The Marketing KPI Dictionary

Looking for the right marketing key performance indicators (KPIs)? Explore our running list of marketing KPIs for any industry from A to Z.
The Marketing KPI Dictionary

100+ Marketing KPIs For B2B and B2C Marketers

Every marketing team measures the success of their marketing efforts differently depending on their goals. Maybe you’re working to improve brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, or generate more high-quality leads. Whatever your goals are, choosing the right key performance indicators (KPIs) is an essential part of creating and measuring the success of your marketing efforts.

Choosing the right KPI to track and measure your marketing initiatives isn’t easy, especially when there are hundreds of KPIs to choose from. That’s why we’ve compiled a running list of marketing KPIs for any industry from A to Z.

Active Audience – In email marketing, the active audience is the total number of unique people who have opened or clicked at least one email (in a set period) divided by the total number of unique people sent at least one email in that same period.

Ad Frequency – The average number of times an ad is shown to a unique user. Ad frequency is calculated by dividing the number of impressions by the reach.

Alexa Rank – The global website ranking system that ranks sites in order of popularity based on average unique visitors and pageviews over the past month.

Amplification Rate – The ratio of social shares per post to the number of overall followers. The amplification rate evaluates how many of your followers are sharing your content throughout their networks.

Applause Rate – The ratio of approval actions (likes, favorites, etc.) a single post receives relative to the total number of followers.

Attendance Rate – For virtual events or webinars, the attendance rate is calculated by dividing the number of live attendees by the number of total registrants. The average attendance rate for webinars is between 40% and 50%.

Attribution – Attribution is the practice of evaluating the marketing touchpoints a prospective customer encounters on their path to purchase. The goal of attribution is to determine which channels and messages had the greatest impact on the decision to convert or take the desired next step.

Audience Growth Rate – This is the measurement of how quickly your follower count grows on social media. The audience growth rate is calculated by taking the number of new followers from a set period of time and dividing it by the number of total followers.

Audience Retention Rate – This KPI applies to both webinars and videos, it’s the average percentage of the video that people watch. For example, if a video is 2 minutes long and people watch it for an average of 1 minute, the audience retention rate is 50%.

Average Basket Size (ABS) – In retail, the average basket size is used to measure the number of items sold per transaction. It can be calculated by taking the total number of units purchased and dividing by the total number of transactions.

Average Deal Size – The average deal size is an important metric for forecasting sales revenue. The average deal size is calculated by taking the total revenue for a set period and dividing it by the number of closed-won opportunities.

Average Lead Score – Lead scoring is done by assigning values for different attributes or actions taken by a lead throughout the sales process. The lead score informs marketing and sales how likely the lead is to become a customer. Tracking the average lead score across all leads can help to track the quality of your current leads.

Average Order Value (AOV) – The average order value is calculated by taking the total revenue and dividing it by the number of orders. AOV is used to track the online purchasing habits of customers.

Average Response Time (ART) – The average response time is the amount of time it takes your support team to respond to your customers. The average response time should be tracked anywhere customers may try to connect with your brand: chatbots, emails, social media messages, reviews, and several other touchpoints.

Average Revenue Per User/Customer (ARPU) – For subscription services the average revenue per user is calculated by dividing the total revenue by the number of subscribers.

Average Sales Cycle Length – The average sales cycle length is measured by adding together the total number of days it took to close deals across all accounts then dividing by the number of accounts.

Average Session Duration – This metric measures the average amount of time a user spends on your website in a single session. Tools like Google Analytics start measuring a session from the moment a visitor lands on your website until they exit or are inactive for a predetermined period of time.

Bounce Rate (Website) – A bounce is when a website visitor only visits a single page during their session. The bounce rate is the number of single-page sessions divided by all sessions.

Bounce Rate (Email) – In email marketing, the bounce rate refers to the percentage of emails addresses in your list that did not receive your message. This is calculated by taking the number of bounces and dividing it by the number of emails sent. Email bounces are categorized as hard or soft bounces. Hard bounces mean the email address doesn’t exist, the domain doesn’t exist, or the receiving email server has blocked delivery. A soft bounce means that the recipient’s mailbox is full, their email server is down, or the email message itself is too large.

Cart Abandonment Rate – This is defined as the percentage of online shoppers who add items to their (virtual) cart but do not complete checkout. This is calculated by taking the number of completed transactions and dividing it by the number of attempted transactions.

Churn Rate – This is the percentage of customers or subscribers lost in a set time period. This is calculated by dividing lost customers by the total customers at the start of the time period.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)  – Click-through rate is the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times that ad is shown. CTR is used to calculate the performance of an ad, post, or any other type of content with a link to click.

Click-Through Rate (Email) – In email marketing, the CTR is the percentage of people who clicked at least one link in your email message. This is calculated by dividing the number of people who clicked by the number of delivered emails.

