Vanity metrics are comfortable and useless
Sessions, followers and impressions are easy to grow and easy to celebrate. They also do not tell you whether marketing is making money. Measuring growth ROI means connecting the work to pipeline and revenue, not activity.
Metrics that actually matter
- Pipeline created and influenced by marketing
- Cost per qualified lead, not cost per click
- Conversion rate from visit to qualified opportunity
- Customer acquisition cost and payback period
- Revenue attributable to each channel over time
Attribution is hard, do it anyway
No attribution model is perfect, especially with long B2B cycles and AI search. The answer is not to give up and count clicks, it is to agree on a model, stay consistent and judge the trend.
A simple operating rhythm
Define the revenue outcome first. Map each growth play to how it should move that outcome. Report on a small set of metrics that ladder up to revenue, review them on a steady cadence, and reallocate toward what compounds. If a metric does not change a decision, stop reporting it.
If a metric does not change a decision, stop reporting it.
