In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, success can often feel elusive. To shed light on this complex topic, Co-Founders and CEOs share their valuable insights. From tracking Customer Lifetime Value to focusing on Conversion and Acquisition Costs, these experts reveal seventeen essential metrics and tips. Discover the keys to measuring your campaign’s success in this comprehensive Q&A.

 

• Track Customer Lifetime Value
• Focus on Key Performance Indicators
• Measure Impact on Client’s Business
• Monitor Net Promoter Score
• Check Conversion Rates
• Analyze Site Traffic
• Align Metrics with Objectives
• Use Channel-Specific KPIs
• Track Return on Ad Spend
• Monitor Quick User Actions
• Calculate Return on Investment
• Review Customer Feedback
• Connect Metrics to Goals
• Track Conversion and Organic Traffic
• Focus on Conversion and Acquisition Costs
• Tailor Metrics to Campaign Objectives
• Track Brand Mentions and Searches

 

Track Customer Lifetime Value

Measuring the success of a digital marketing campaign involves multiple factors, but one important metric I track is customer lifetime value (CLV). As an SEO specialist and agency owner, CLV helps me evaluate the long-term impact of digital marketing efforts. While immediate results like lead generation or sales are important, understanding the value of a customer over time allows me to assess whether my campaigns are attracting the right audience. This metric helps me fine-tune my marketing strategies to target high-value customers and optimize the overall customer journey. 

 

Besides CLV, another tip is to monitor engagement metrics, such as time on site and pages per visit, which reflect the quality of the traffic generated by a campaign. These engagement indicators help me gauge whether users are finding the content valuable and whether it aligns with their intent. By combining both CLV and engagement metrics, I get a comprehensive view of campaign success, which allows me to optimize future efforts and continue delivering value to both my clients and their customers.

 

Greg Walters, Co-Founder, SEO Modify

Focus on Key Performance Indicators

I think the secret to rocking marketing campaigns lies in really zeroing in on the important performance indicators (KPIs) that connect with your business goals. Core metrics like lead generation and conversion rates are my favorite. If your campaign excels at pulling in qualified leads but can’t seem to convert them into actual sales, then frankly, it’s missing the mark.

 

I always keep tabs on how many inquiries or quote requests we’re receiving through our channels. It’s a solid indicator of how a campaign is reeling in potential customers.

 

Another important figure I watch closely is the cost per lead (CPL). Tracking CPL is important because it tells you how wisely you’re using your marketing dollars. When the CPL gets too steep, it’s a clear signal to maybe change your targeting or shake and improve your messaging. I like to experiment with different ad formats and keywords to see what delivers the best bang for my dollar. By comparing the CPL with the average sale price, I gain the strategies needed to fine-tune future campaigns, making sure better use of resources and a healthier return on investment.

 

Each of these points helps in building strategies that not only attract eyeballs but convert them into profitable customer engagements.

 

Ben Whitmarsh, Owner and Managing Director, Generators for Export

Measure Impact on Client’s Business

We measure the success of a digital marketing campaign based on one key factor: whether it’s helping our clients grow their businesses. Metrics like traffic, clicks, and even leads are important, but at the end of the day, they don’t mean much if they’re not translating into revenue for the client. 

 

We focus on understanding how our work impacts the bottom line. For example, if a law firm sees an increase in consultation requests or new clients, we know the campaign is doing its job. Our goal is to drive tangible growth—helping clients get more cases, increase their billable hours, and ultimately grow their firms.

 

A tip I always share is to stay laser-focused on outcomes that matter most to the client. Metrics are just a means to an end; what really counts is delivering results that make a difference in their business.

 

Kyle Morris, CEO / Founder, LawTurbo

Monitor Net Promoter Score

Personally, I look at a few key signs that show a real, long-lasting effect when I decide if a digital marketing campaign was successful. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a big number that I pay attention to. It tells me how loyal my customers are after a sale. Just knowing how many people clicked or bought something isn’t enough. The campaign should make people so happy with the business that they’d tell their friends about it. It’s important for trust and long-term progress. 

 

I also keep an eye on Brand Sentiment Analysis. Forums, social media, and review sites all have a lot of information about how people feel about the business. The mood is more positive, negative, or neutral. This helps me figure out how people feel about the promotion and the company as a whole. I know I need to change my plan before the damage gets worse when people’s feelings get worse. 

 

For me, using both NPS and sentiment analysis together can give me a fuller picture of how a program works. There’s more to it than just meeting a short-term goal. These indicators also help me to see whether the brand is approaching its consumers. This allows me to adjust my strategy anytime I need to, and it’s always fantastic when initiatives start drawing people back repeatedly.