Click-Through Rate of Internal Links – Tracking the click-through rate of internal links on your website and/or blog can help you to best determine which links are the most relevant to your audience.

Click-to-open Rate (CTOR) – In email marketing, the click-to-open rate is used to help marketers better understand how effective the content of their email is. Unlike CTR, CTOR is calculated by taking the number of people who clicked on a link and dividing it by the number of people who opened the email.

Close Ratio – The close ratio is a sales pipeline metric used to analyze the total number of deals you’re closing in relation to the total number of open opportunities.

Content Downloads – The number of requests to view a piece of content. If the content is gated this can be measured by the number of form fills. If the content is ungated, this can be measured by button clicks or page views.

Content Frequency – The content frequency is how often you are posting by week, month, or quarter. Tracking content frequency can help marketers understand how often they are posting content (e.g. blog posts, social posts, videos, etc.).

Conversation Rate – The conversation rate is the ratio of comments per post to the overall number of followers. Unlike simply tracking comments, the conversation rate puts follower engagement into perspective.

Conversion Rate – This is the percentage of users who take action on something. Conversion rate can be used to measure many different objectives such as form fills on a website, clicks on an ad, or purchasing a product. This is calculated by taking the total attributed conversions and dividing it by the total number of clicks or visits.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) – The cost per acquisition is the amount of money spent to acquire a single customer from a specific campaign or channel. This is calculated by dividing the amount spent by the number of total attributed conversions.

Cost Per Action (CPA) – The cost per action is a digital ad payment model that only charges the advertiser for actions taken by the audience. The average CPA can be calculated by the total cost of conversions by the total number of conversions.

Cost Per Click (CPC) – The cost per click is a digital ad payment model where the advertiser pays for every click on their ad. The average CPC can be calculated by the total cost of clicks by the total number of clicks.

Cost Per Lead (CPL) – The amount of money it takes to generate a new prospective customer from marketing initiatives. CPL is calculated by taking the total Ad spend and dividing it by total attributed leads.

Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) – CPM is used to represent the cost per thousand impressions on an ad. CPM is sometimes referred to cost per mile. This is calculated by dividing total ad spend by the number of impressions and multiplying by 1,000.

Cost Per View (CPV) – Cost per view is typically used to measure the cost of video advertising. This is calculated by dividing the total amount spent by the total measured views.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – The customer acquisition cost is the amount of money it costs to attain a new customer. CAC is calculated by adding together all the costs associated with acquiring customers (sales and marketing personnel, marketing initiatives, ad costs, etc.) and dividing by the number of customers acquired.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV or CLV) – The customer lifetime value is used to measure the total expected revenue generated from a single customer throughout their relationship with the business. The CLTV is calculated by multiplying the customer value by the average customer lifespan. The customer value is calculated by multiplying the average order value by the average number of orders.

Customer Retention Rate (CRR) – The customer retention rate is the percentage of customers who remain customers after a given period of time. This KPI can be helpful when looking at why customers stay with your brand, service, or product. The CRR is calculated by taking the number of customers you have at the end of a period, subtracting by the number of new customers acquired during that period, then dividing by the number of customers you started with.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) – The CSAT score is used to measure customer satisfaction with your service, product, or interactions. The CSAT is gathered through a survey by asking a single question “How satisfied were you with your experience”. The overall score is calculated by taking the sum of all positive responses then dividing by the total number of responses. The score is represented as a percentage.

Domain Authority – Domain authority is a search engine ranking score that predicts how likely a website will rank on the SERP (search engine results page). Domain authority, first developed by Moz, is based on scores ranging from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more likely the website is to rank. The domain authority is influenced by the number of linking domains, the total number of links to your site, and several other factors.

Dwell Time – Dwell time is used to measure how well your page answers the question a visitor is searching for. This is because dwell time measures the length of time spent on page starting from a click on the search engine results page (SERP) and ending when they go back to the SERP. This can be measured in Google Analytics by viewing the average session duration of visitors who landed on your site organically.

Email Deliverability – Email deliverability refers to the ability of your email to arrive in the recipient’s inbox. The deliverability is based on sender reputation, infrastructure, and authentication. Keeping your list clean, content relevant, and having subscribers opt-in to receive emails can all help improve your email deliverability.

Email Delivery Rate – The percentage of emails that are received by the servers of the recipients’ inbox. This is calculated by taking the emails delivered and dividing them by the number of emails sent.

Email Response Rate – The email response rate measures how many people respond to your email. This is measured by taking the number of responses and dividing it by the number of emails sent.

Engagement Rate – The average engagement rate is used to calculate the average amount of interactions (likes, shares, etc.) your social content receives per follower. This is calculated by taking the total number of interactions and dividing it by total followers.

Footfall – Footfall is the measurement of the number of people who entire a brick-and-mortar location. Measuring footfall helps to optimize the store to better serve your customers.

