Lesson 06
Marketing Analytics
Marketing Metrics That Actually Matter
Stop collecting data. Start using it to make decisions.
Digital marketing gives us access to an incredible amount of data. Impressions. Reach. CTR. CPC. CPM. Leads. CPL. CAC. ROAS. Conversion rates. Revenue.
And because all of this information is available, it's very easy to feel like we should track everything.
But more data doesn't necessarily mean more clarity. Sometimes it just means a bigger dashboard.
Adding every available metric…
The goal isn't to collect every number.
💡 See a metric you don't know?
Click any highlighted metric throughout this lesson for a quick explanation — like or or . The explanation opens right where you are, so you never lose your place.
Let's start here
Is Your Dashboard Helping You Decide Anything?
Most entrepreneurs I meet aren't short of data. They have an ads dashboard, an analytics dashboard, a CRM dashboard, a spreadsheet someone built two years ago, and a monthly report with forty numbers in it.
What they're short of is clarity.
This lesson is not about turning you into a marketing analyst. It's about making you confident enough to look at a report and ask intelligent questions: What does this number actually tell me? Is it important for this campaign? Is this just a vanity metric? What changed? Where is the funnel breaking? What should we investigate next?
The whole lesson in one line
A metric is useful when it helps us understand what happened, why it happened, or what decision we should make next.
Interactive #1
The Only Question a New Metric Has to Pass
Before adding a metric to your dashboard, ask:
“What decision would I make differently because of this number?”
Interactive #2
What Is a Vanity Metric?
“Which account would you rather own?”
Account A
- 100,000followers
- 3
- 0
Account B
- 4,000followers
- 600
- 80
- 20
Important
⚠️ A Metric Is Not Inherently Vanity
- aren't vanity.
- Followers aren't vanity.
- isn't vanity.
- aren't vanity.
They become misleading when they are used to answer a question they cannot answer.
If your goal is awareness, may be extremely important.
If your goal is qualified lead generation, reach alone tells you very little about success.
Interactive #3
Does the Objective Change Which Metrics Matter? (Yes.)
Campaign objective
The question you're really asking: “Are the right people even hearing about us?”
The importance of a metric depends on the question you're trying to answer.
Interactive #4
The Marketing Measurement Pyramid
Business Outcomes
“Did the marketing generate meaningful business results?”
Conversions
“Did they take the action we wanted?”
Engagement / Traffic
“Did they care enough to respond?”
Attention
“Are people seeing us?”
Every layer matters. But each layer answers a different question.
Interactive #5
Follow the Customer, Not the Dashboard
Metrics aren't random numbers. They describe the transitions between the stages of a system.
Interactive #6
Sales Dropped 32%. Where Is the Problem?
🕵️ The funnel detective
Sales Dropped 32%. Where Is the Problem?
Same budget. Same campaigns. Here's week 1 compared with week 2. Click the metric you'd investigate first.
Tip
Why this exercise matters
Interactive #7
Metrics Need Relationships
Scenario 01
“The ads got cheaper and more interesting — so why did leads get more expensive?”
The ads may actually be generating clicks efficiently, but the landing page may be converting poorly. More traffic arriving, fewer of them converting.
Look here next:
Scenario 02
“Everything got more expensive at once. What changed?”
Now the problem may be earlier in the funnel — creative, messaging, audience, competition, or ad fatigue. Fewer people are clicking, so each click costs more, so each lead costs more.
Look here next:
Scenario 03
“More leads, cheaper leads… and fewer sales?”
Cheap leads don't necessarily mean good leads. Investigate qualification, show rate, and close rate before celebrating the CPL.
Look here next:
Metrics tell a story when you read them together.
Interactive #8
ROAS Can Lie Too
Change how you see it
Your Dashboard Is a Diagnostic Tool
🚗 Your car dashboard
Speed
“Am I going too fast?”
Fuel
“Can I get where I'm going?”
Engine temp
“Is something overheating?”
Warning light
“Do I need to stop and look?”
You don't need your car to show you 2,847 measurements while you're driving. You need it to surface the information that helps you operate safely and make decisions.
So… what should a marketing dashboard actually show?
