Imagine customers visiting your store, looking around, and leaving without buying, and you have no idea why. Now imagine not knowing why they didn’t buy.
Was it the product? The price? The experience? Or was it the wrong audience altogether?
This is exactly how digital marketing works. The difference is that online, the answers are available if you know what to measure.
Created for CEOs, founders, CMOs, brand managers, and business decision-makers, this guide walks you through the most important KPIs across the marketing funnel, from awareness and engagement to conversion and retention.
The framework is based on Notionhive’s internal KPI system, built using proven metrics and optimization insights from our digital marketing services.
You will also find a free downloadable KPI document at the end of this guide.
Marketing today is more complex and more expensive than it used to be. If results feel harder to achieve, there are clear reasons behind it.
Here are the key changes shaping modern marketing:
This means businesses can no longer afford to spend blindly. Every dollar counts. Every impression counts. Every customer counts.
This is where marketing KPIs become essential. The right KPIs help you:
And the best part? You don’t need 100 metrics, you just need the right ones.
And this guide shows you precisely which KPIs to focus on!
To make KPI tracking easier and more actionable, we’ve divided the metrics into six stages:
By breaking KPIs into these stages, you can clearly see where your funnel is strong and where it needs improvement.
Now let’s start at the top of the funnel.
Awareness KPIs tell you how many people you are reaching and how effectively you are buying attention. Think of this stage as the moment when someone first notices you.
Here are the key awareness KPIs you should track.
Reach
Reach tells you how many unique people saw your content.
– Low reach → narrow targeting or underfunded campaigns.
– High reach but low engagement → wrong audience.
Impressions
Impressions show how many times your content was displayed.
Frequency
Frequency shows how frequently the same person sees your ad.
CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions)
Cost per thousand impressions shows how efficiently you are buying awareness.
High CPM?
→ You’re either targeting a very competitive audience or your creative quality is low.
Low CPM but poor downstream metrics?
→ Cheap reach ≠ quality reach.
Why Awareness KPIs Matter for Decision Makers
Because everything that follows engagement, leads, conversions starts here. Awareness KPIs reveal whether:
Awareness means people saw your content. Engagement means people care.
This part of the funnel tells you how effective your content, website and brand experience are. Here are the key engagement KPIs you should pay attention to.
Average Session Duration
This shows how long visitors stay on your website.
Very short sessions → poor UX, irrelevant content or mismatched expectations.
Website Engagement Rate
Shows how actively visitors interact with your site.
Low engagement rate → visitors aren’t scrolling or clicking, meaning the content isn’t resonating.
Exit Rate of Key Pages
This shows the rate of visitors who leave your website from specific pages. A high exit rate on critical pages like:
…signals friction in the user journey, which ultimately lowers revenue. Optimizing user experience through heatmaps and session recordings can help identify these friction points.
Organic & Paid Engagement Rates
These metrics show how effectively your content captures attention across both paid and unpaid channels.
Why Engagement KPIs Matter
Because interest precedes action. If people aren’t engaging, they definitely won’t convert. Engagement KPIs help leaders identify:
Video is one of the most powerful ways to communicate your message. But views alone do not tell you whether your videos are actually working.
Video KPIs help you understand whether people stop, watch, and stay engaged with your content. Understanding how to create memorable video content starts with tracking the right metrics
Here are the key video KPIs you should track:
Hook Rate (First 3 Seconds)
This measures how many people continue watching after the first few seconds.
Low hook rate → weak opening.
High hook rate → strong creative, strong message.
Hold Rate (Completion Rate)
This shows how many viewers finish your video.
Low hold rate → too long, boring, or unclear content.
High hold rate → strong storytelling.
Average Watch Time
Tells how much of your video people actually watch, an accurate indicator of engagement.
Low watch time → viewers are dropping off early, meaning the content isn’t capturing or holding attention.
View-Through Rate (VTR)
How many ad impressions turn into real views is a measure of how effectively your content captures attention.
Low VTR → your content isn’t compelling enough to make people stop and watch.
Cost per View (CPV)
Indicates how much you pay each time someone views your ad.
Why Video KPIs Matter
Video KPIs matter because they reveal whether your content is earning attention or being ignored. Big brands use video strategically to stay ahead of the competition.
If your videos cannot hold attention, they will not drive leads, conversions, or long-term impact.
At this stage, attention turns into action.
Lead KPIs show whether your marketing is doing more than just attracting interest. They tell you if people are actually taking the next step and becoming potential customers.
These are the key lead KPIs you should track:
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
How many customers continue doing business with you over a given period?
Low CTR → weak creative, poor targeting or an unappealing offer.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Shows how cost-efficiently you’re generating clicks to your site or landing page.
High CPC → competitive audience, low relevance, or a poor Quality Score.
