It always seems that marketing metrics is a fertile topic to discuss and write about but after reading a few recent Forrester research reports I think they really helped me to crystallize how I am going to be tracking metrics going forward but they also gave me a sense of what importance I should give to each of them.

While not plagiarizing them outright – I think I have adapted them to things I have blogged about before. I still feel there is only one metric that counts – SALES. Ringing the cash register is the best if not the only way to prove marketing value (as I have told you in the past). And our lead nurturing platform has been immensely helpful in giving transparency into that process and showing that value.

But many of you have questioned my outright simplicity of just using one metric by saying to me – don’t you measure Impressions? or don’t you measure Cost per Click?

Well of course I do but do I then email those stats to the CEO? No. But I do feel they have a place in your metrics so let me give you my 3 tiers of marketing metrics:

1) Reach metrics – Web site impressions, page views, radio impressions etc…
2) Efficiency metrics – Cost per click, time spent on the website, downloads of a paper or podcast etc.
3) Value – Contribution to Pipeline, contribution to Bookings, ROI on overall bookings.

So there you have it and these tiers infer some priority to them – reach being the least and value being the most.

I am also going to begin to look at reach metrics PAIRED with value metrics – ex – graph my weekly lead flow against my media budget looking for spikes or relative lift. This could be a good way to prove lift on a media budget for those budget discussions we all have.