (permanent delivery failures like invalid addresses) and soft bounces (temporary issues like full inboxes). A high bounce rate can damage your sender reputation and indicates you need to clean your email list.

Visitors who find your website by searching for your company name, products, or other branded terms. This indicates brand awareness and shows people are specifically looking for your business rather than discovering you randomly.

The percentage of people who click your ad after seeing it, calculated by dividing clicks by impressions. Higher CTR means your ad is relevant and compelling to your audience, which also typically lowers your advertising costs.

The percentage of people who clicked a link in your email out of those who actually opened it. This metric measures the effectiveness of your email content and design specifically among engaged readers, helping you understand if your message resonates with people who show initial interest.

The number of times people click on your ad to visit your website or landing page. Clicks indicate actual interest and engagement, representing people who want to learn more about what you're offering.

The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action like making a purchase or signing up, calculated by dividing conversions by total visitors. This fundamental metric shows how effectively your website or campaign turns interest into action.

Google's measurements of user experience on your website, focusing on loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. These directly impact your search rankings as Google prioritizes sites that provide better user experiences.

The average cost to acquire a specific conversion or action, whether that's a sale, lead, or sign-up, calculated by dividing total campaign cost by number of acquisitions. Unlike CAC which focuses on customers, CPA can measure the cost of any valuable action, helping you optimize individual campaigns.

The average amount you spend on advertising to achieve one conversion, whether that's a sale, lead, or other valuable action. This tells you if your advertising is profitable and helps you set appropriate bids and budgets.

The average amount you pay for each interaction (like, comment, share, or click) on your paid social media ads, calculated by dividing total ad spend by total engagements. This metric helps you evaluate the efficiency of your social advertising and compare performance across different campaigns or platforms.

The average amount you spend on marketing to acquire one new lead, calculated by dividing total marketing costs by the number of leads generated. This metric helps you evaluate the efficiency of your lead generation efforts and budget accordingly across different marketing channels.

The average amount you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. Lower CPC means you're getting traffic more efficiently, allowing your budget to generate more visitors and potential customers.

The cost to show your ad 1,000 times (mille means thousand), regardless of clicks. CPM is useful for brand awareness campaigns where visibility matters more than immediate clicks, helping you compare the cost of reaching audiences across different platforms.

Problems that prevent search engines from properly accessing and reading your website pages, such as broken links or server errors. Fixing these ensures search engines can find and index all your content, maximizing your visibility potential.

CAC is the total amount you spend to acquire one new customer, including all marketing and sales expenses divided by the number of new customers gained. Understanding your CAC helps you determine if you're spending too much to win customers and whether your business model is sustainable.

The percentage of customers who stop doing business with you during a given time period, calculated by dividing lost customers by total customers at the start of the period. This metric helps you identify problems with your product, service, or customer experience, and high churn rates directly impact revenue and growth.

CLV represents the total revenue you can expect from a single customer throughout their entire relationship with your business. This metric helps you understand how much you can afford to spend on acquiring customers and identifies your most valuable customer segments.

The percentage of customers who continue doing business with you over a specific period, calculated by dividing the number of customers at the end of a period (excluding new customers) by the number at the start. This metric is crucial because retaining existing customers is typically more cost-effective than acquiring new ones and indicates customer satisfaction and loyalty.

A measure of how satisfied customers are with a specific product, service, or interaction, typically collected through surveys asking customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale. This metric provides immediate feedback on customer experience and helps you identify areas needing improvement before dissatisfaction leads to churn.

The total number and type of touchpoints customers have with your support team, including calls, emails, chats, and tickets. Tracking these interactions helps you understand customer needs, identify common issues or pain points, and allocate appropriate resources to maintain service quality.

Visitors who arrive at your website by typing your URL directly into their browser or using a bookmark. High direct traffic suggests strong brand awareness and customer loyalty, as people know and seek out your business specifically.

A score from 0-100 that predicts how likely your entire website is to rank in search engines based on your backlink profile and other factors. Higher scores indicate stronger websites that search engines trust more, though this is a third-party metric, not from Google.

The percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links within your email out of the total number of emails delivered. This metric shows how compelling your email content is and whether it successfully drives recipients to take action, calculated by dividing clicks by delivered emails.

The percentage of email recipients who completed a desired action (like making a purchase or filling out a form) after clicking through your email. This is one of the most important email metrics because it directly measures how well your emails drive business results and revenue.

The percentage of recipients who forwarded your email to others or clicked a 'share this' button. This metric indicates how valuable and shareable your content is, and can help you identify which messages resonate strongly enough that people want to spread them to their networks.

