If you don’t know what to measure, you can’t improve it. Here’s how to set the right marketing metrics to guide your business forward.
“What should we be tracking?”
If you’re unsure which numbers reflect success, you’re not alone. Especially now, when AI tools are flooding your dashboards with more data than you ever asked for.
The trick isn’t to measure everything—it’s to know what’s worth measuring.
The Risk of Measuring Too Much
Vanity metrics are everywhere. Opens, likes, impressions. They’re easy to track but rarely tied to outcomes.
With AI generating content, automating emails, and managing media buys, you need metrics that cut through noise—not just more numbers. Measuring the wrong things leads to false confidence and missed opportunities.
Three Types of Metrics to Anchor Your Strategy
1. Strategic Metrics
These reflect business impact. You only need one or two.
Examples:
- Revenue attributed to marketing
- Qualified pipeline growth
- Sales meetings generated from inbound channels
2. Operational Metrics
These help you understand how your marketing system is functioning day-to-day.
Examples:
- Lead-to-opportunity conversion rates
- Cost per lead (CPL)
- Email open and click-through rates
3. Health Metrics
These don’t always tie directly to revenue but give insight into long-term performance.
Examples:
- Organic traffic trends
- Newsletter subscriber growth
- Brand mentions or share of voice
Use NapkinAI to visualize the relationship between these metrics. It’s a great tool for mapping logic flows and setting up performance visuals you can reference weekly.
Align Metrics with Your Growth Stage
Your business stage influences what matters most:
Early-stage
- Focus on validation and conversion metrics
- Use Gamma.app to quickly build insight decks and track hypotheses
Growth-stage
- Prioritize pipeline health and CAC-to-LTV ratios
- Run competitor metric benchmarks using Perplexity AI
Scaling
- Track funnel efficiency across multiple channels
- Automate your metric review cadence in Make.com
Assign Ownership and Set a Cadence
A metric isn’t useful unless someone owns it. Establish:
- Who monitors each metric
- When you review them
- What actions you’ll take when a number moves
You can use Notion AI or Fathom Analytics to simplify your reporting process and remove dashboard overwhelm.
How We Approach It
At witOmni AI Marketing, I help clients design metric stacks they can actually manage. We keep it lean—focused on outcomes, not dashboards. With the right structure and the right AI tools, even a small team can track what matters and adjust quickly.
You don’t need more data. You need the right data, and a system to act on it.
Written by Pallavi Sharma, Founder at witOmni AI Marketing. She helps growth-stage businesses scale with clear, ROI-driven marketing systems and serves as a fractional CMO to leadership teams who need focus, not fluff. Pallavi is committed to the belief that companies can scale without hiring large, expensive teams…and she partners with leaders who share that vision.