The best marketing scorecard explains where the business is gaining or losing momentum. A list of every available platform metric usually hides that story. For a service business, organize measures around visibility, response, qualification, sales and delivery economics. Assign one source and one owner to each definition.
Separate a metric from a KPI
A metric is anything you measure. A key performance indicator is a selected measure tied to a decision or objective. Impressions may diagnose reach while qualified opportunities guide acquisition investment. The designation depends on the business question, not on which numbers the advertising platform displays most prominently.
| Measure | Formula | Use and limitation |
|---|---|---|
| CTR | Clicks ÷ impressions × 100 | Message response; define which clicks count. |
| CPC | Media spend ÷ clicks | Price of a comparable visit attempt, not a customer. |
| CPM | Media spend ÷ impressions × 1,000 | Cost of exposure; impressions are not unique reach. |
| Conversion rate | Defined conversions ÷ stated eligible population × 100 | Label sessions, users or clicks explicitly. |
| CPL / qualified CPL | Spend ÷ leads / spend ÷ qualified leads | Keep raw inquiries separate from fit. |
| Media CPA | Media spend ÷ acquired actions or customers | Name the action; this omits other acquisition costs. |
| CAC | Defined acquisition cost ÷ new customers | Include the agreed sales and marketing costs and timing. |
| ROAS | Attributed revenue ÷ media spend | Revenue efficiency, not profit or causal lift. |
If a denominator is zero, the ratio is unavailable. Missing cost is unknown, not free. Calculate aggregate rates from aggregate numerators and denominators rather than averaging campaign percentages with unequal volumes.
Add the handoffs your platforms cannot judge
Define an MQL, if you use the term, as a marketing-qualified lead that meets explicit criteria. Define an SQL as a lead sales has accepted under its own rule. A booked meeting is not an attended meeting; an attended meeting is not an opportunity; an opportunity is not won revenue. Track movement and the reasons records stop. Consistency matters more than adopting someone else's stage names.
Include lead response time, qualified-to-meeting rate, meeting attendance, opportunity-to-win rate and sales-cycle length. Report these for coherent cohorts when the cycle spans weeks or months. Dividing this week's wins by this week's inquiries can mix unrelated groups and make performance look better or worse by accident.
Read a fictional budget decision
Imagine $1,000 in media creates 50 inquiries, of which 10 qualify and two become customers. Raw CPL is $20, qualified CPL is $100, and media cost per customer is $500. Add $600 of attributable sales and production effort and the defined acquisition cost becomes $800 per customer. Those are different numbers answering different questions.
If the two customers generate $2,000 revenue, media ROAS is 2×. You still need delivery costs, fees, refunds and repeat business before deciding whether acquisition is sustainable. Customer lifetime value should be grounded in observed retention and margin, not an optimistic spreadsheet projection presented as fact. Small or young cohorts warrant ranges and explicit uncertainty.
Build a scorecard people can maintain
Use one primary outcome, a few diagnostic measures and a quality guardrail. For example: qualified opportunities as the outcome; sessions, inquiry rate and qualified share as diagnostics; acquisition contribution and response time as guardrails. Record period, source, numerator, denominator, owner and definition changes. Review the channel that constrains the journey and choose one action. A scorecard earns its place when it changes a decision, not when it fills a slide.
Sources and useful references
- Google Ads: Monitor ads and keywords
- Google Analytics: Traffic acquisition report
- Google Analytics: Engagement rate and bounce rate
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