Thinking About Startup Marketing Metrics

Marketing metrics are great in that they provide objective, concrete evidence as to how things are going. With the rise of digital marketing, marketing automation, inbound marketing, growth hackers, and more, marketing metric awareness is growing even faster now. Startups, with a clean slate, can measure anything and everything. Only, most don’t build a culture of marketing accountability and ingrain it into their startup ethos.

Here are some startup marketing metrics to consider:

• Lead funnel:
  Visitor
  Prospect
  Marketing qualified lead
  Sales qualified lead
  CRM opportunity
  Closed deal
• Lead channel volume and cost:
  Affiliate
  Pay per click
  SEO
  Referral
  Email
  Facebook
  Twitter
  Trade show
  Cold call
• Site traffic types:
  Direct hit
  Social
  Referral
  Search engine (branded and non branded)

Marketing is more scientific and metrics driven now, especially with the advent of online marketing. Startups would do well to build simple Google Spreadsheets and start tracking a variety of metrics. Over time, it’ll become clear what’s working, not working, declining, and improving in value. What gets measured gets done and measure what matters.

What else? What are some other startup marketing metrics you like to track?