The percentage of email recipients who opened your email out of the total number of emails successfully delivered. This metric helps you measure how effective your subject lines and sender reputation are at getting people to engage with your emails, and it's calculated by dividing the number of opens by the number of delivered emails.

The percentage of your audience that interacts with your content through likes, comments, shares, saves, or clicks, typically calculated by dividing total engagements by reach or followers. This metric reveals how compelling and relevant your content is to your audience, making it one of the most important indicators of social media success.

The percentage of visitors who leave your website from a specific page, regardless of how many pages they viewed before. Unlike bounce rate, exit rate helps identify which pages are causing visitors to leave and may need improvement.

Smaller actions visitors take that indicate interest but aren't the main conversion, like downloading a guide, watching a video, or adding items to a cart. Tracking these helps you understand the customer journey and identify opportunities to nurture leads toward bigger conversions.

The number of times your ad is displayed to users, regardless of whether they interact with it. This measures your ad's reach and visibility, helping you understand how many people are potentially seeing your message.

The total number of times your social media content was displayed on users' screens, including multiple views by the same person. Unlike reach, impressions count every instance your content appears, helping you measure total exposure and content visibility.

Where your website appears in search engine results for specific keywords, with position 1 being the top spot. Higher rankings mean more visibility and traffic, as most people click on the first few results they see.

This ratio compares the lifetime value of a customer to the cost of acquiring them, showing whether your customer relationships are profitable. A healthy ratio is typically 3:1 or higher, meaning customers generate at least three times more value than they cost to acquire.

The total number of potential customers who have expressed interest in your product or service by providing contact information or engaging with your business. This metric helps you track the quantity of opportunities entering your sales funnel and assess whether your marketing efforts are generating enough prospects.

The percentage of total leads that meet the criteria to be classified as Marketing Qualified Leads. This metric helps you assess the quality of your lead generation efforts and whether you're attracting prospects that match your ideal customer profile.

The rate at which your email list is growing, calculated by subtracting unsubscribes and bounces from new subscribers, then dividing by total subscribers. This metric helps you understand whether your list-building efforts are outpacing natural list decay and maintaining a healthy, engaged audience.

The percentage of Marketing Qualified Leads that advance to become Sales Qualified Leads accepted by the sales team. This metric indicates how well marketing and sales are aligned on lead quality and whether marketing is delivering prospects that sales considers viable opportunities.

This shows what portion of your customer acquisition costs comes from marketing expenses versus sales and other costs. It helps you understand if marketing is efficiently driving acquisitions or if you're over-relying on expensive sales efforts.

Leads that have been identified by marketing as more likely to become customers based on their engagement level and fit with your ideal customer profile, but aren't yet ready for direct sales outreach. This designation helps prioritize leads and ensures sales teams focus on prospects most likely to convert.

The total revenue generated from customers who first engaged with your business through marketing efforts rather than sales outreach or other channels. This metric proves marketing's direct impact on revenue and helps justify marketing budgets.

The number of times your brand is mentioned on social media and the emotional tone (positive, negative, or neutral) of those mentions. This metric helps you monitor brand reputation, track conversations about your company, and identify potential PR issues or opportunities for engagement.

A customer loyalty metric based on asking customers how likely they are to recommend your business to others on a scale of 0-10, calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors (0-6) from promoters (9-10). This score helps you gauge overall customer satisfaction and predict business growth, as promoters tend to drive referrals and repeat purchases.

The ratio of first-time visitors compared to those who have visited before. A healthy mix indicates you're both attracting new audiences and building loyalty with existing visitors who find enough value to come back.

Visitors who find your website through generic searches related to your industry or products, without using your brand name. This traffic represents new potential customers discovering your business and shows how well you rank for competitive keywords.

The percentage of people who click on your website after seeing it in search results, calculated by dividing clicks by impressions. A low CTR means your titles and descriptions may need improvement to be more compelling.

Visitors who find your website through unpaid search engine results when searching for relevant keywords. This free traffic source indicates how well your SEO efforts are working and represents sustainable, long-term growth potential.

A score that predicts how well a specific page on your website will rank in search results, similar to Domain Authority but for individual pages. This helps you identify your strongest pages and understand why some content performs better than others.

How long it takes for a webpage to fully display its content after a visitor clicks a link or enters a URL. Faster load times improve user experience and search rankings, while slow pages cause visitors to leave and hurt conversions.

The average number of pages a visitor views during a single website visit. Higher numbers suggest visitors are exploring your content and finding multiple things of interest, indicating good site navigation and content relevance.

