When you create a marketing campaign or you’re assessing a previous campaign, if you don’t have KPIs in place then you will likely have no measure of success at all.
KPIs — key performance indicators — are those bits of data that give you insight into how a campaign has performed, where you hit the mark, where something didn’t land, and give you solid directions and angles to base your decisions on. Without them, your budget has nothing to keep it in control, and your efforts are simply being launched into the public realm with no thought or care as to whether it’s landing anywhere. You need them to know, never mind if you’re actually getting anything back on your investment.
So let’s take a look at some KPIs you need to be tracking, because they’re the ones that do actually matter.
Return on Marketing Spend
In most cases, return on marketing spend is what decision makers look at. Why? Because if you’re not getting anything back on your marketing spend, what’s the point, right? Marketing campaigns are supposed to generate money, not waste it.
For the most part, this one gets simplified or inconsistently calculated, leading to incorrect or inflated figures and a “return” figure that looks healthy but isn’t in reality.
You need to apply this KPI consistently, and it needs to be reviewed alongside channel-specific context. For example, understanding how return is calculated for email versus paid or organic activity, including references such as email marketing ROI, helps avoid judging performance based on incomplete assumptions. The KPI itself isn’t the problem; it’s the lack of shared methodology here that is.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
CPA is the practical counterweight to return. This focuses less on revenue and more on efficiency: how much it actually costs to acquire a new customer via a specific campaign or activity.
This is something that trips many businesses up, as they underestimate CPA by excluding design time, management hours, or overlapping tool costs. Others track it in isolation, which again is incorrect.
CPA needs to trigger intervention. Rising acquisition costs should be the first sign that a campaign is no longer pulling its weight.
Conversion Rate
One of the most commonly cited KPIs, but also one of the most commonly misunderstood too.
Averaged conversion rates across channels or campaigns can hide poor performance and inflate confidence, because a “good” overall rate can mask the fact that one campaign is carrying all the weight while others are falling flat.
Used properly and in context, conversion rate works best at the campaign or channel level, reviewed alongside other measures such as traffic quality and intent. It’s not about chasing high figures here; it’s about spotting sudden drops, inconsistencies, or mismatches between volumes and outcomes.
Revenue Attributed to Campaign Activity
Attribution is where campaign measurement meets reality. If you’re relying on simplified models such as first interaction or partial credit, you might not be digging deep enough to uncover the real numbers you need. That’s not wrong as such, just not detailed enough. For example, if your campaign supports longer buying cycles, you might be undervaluing it, while those that sit closest to conversion can receive disproportionate credit.
This matters because it influences where the budget goes next. If attribution isn’t understood or questioned, marketing spend will simply follow convenience, not impact. UtdPlug