 

Filip Dimitrijevski, Business Development Manager, CLICKVISION BPO

Check Conversion Rates

When I measure the success of my marketing campaign, the first thing I do is check if the campaign meets its goals and really engages our target audience. I look at important metrics like click-through rates, social media engagement, and website traffic. For my yoga or wellness brand, it’s not just about the numbers—it’s important that these metrics translate into real results. I’m talking about more people signing up for courses, boosting our membership numbers, and seeing more faces at events.

 

The conversion rate is where I zoom in. All the traffic and likes in the world don’t mean much if people aren’t taking action, like signing up for a class or grabbing a free guide. This rate shows me how my marketing is driving actions. To lift this rate, I make sure our calls to action are crystal clear and that the path to follow them is effortless. I’m not shy about trying new things, either. Whether it’s giving something for a limited time or a free trial, I like to shake things up to see if we can improve our conversion rates and finally, our return on investment.

 

Timothy Burgin, Founder and Executive Director, Yoga Basics

Analyze Site Traffic

When measuring the success of a digital marketing campaign, I rely heavily on site traffic as a key indicator of brand awareness. It’s an important metric because it shows how effectively your campaign is driving potential customers to engage with your brand. I track traffic across various channels—paid ads, organic search, and social media—to understand where the most engagement is coming from. This data allows me to quickly assess the effectiveness of different strategies and make adjustments if needed. I recommend focusing on both traffic volume and quality. High-quality traffic, where visitors stay engaged and explore your content, is a far better indicator of long-term brand success than sheer numbers.

 

Brian Staver, CEO, NetPayAdvance.com

Align Metrics with Objectives

To measure the success of a digital marketing campaign, start by aligning your metrics with clearly defined objectives. Without this alignment, it’s easy to focus on vanity metrics that fail to deliver real value. Whether you’re driving conversions, increasing traffic, or enhancing engagement, each metric should provide meaningful insights tied to your business goals.

 

Customer retention rate is another metric I always focus on. Although new acquisition is important, ensuring loyalty is more profitable in some cases. Observing retention reveals much about how your campaigns are inducing loyalty and, consequently, recurring business. For instance, if retention increases along with the campaign, then you’re sustaining long-term effects and not just short-term ones. This blended with other important metrics such as conversion rates or average order value offers a more holistic view of campaign effectiveness.

 

Practice regular review and refinement. You may find patterns in your data, identify areas for improvement, or pivot into strategies when necessary. Digital marketing is not fixed; it adapts to the constant evolution of your audience and market. For this reason, you maintain campaigns that consistently create meaningful outcomes by focusing on key impact metrics and making adjustments based on data.

 

Kellianne Fedio, Founder, Kellianne.Me

Use Channel-Specific KPIs

The one most important tip I can share is to use different metrics and KPIs for different channels. It may sound obvious but we’ve learned that while we may not often get inquiries directly through social media, we do get plenty of inquiries via the website who initially spotted us and engaged with us on social media.

 

Understanding these nuances is important because had we not, we may well have scrapped social media by now for its lack of direct inquiries, only to find our website inquiries partly drying up.

 

So for example, while you may measure the success of your website by website inquiries and engagement through GA4, you could measure your social media performance by reach with the one important goal being to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

 

Aled Nelmes, Founder & CEO, Lumen SEO

Track Return on Ad Spend

Measuring the success of a digital marketing campaign goes beyond just looking at clicks and traffic. A crucial but often overlooked metric is the return on ad spend (ROAS), which gives a clear picture of how much revenue is generated for every dollar spent on advertising. This not only helps in assessing the financial effectiveness of a campaign but also guides future budgeting decisions. Tracking ROAS can expose gaps in targeting or messaging that might not be obvious from surface-level analytics.

 

A practical framework to try is the ICE (Impact, Confidence, Ease) scoring method. Use this to prioritize efforts in a campaign, where each tactic is scored from 1 to 10 based on its potential Impact, your Confidence in its success, and the Ease of implementing it. Calculating these scores helps in deciding which strategies to focus on, ensuring maximum efficiency and a higher likelihood of achieving desired outcomes. Applying the ICE framework can steer your campaign direction with clarity, helping law firms make informed marketing decisions that go beyond simplistic metrics.

 

Casey Meraz, Owner & Digital Marketing Expert, CaseyMeraz.com

Monitor Quick User Actions

I measure success by tracking how quickly people take action after engaging with content. If someone clicks, reads, and shares within minutes, it shows they’re deeply interested. This momentum tells us more about long-term impact than just counting clicks or views.

 

Dinesh Agarwal, Founder, CEO, RecurPost

Calculate Return on Investment

Measuring the success of a digital marketing campaign involves tracking various metrics that align with your specific goals. One important metric to focus on is Return on Investment (ROI). ROI provides a clear picture of how much revenue is generated for every dollar spent on the campaign. To calculate ROI, subtract the total marketing costs from the revenue generated and divide that figure by the marketing costs, then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. This metric is crucial because it justifies your marketing budget and helps you make informed decisions about future campaigns. 