The total potential revenue from all active opportunities in your sales pipeline, calculated by adding up the estimated deal value of every open opportunity. This metric helps you forecast future revenue, assess whether you have enough opportunities to meet sales targets, and identify if you need to accelerate lead generation.

Google's rating of your ad's relevance and quality on a scale of 1-10, based on expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Higher scores lead to better ad positions and lower costs, rewarding advertisers who create relevant, useful ads.

The total number of unique users who saw your social media content, regardless of whether they engaged with it. This metric shows the potential size of your audience and helps you understand how far your message is spreading across the platform.

Visitors who click through to your website from links on other websites, not including social media or search engines. This shows which external sites and partnerships are driving valuable traffic to your business.

The number of unique websites that link to your site, regardless of how many individual backlinks each provides. Having links from many different domains is typically better than multiple links from the same site, as it shows broader recognition.

The percentage of customers who have made more than one purchase from your business, calculated by dividing the number of repeat customers by total customers. This metric indicates customer loyalty and satisfaction with your products or services, and repeat customers typically have higher lifetime value and lower acquisition costs.

ROAS shows how much revenue you generate for every dollar spent on advertising, calculated by dividing total revenue from ads by total ad spend. This metric helps you quickly assess which ad campaigns are profitable and worth scaling, with a ROAS above 1 meaning you're making more than you're spending.

ROI measures how much profit you make from your marketing compared to what you spent, calculated by dividing the net profit by the total investment and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage. It's the ultimate metric for determining whether your marketing efforts are actually making money for your business, helping you decide which campaigns to continue, scale up, or stop.

The average amount of revenue generated per email sent, calculated by dividing total revenue from an email campaign by the number of emails delivered. This metric helps you understand the direct financial impact of your email marketing and optimize your campaigns for profitability.

The number of times your website appears in search engine results pages when people search, regardless of whether they click. This shows your overall search visibility and helps identify opportunities where you're visible but not getting clicks.

The average amount of time it takes for a lead to move through your entire sales process from first contact to closed deal. This metric helps you forecast revenue timing, identify bottlenecks in your sales process, and set realistic expectations for when prospects will convert into customers.

Leads that have been vetted and determined ready for direct sales engagement because they have shown clear buying intent and meet specific criteria. These are prospects that sales has accepted as worth pursuing, representing a higher-quality opportunity than general leads or MQLs.

The percentage of all conversation, advertising, or market presence your brand has compared to competitors in your industry, measured across channels like social media, search, or traditional media. This metric helps you understand your brand's visibility and market position relative to competitors, which often correlates with market share.

The percentage of social media visitors who complete a desired action on your website, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. This metric shows how well your social media traffic converts into business results and helps justify your social media marketing investment.

The number of visitors who come to your website from social media platforms by clicking on links in your posts. This metric demonstrates how effectively your social media presence drives traffic to your website and connects your social efforts to broader marketing goals.

The percentage of recipients who marked your email as spam or junk out of the total emails delivered. This is a critical metric to monitor because high spam complaint rates can severely damage your sender reputation and get your domain blacklisted by email providers.

This measures how long it takes to recover the money spent acquiring a customer through the revenue they generate. Shorter payback periods mean faster cash flow and less financial risk, allowing you to reinvest in growth more quickly.

The total number of visits to your website, where each session represents one visit from arrival to exit, regardless of how many pages are viewed. This baseline metric shows overall website activity and helps you track growth trends and the impact of marketing campaigns.

A breakdown of where your website visitors come from, such as search engines, social media, email, or direct visits. Understanding your traffic sources helps you identify which marketing channels work best and where to focus your budget.

The number of individual people who visit your website within a specific timeframe, counting each person only once regardless of how many times they return. This tells you your actual audience size rather than just activity levels, helping you understand true reach.

The percentage of email recipients who opted out of your email list after receiving a campaign. This metric helps you gauge whether your content is relevant and valuable to your audience, and a sudden spike may indicate issues with email frequency, content quality, or audience targeting.

The percentage of viewers who watched your video all the way through to the end. This metric reveals how engaging and compelling your video content is, helping you understand whether viewers find enough value to watch completely rather than scrolling past.

The number of times your video content was viewed on social media, though the definition varies by platform (some count views after 3 seconds, others after different thresholds). This metric helps you measure the initial appeal of your video content and its ability to capture attention.

Conversions that happen after someone sees but doesn't click your ad, then later visits your site and converts through another channel. This helps measure the indirect impact of display advertising on customer decisions.

The percentage of website visitors who become leads by completing a form, signing up, or providing contact information. This metric reveals how effective your website is at converting traffic into actionable sales opportunities and where you might need to improve your calls-to-action or landing pages.