Interactive #9 · Dashboard lab
An Example of a Dashboard That Helps You Decide
Marketing dashboard
Last 7 days previous period
1 · Executive overview
$24,000
prev $21,500
+11.6%
target $25,000
Watch
$4,000
prev $3,800
+5.3%
target ≤ $4,200
Healthy
6.0x
prev 5.6x
+7.1%
target ≥ 5x
Healthy
150
prev 141
+6.4%
target 150
Healthy
12
prev 11
+9.1%
target 12
Healthy
$333
prev $345
-3.5%
target ≤ $350
Healthy
1.2%
prev 1.1%
+9.1%
target ≥ 1.2%
Healthy
2 · Funnel performance
Traffic volume is stable and coming mostly from paid social. Metric:
Landing page conversion held steady at 15%. Metric:
Booking rate is healthy for this offer. Metric:
Reminder sequence is doing its job. Metric:
Close rate improved slightly after the new sales script. Metric:
3 · Paid ads performance, arranged by funnel stage
👀 Attention
“Are we being seen, and what does exposure cost?”
- $4,000
- 100,000
- $5.00
🖱️ Traffic
“Are people interested enough to click?”
- 4.0%
- 4,000
- $0.125
🎯 Conversion
“Do those visitors become leads?”
- 15%
- 150
- $26.67
💰 Business
“Did any of it produce profitable revenue?”
- 12
- $333
- $24,000
- 6x
Sample data for learning only — but notice how the numbers explain each other once they're arranged in funnel order.
Non-negotiable
Always Show Context
Bad reporting
$42
“Is that good?”
Good reporting
- Current CPL
- $42
- Previous period
- $31
- Target
- < $35
- Change
- +35.5% 🔴
Reveal the answer to see what context looks like.
A number without context isn't analysis.
Two different jobs
Ratios vs. Totals
📦 Totals
500
Totals show volume. How much happened.
📐 Ratios
- 12%
- 38%
- 70%
- 25%
Ratios show efficiency between stages. How well it happened.
Both matter. Totals tell you the size of the result. Ratios tell you where it was won or lost.
Interactive #10
Dashboard Theater 🎭
🎭 Dashboard theater · 27 graphs · 6 pie charts · 15 KPIs
A dashboard is useful only if it helps someone decide to:
Continue
It's working. Keep going.
Monitor
Something moved. Watch it.
Investigate
Go find out why.
Scale
It's profitable. Do more.
Change
This isn't working. Fix it.
Pretty is great. Actionable is better.
Interactive #11
🧠 Ask Better Questions
“How many leads did we get?”
“How many qualified leads did we get, at what cost, and how did they convert compared with the previous period?”
“How much traffic did we get?”
“Which traffic sources generated qualified leads or customers?”
“What's our CTR?”
“Did the change in CTR improve our cost per qualified acquisition?”
“How many followers did we gain?”
“Is audience growth contributing to the objective of this channel?”
“What's our ROAS?”
“Is this campaign generating profitable and scalable revenue?”
Interactive #12
The Three-Question KPI Test
If you can't answer these three questions, the metric may belong in your data warehouse — not your executive dashboard.
Very important
Keep the Data. Simplify the Dashboard.
Nothing in this lesson says you should stop collecting detailed data.
Granular data is genuinely valuable — for deeper analysis, attribution, forecasting, data science, experimentation, trend analysis and diagnostics. Keep all of it.
But everything you collect does not need to appear on the main dashboard.
Database
Thousands of data points
Every event, click, session, message, contact, order and timestamp. Keep all of it.
Analysis layer
Hundreds of useful measurements
Where deep dives, attribution, forecasting, experiments and diagnostics actually live.
Dashboard
10–15 decision-making KPIs
What the business looks at weekly to decide: continue, monitor, investigate, scale or change.
The whole point
From Data to Decision, and Around Again
And then it starts again at Collect — with better questions than last time.
Final challenge
Which Metric Is the Most Important?
“Which one is the most important?”
Remember this
Don't Walk Into a Marketing Meeting Asking:
“Are the numbers good?”
Instead ask:
- What changed?
- Compared with what?
- Where in the funnel did it change?
- Why might it have changed?
- What should we do next?
That's marketing analytics.
Not collecting more numbers. Making better decisions with the numbers you already have. 💜
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Not Sure Your Dashboard Is Telling You the Truth?
Let's Look at Your Numbers Together.
Ads, funnels, CRM stages, appointments, attribution and revenue should all agree with each other — and when they don't, it's usually the tracking, not the effort.
You don't need to know which metric is broken before reaching out. 💜