As a business owner, you need to know your numbers.

You have access to so much data concerning your company, it can be overwhelming. Sales, financial, human resources, project management, product performance—the list goes on and on.

But when it comes to marketing, there are a few pieces of information you should hone in on and store in your brain in order to keep tabs on success.

In this article, we explain what marketing metrics are, why marketing metrics are important, and the key marketing metrics for business owners to know.

What are Marketing Metrics?

Marketing metrics are used to measure the effectiveness of campaigns across multiple channels. By analyzing key performance indicators (KPI), you can tell how well your efforts are playing out in digital marketing, SEO, and other areas.

There are various marketing metrics that evaluate performance across all of the channels involved in your marketing strategy. Since your activities are likely spread out among social media, email marketing, lead generation, etc., it’s important to be able to focus on specific areas to track progress in real time.

The types of marketing metrics that are important to you depend on your role within the marketing department. Managers may want to dig deep into metrics to be able to get a sense of day-to-day results. Executives, on the other hand, may want an overview of the metrics for each channel for a longer period of time.

Why Are Marketing Metrics Important?

It’s important to know the key marketing metrics for business owners so you can improve predictions on campaigns. Instead of guessing how your approach will turn out, you can use data to strategically plan a campaign that you know will win over your audience.

Evaluating marketing metrics will maximize your return on investment (ROI). Once you learn what works and what doesn’t, you can put your resources toward the winning strategy and cut out the weaker method.

Marketing metrics prove success. Having the numbers to show your investors and stakeholders why you’re spending money in this area instead of that area demonstrates your capabilities and justifies your decisions.

What Are The Key Marketing Metrics for Business Owners?

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is when people find you through search engines in a natural way. That means the link was found without you paying for its placement. This is why keywords and SEO matter.

You should pay attention to landing pages with organic traffic. If some of your pages are showing up higher in search engines than others, it’s time to redirect efforts toward the lower-ranking ones.

You must also be aware of where your organic traffic is coming from. This is particularly important if you’re trying to generate leads in specific locations or have plans for expansion into new markets.

2. Visit-to-Lead Rate

The visit-to-lead rate shows the proportion of visitors to your website who were converted into leads. It tells you how well your website is generating interest in your product or service.

A visit-to-lead rate is a direct reflection of the effectiveness of your marketing team. This data reveals whether your online content is appealing enough to convert visitors into potential customers.

You should keep your company’s goals and strategies in mind when looking at your visit-to-lead rate. The objectives and growth perspectives you seek will determine whether your rate is good or bad.

3. Lead-to-MQL Rate

The lead-to-marketing qualified lead (MQL) rate examines the success of the lower part of your top-of-funnel efforts. When leads become MQLs, they move from the awareness stage to the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey.

A lead-to-MQL rate lets you know when your leads are ready for more communication (like an email nurturing campaign). The goal here is to stay on their minds and build up their trust.

A poor lead-to-MQL rate should tell you something about your content. Apparently, you’re not sending helpful and engaging information in order to keep guiding them through the funnel.

4. MQLs Generated

Taking a look at the MQLs generated reveals whether you’re actually getting good leads. If you have 1,000 leads, but only 3 MQLs came out of that group, it’s time to take a step back.

Analyzing MQLs generated will help you get to the next step of the funnel: sales qualified leads (SQLs). You want to be able to hand off a quality number of MQLs so your salespeople can turn them into SQLs.

MQLs prove the value of marketing. It creates a bridge from marketing to sales and aligns the departments’ joint purpose of bringing in new business. Looking at MQLs reveals whether your marketing efforts are working.

5. Percentage of MQLs Rejected by Sales

Remember that marketing to sales bridge? Poring over the percentage of MQLs rejected by sales will expose some of its holes. This data tells you whether the two departments are aligned in their expectations of who qualifies as a lead.

You can gain special insight from looking at the percentage of MQLs rejected by sales. Marketing communication is usually one-way. Salespeople have two-way conversations with prospects; this can affect which ones they reject and accept.

Because the percentage of MQLs rejected by sales is one of the key marketing metrics for business owners, it’s helpful to get some feedback in this area. Examples may be the prospect didn’t complete enough lead activities or wasn’t a good fit.

6. MQL-to-Proposals Rate

When you analyze your MQL-to-proposals rate, you’re admittedly skipping some steps, mainly SQLs. However, looking at this metric can show you just how on (or off) target you are with the sales folks and how they determine SQLs.

Examining the MQL-to-proposals rate shows you how well you gauged someone’s interest as a potential customer. If they made it from MQL-to-SQL to proposal, you’re definitely doing something right.

The MQL-to-proposals rate allows marketing to see their level of impact on the sales funnel. If this rate is high, their efforts are paying off. If this rate is low, the steps in between need to be reassessed.

Why Do I Need to Know Marketing Metrics?

Now you know the top six key marketing metrics for business owners and why they are important for you to know.

Being in tune with data like organic traffic, visitor-to-lead rate, lead-to-MQL rate, MQLs generated, percentage of MQLs rejected by sales, and MQL-to-proposal rate will help you bring in more leads and convert additional customers.

Having this information at your fingertips will allow you to make better marketing decisions and attract more interested prospects.