Lead Conversion Rate
Indicates how effectively your landing page turns visitors into leads.
Low conversion rate → weak CTAs, too many form fields, or unclear messaging.
Implementing conversion rate optimization strategies can significantly improve these numbers.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
The amount you spend to acquire a single lead. Always compare CPL with Lead Value or Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
How many of your leads are actually a good fit for your business?
Low qualified lead % → poor targeting, weak messaging, or misaligned audience.
Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate
How effectively you turn qualified leads into paying customers.
Low conversion rate → weak nurturing, long sales cycles, or poor sales follow-up.
Why Lead Quality Matters
Lead KPIs keep you focused on quality, not just volume.
When these numbers improve, your pipeline becomes more predictable, and your marketing efforts start translating into real revenue.
At some point, marketing has to prove its value in numbers that the business actually cares about.
Traffic, clicks, and leads are important, but they only matter if they turn into revenue. Conversion KPIs are where marketing performance connects directly to business outcomes.
These metrics show whether your funnel, offers, and campaigns are truly working.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of visitors who meet a desired activity, such as making a purchase or submitting a form.
Low conversion rate → friction in the journey — unclear messaging, weak offer, slow pages or too many steps.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Shows how much you spend to acquire each new customer.
High CPA → unprofitable marketing, especially when it exceeds Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
How much revenue do you generate for every dollar spent on ads?
Return on Investment (ROI)
The overall profitability of your marketing efforts — how much you earn compared to what you spend.
Low or negative ROI → unprofitable campaigns or inefficient spend allocation.
This is especially important when running Facebook ad campaigns, which remain essential for multi-channel marketing.
How Conversion KPIs Drive Profitability
Conversion KPIs help you decide what to scale, what to fix, and what to stop.
When these numbers are healthy, marketing becomes a growth engine instead of a cost center.
Retention is the most overlooked part of marketing — but it’s the most profitable. A 5% gain in retention can increase profits by 25–95%.
Here’s what to track:
Customer Retention Rate
Indicates how effectively you keep customers coming back — a key indicator of loyalty and satisfaction.
Low retention → poor customer experience, weak product value, or lack of ongoing engagement.
Customer Churn Rate
Shows the percentage of customers you lose over a given period — the inverse of retention.
High churn → poor product experience, unmet expectations, or weak ongoing value.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Tells how much revenue a customer brings over their entire relationship with your business — determining how much you can afford to pay to acquire them.
Low CLV → weak retention, low purchase frequency or poor customer experience.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Measures how likely customers are to recommend your brand.
Low NPS → high churn risk.
High NPS → referral potential + strong brand trust.
Upsell / Cross-Sell Rate
Shows how effectively you increase revenue from existing customers by getting them to buy more or choose higher-value products.
Low rate → weak product positioning, unclear value pathways or lack of personalized recommendations.
Having KPIs is not the goal. Using them correctly is.
The real value of this framework comes from how you apply it to day-to-day decisions, budget planning, and growth strategy. When used well, KPIs remove emotion and guesswork from marketing conversations.
Here’s how CEOs, founders and marketing leaders can use KPIs strategically:
Identify where the funnel is breaking
Instead of trying to fix everything at once, look for the weakest stage first.
Ask yourself, which stage is underperforming so you know precisely where to target your optimization efforts.
Prioritize fixes based on revenue impact
Focus your efforts where they’ll drive the most growth.
Fix the most significant leaks first → address the stages causing the most considerable revenue loss before optimizing more minor issues.
Use KPIs to guide budget decisions
Marketing spend should follow results, not assumptions.
• Reduce or stop spending on channels that consistently underperform
• Increase investment where KPIs show profitable returns
• Test carefully, then scale what proves it works
KPIs give you the confidence to reallocate budgets without guesswork.
Align KPIs with business goals.
Choose metrics that reflect what the business is trying to achieve.
Modern marketing is no longer about guesswork. It is about clarity and informed decisions.
The KPIs covered in this guide help you understand what is working, where performance breaks down, and where your biggest growth opportunities lie. They give you the visibility needed to allocate budgets wisely, fix funnel leaks, and scale what delivers real results.
Most importantly, KPIs only create value when they lead to action. Reviewing the numbers is not enough. Acting on them is what drives sustainable growth.
At Notionhive, we believe in marketing that is measurable, meaningful, and performance-driven. Tracking the right KPIs is the first step. Using them to make smarter decisions is what transforms businesses.
If you are ready to move beyond assumptions and build a marketing engine that performs consistently, we are here to help.
Are you ready to achieve success with advanced technology and strategic digital services?
We're not miracle workers. But we excel at what we do.
We help you grow your business organically, reach your technology and marketing goals, and increase leads and revenue. We do all of this using effective tech solutions and practical marketing strategies.
Or, let’s talk! Book a free call with us.