Examples of digital marketing KPIs
- Business results: leads, sales, revenue from online channels, customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLV).
- Paid advertising: conversions, cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS) and click-through rate (CTR).
- SEO: organic traffic and conversions, rankings for priority keywords, and clicks and impressions in Google Search Console.
- Website: conversion rate, engagement rate and page speed.
- Email: click rate, conversions and unsubscribe rate.
- Social media: reach, engagement rate, and traffic and leads from social channels.
KPIs vs metrics
Metrics are anything you can measure, such as page views, followers or impressions. KPIs are the handful of metrics that directly show progress towards a business goal. Followers and impressions are useful context, but they rarely deserve to be KPIs on their own.
How to choose and report KPIs
- Start from the business goal, then pick the numbers that best show progress towards it.
- Use three to five KPIs per goal; more makes it hard to see what matters.
- Set a target and a time frame for each one.
- Build a dashboard, for example in Looker Studio, that pulls in data from Google Analytics, Search Console and your ad accounts.
- Send a regular report that explains what changed, why, and what you will do next.
KPIs by goal
| Goal | Example KPIs |
|---|---|
| Get more leads | Qualified leads, cost per lead, lead-to-customer rate |
| Grow online sales | Revenue, conversion rate, average order value, ROAS |
| Build organic traffic | Organic conversions, clicks and impressions for key pages, share of searches in the top results |
| Keep customers | Repeat purchase rate, churn, customer lifetime value |
| Awareness | Reach, branded search growth, direct traffic |
KPI mistakes
- Choosing too many KPIs.
- Reporting vanity numbers such as likes with no link to the goal.
- No target or time frame.
- Changing KPIs after seeing the results.
KPI FAQs
How many KPIs should I track?
Three to five per goal is enough to see progress without noise.
How often should I review them?
Review weekly or monthly for fast channels such as ads, and monthly or quarterly for slow ones such as SEO.
For a step-by-step method, see how to measure the success of a marketing campaign, and read about return on investment and Google Analytics.