KPIs of a marketing strategy: how to measure implementation in the cockpit

Marketing strategy KPIs are a handful of measures that tell you whether the implementation of your strategy is working. Choose them starting from the goal, not from whatever is easy to count, assign an owner to each one and bring them together in a single dashboard that the board reviews regularly.

Reading time: 9 min · Strategy · Commplace® since 1996

Marketing strategy KPIs: what they are and how many you need

KPI stands for “key performance indicator”. Put plainly: a number that answers the question “are we getting closer to the goal?”. A marketing strategy KPI does not measure everything. It measures what decides whether the strategy succeeds.

In practice, five to nine indicators are enough. More turns the dashboard into wallpaper that nobody reads. Fewer risks you overlooking a problem. Each indicator should have three things: a target to reach, a data source and a person responsible.

An illustrative example: a service company sets the goal of “30 qualified enquiries per quarter”. To it, it adds an outcome indicator (enquiries), a process indicator (whether the content plan is delivered on time) and a quality indicator (a score for content against set criteria). Three numbers instead of thirty give the board a calm picture of the situation.

• target: what value is to be achieved and by when
• source: where the data comes from and how often it is refreshed
• owner: who is responsible for the result and for explaining it
• baseline: what the indicator looked like before implementation began

Goals and measures: how to translate strategy into indicators

Record goals and measures in pairs. First the goal in one sentence, then the measure that will show progress. If the goal is “we want to be the first choice for large manufacturing companies”, the measure will not be the number of likes. Better is the number of enquiries from such companies, or the share of such companies among new sales conversations.

A simple split into three levels helps. Outcome measures show the business result. Process measures show whether activities are going to plan. Quality measures check whether what we do is good. The board mainly needs the first; the team works daily with the second and third.

Marketing metrics: which to choose and which to avoid

Marketing metrics fall into those that can be measured and those that matter. Good KPIs are the overlap of the two groups. The most common mistake is choosing convenient measures: easy to obtain, but unconnected to any decision.

Before you approve the list of indicators, run a quick test: imagine the indicator falls by a third. Do you know what you would do? If not, the indicator is not ready for the dashboard, or is not needed. This simple check saves many months of collecting data that leads nowhere.

Indicators that are usually worth tracking

For B2B companies, measures related to sales and the quality of contacts work best. Always tailor them to your own strategy, because there is no universal list.

• the number and quality of sales enquiries, and their source
• cost of acquiring an enquiry (how much the company spent on one conversation)
• percentage of conversations that move on to a proposal
• time from first contact to decision
• share of brand visibility in key topics

Indicators that are easily misleading

Reach, impressions and follower counts tell you about visibility, but not about impact. Treat them as supporting indicators. Nor do we use advertising value equivalent as a measure of value, because it converts publications into the price of advertising, not into an impact for the company.

The management dashboard: how to arrange indicators on a single screen

A management dashboard is a single screen that shows the state of the strategy without opening ten programs. It should answer three questions: where are we, are we heading the right way, and what needs my decision. If the screen does not answer these questions, it is an ornament.

Build the dashboard from the top: outcome measures first, then process, and quality last. Next to every number, show the direction of change and the baseline. A number on its own, without a comparison, says little. A value of 40 can be excellent or dreadful, depending on where you started.

• 5–9 indicators on the first screen, the rest in the detail view
• each with a target, a current value and an arrow showing the change
• colour only where a reaction is needed
• a short comment from the person responsible when there is a deviation
• the date of the last data update visible on screen

The marketing dashboard: how to check that growth results from your actions

A marketing dashboard will show growth, but will not explain its cause. Correlation is not impact: sales may have risen because the market picked up, not because the strategy works. That is why, for every significant increase, write down how you will verify it.

You have several options. A baseline from before the change shows what the indicator looked like before you started. A control group is a segment in which you change nothing, which you then compare with the segment where the changes were introduced. An A/B test, that is, a comparison of two versions of a solution on similar groups, works well for individual elements, such as a page or a message.

It is also worth writing down what the dashboard will not show. Lagging indicators, such as sales after a long decision cycle, respond to actions with a delay of several months. So also track leading indicators in parallel, for example the number of conversations with decision-makers, which signal a change of direction sooner.

Example of a perspective view

Suppose that after introducing a new message, the number of enquiries rises from 20 to 26 a month. These are example assumptions. Before you treat this as an effect of the strategy, check whether a similar increase appeared in a segment the change did not cover. If so, part of the growth comes from the market. If not, you have stronger evidence.

A working rhythm for the dashboard: who, how often, and why

A dashboard will not work if nobody looks at it. Set a rhythm and stick to it. A weekly review for the team focuses on process: what we have done, what is slipping. A monthly review for the board focuses on results: what has changed and what decision we need. A quarterly review checks whether the strategy and measures still fit the market.

Add a simple response rule to the rhythm. If an indicator departs from its target for two periods in a row, the owner prepares a short explanation and a proposed correction. This turns the dashboard into a management tool rather than a report for the archive.

1. choose 5–9 indicators and write a target for each
2. assign an owner to every indicator
3. record the baseline from before implementation
4. set the data source and the refresh frequency
5. schedule weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews
6. describe how you will check that growth results from your actions
7. once a quarter, remove an indicator that serves no one

Five mistakes when choosing marketing strategy KPIs

The same set of mistakes recurs in many companies. It is worth knowing them before you start building a dashboard, because fixing a finished set is harder than getting off to a good start.

The first mistake is measures without a goal: a number that grows, but nobody knows how much it should grow. The second is too many indicators. The third is the lack of a baseline from before implementation, which makes it impossible to judge the change. The fourth is mixing outcome indicators with supporting ones, so that the board cannot see what is really important. The fifth is an indicator you calculate once a year, which therefore does not help with day-to-day decisions.

• measures without a goal or a deadline
• a dozen or so indicators on one screen
• no baseline from before the change
• outcome indicators mixed with supporting ones
• data refreshed too rarely to influence decisions

How to fix the set you already have

Start with a review. For each indicator ask three questions: which decision does it support, who is responsible for it, and when did it last change what we do. If there is no answer to any of them, move the indicator to the detailed view. A good complement is our article on what in a marketing strategy is worth automating with the help of AI, because data collection is one of the best candidates.

How Commplace works on strategy measures

Commplace is a PR agency and marketing firm that has been in the industry since 1996, with a team of “Navigators”. We work like a doctor: diagnosis, tests, plan, implementation, follow-up. We set the measures at the planning stage, not after implementation, because only then can the starting point be measured.

We link the measurement itself to a system Commwork®AI, which collects data from the programs the company already uses. You will find more about how we connect strategy with numbers in the articles 7 decisions of the B2B marketing strategy and marketing plan for the year: template. If you are wondering about the cost of the whole, see the article on the cost of a marketing strategy.

When your own spreadsheet is enough and when you need a system

Not every company needs a separate system for KPIs. If you have three channels, one person responsible for marketing and a few indicators, a spreadsheet with clear rules is usually enough. More important than the tool is discipline: entering data at the same rhythm and discussing it at a meeting.

A system starts to make sense when the volume of data grows, when it comes from many programs and when manual re-entry takes more time than analysis. Then automatic data collection and deadline monitoring save hours and reduce the risk of errors. Remember, however, that a tool does not replace decisions. It will show the numbers, but you and your team still draw the conclusions. You can read more about the system itself in the description on the page realizacji Commwork.

Source: preparation by the Commplace® editorial team. The numerical examples are illustrative and based on explicit assumptions; they do not constitute legal advice or guarantees of results.