 

Additionally, monitoring engagement metrics, such as click-through rates (CTR), can give insights into how well your audience is responding to your content, indicating areas for improvement and optimization in your strategy.

 

Sheraz Ali, Founder & CEO, HARO Links Builder

Review Customer Feedback

We used to review the digital marketing campaign using customer reviews. We run a digital marketing campaign for a fashion retailer. The results were pretty impressive. Sales surged substantially, as customers responded well to the campaign. The customized suggestions made shopping more enjoyable and easier for them as the recommendations matched their individual tastes and preferences.

 

Beyond the numbers, this personalized approach made each customer feel valued. The tailored recommendations made their shopping experience more natural instead of endless scrolling. As a result, most customers completed their purchases and kept returning for more as the recommendations got even more fine-tuned to their preferences.

 

The impact of the campaign didn’t just end at the checkout. The happy and satisfied customers then took to the review section and social media to rave about their experience. This resulted in more customers coming in, bolstering sales while building a loyal base.

 

Yogesh Kumar, Digital Marketing Head, eResource Scheduler

Connect Metrics to Goals

Measuring the success of a digital marketing campaign is all about connecting your efforts to the goals you set at the beginning. For example, if the goal is to drive traffic, I’m looking at metrics like website visits or click-through rates. If it’s about engagement, I’m diving into likes, shares, or comments. In most cases, it’s more about the return on ad spend (ROAS) or growth.

 

The key metric I’d look at is conversion rates. It’s one thing to get people to your site, but if they’re not taking action—whether that’s signing up, purchasing, or whatever your goal is. Always tie your metrics back to your goals.

 

Matt Rhodes, Founder / Director, Dropshot

Track Conversion and Organic Traffic

You must track the right metrics for measuring success in a digital marketing campaign. Among all of these, the most important one is the conversion rate. It lets you know how many visitors are completing the desired actions: a purchase, form filling, or a newsletter sign-up. You can know if your campaign is driving the right kind of engagement by tracking this.

 

For instance, if you have an e-commerce store, and you launch a paid advertisement campaign, monitoring the conversion rate will tell you whether that traffic from the ads converts into sales. So if there is a low conversion rate, it means that you have to look at the aspect of refining the messaging, improving the landing page, or doing something about the targeting.

 

Tracking organic traffic is another useful trick. This helps you see when your campaign is effective in the long run if you’re investing in SEO. For example, if you observe a rising pattern of organic visits for weeks or months, it means your SEO efforts are succeeding and, therefore, well on the return on investment curve. Focusing on digital metrics such as these then works to ensure that a focus on the audience is achieved meaningfully.

 

Toni Marino, Director, Toni Marino SEO

Focus on Conversion and Acquisition Costs

To measure the success of a digital marketing campaign, focus on these key metrics that have direct implications for business goals. Conversion rate, for instance, is one of the most reliable metrics because it shows exactly how well your campaign converts visitors into leads or customers and you understand its effectiveness.

 

The customer acquisition cost is another very valuable metric in this case. It shows the amount it takes to get every new customer from any campaign. By keeping track of CAC, you will be guaranteed to use effective marketing that targets low acquisition costs. Hence, high acquisition costs might require re-strategizing targeting or messaging to lower their costs.

 

Last but not least, ROI tracking is crucial. This calculates the revenue generated by the campaign in proportion to costs. The profitability of the campaign can be determined by ROI. A high ROI confirms that your digital marketing efforts are bringing value and supporting growth. These metrics give you a complete view of success in any campaign and will help guide adjustments for future initiatives.

 

Darcy Cudmore, Founder, RepuLinks

Tailor Metrics to Campaign Objectives

We measure success through a combination of performance metrics tailored to each campaign’s objectives.

 

For example, if the goal is brand awareness, we track metrics like reach, impressions, and audience growth. For conversion-focused campaigns, we focus on click-through rates (CTR), sales, and ROI.

 

One key tip is leveraging influencer-driven campaigns to amplify results. By combining authentic creator content with data-backed targeting, we ensure every campaign is optimized for impact across all stages of the funnel.

 

Joanna Hughston, Head of Marketing (UK/US), The Goat Agency

Track Brand Mentions and Searches

The most important metrics we track for our PR campaigns are successful brand mentions and the increase in searches for our brand name. Tracking brand mentions is pretty easy as they typically will show up as backlinks to our homepage with our brand name as the clickable text in the link. There are many services out there that can show you new branded links. For brand searches, just go to the keyword planner in the Google Ads platform and enter your brand name. It will show you how many people search for your brand each month so you can track the overall change.

 

Adam White, Co-founder, Prosperly