Forwarding Rate – A good way to gauge how effective your email marketing efforts are is by calculating the forwarding rate. In other words, how many recipients are sharing your emails with friends. This is calculated by dividing the number of forwards (or shares) by the total number of emails delivered. Encouraging people to forward your content can go a long way in improving this number.

Goal Completions – A goal completion (or conversion) is a Google Analytics term for tracking specific actions taken by visitors. This can be making a purchase, adding a product to the cart, watching a video, or filling out a form. Goal completions are customizable and set by the business.

Impressions – An impression is a metric used to measure how many digital views a piece of content receives. This can be views on an ad, social post, or anything else that is featured online.

Interactions Per Visit – Not every website visit will lead to a conversion but you can still get value out of tracking the interactions of each visit. Using a heatmap tool can help you to track the number of actions a visitor takes. This includes things like clicking a button, visiting a new page, or downloading content.

Lead Acquisition by Channel – The number of generated leads or purchased leads that turn into qualified leads by channel. Tracking the lead acquisition by channel can help you justify marketing spend across various channels.

Lead Generation by Channel – The number of leads earned by channel (ads, social media, podcasts, sponsorships, etc.).

Lead Value – Lead value is used to help determine how valuable each lead is to the success of your business. This is calculated by taking the total sales value and dividing it by the total number of leads.

Lead-To-Sale Conversion Rate – This KPI looks at how well your company converts leads into a customer. The lead-to-sale conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of converted leads by the total lead volume.

Link Velocity – Link velocity refers to the growth of backlinks to your website that is added over a period of time. Backlink checking tools can be used to measure this.

List Growth Rate – The list growth rate is used to measure how your subscriber list is growing. This is calculated by taking the number of new subscribers from a set period, subtracting the number of unsubscribes during that same period, then dividing that by the total number of current subscribers.

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) – Marketing qualified leads are leads that meet the minimum criteria for marketing to start outreach. MQLs follow a different and smaller set of criteria than sales qualified leads.

Mentions – Social media mentions are the number of times your brand has been tagged in a post, image, or comment on social media.

Mobile Click-Through Rate – This is the percent of people who clicked at least one line in your email from their mobile phone. Knowing how your mobile click-through rate compares to your overall click-through rate can help you to learn more about your customer behavior and create content accordingly.

Mobile Open Rate – This is the average number of times someone has opened your email from their mobile phone or tablet.

MQL to SQL Conversion Rate – The percentage of MQLs that turn into SQLs. This is calculated by taking the number of sales-qualified leads and dividing it by the number of marketing-qualified leads.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) – The Net Promoter Score (NPS) ranges from -100 to 100 and is used to measure the willingness of customers to recommend a company to others. The NPS is measured through a single-question survey “On a scale of 0 – 10 how likely are you to recommend the company to a friend or colleague?” The ratings are classified into three categories: detractors (0 – 6), passives (7 – 8), and promoters (9 – 10). The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from promoters. For example, if 80% of customers are promoters and 10% are detractors the NPS score would be 70.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR) – The net revenue retention rate is the percentage of recurring revenue from existing customers in a set period of time. This includes expansion revenue, downgrades, and cancels. This is calculated by adding the sum of recurring revenue (RR), plus expansion RR, minus downgrade RR, minus cancellation RR then dividing it by the RR at the beginning of the period.

New Visitors – In Google Analytics, new visitors are people visiting your website for the first time on a specific device. If someone looks at your website on desktop then mobile it will count as two new visitors (unless they’re logged into the same Google Chrome browser).

New vs. Returning Visitors – Understanding how new visitors act on your website compared to returning visitors can help you to better understand how people are interacting with your site. In return, you can optimize your site for each type of visitor based on the data you collect.

On-Demand Views Over Time – For webinars, tracking on-demand views over time is important to understand how relevant your content is. If views decline significantly it may be time to archive or update the content.

Online Review Growth Rate – Online reviews on sites like Google, Yelp, and Trust Pilot, are important to monitor and track in order to help you better understand how your customers feel about your brand. To calculate the online review growth rate, take the number of new reviews earned in a set period of time then divide it by the total number of reviews earned.

Open Rate – Open rate is the number of emails open in relation to the number of emails sent. Open rate is calculated by dividing the number of unique opens by the number of people who received the email.

Organic Sessions – An organic session is measured from the time someone lands on your website from the search engine results page to the time they exit (or are inactive after 30 minutes). In order for the session to be “organic”, the traffic must come from an earned result on the search engine results page, not paid.

Organic Traffic – Organic traffic is the number of website visitors that come from an earned result on the search engine results page. Organic traffic does not include traffic coming from paid ads.

Page Load Time – The page load time is the time it takes for an individual page on a website to display the entire page. A good page load time is between 1 and 2 seconds.

Page Value – In Google Analytics, the page value is the average value for a page that a user visited before landing on the goal page or completing an Ecommerce transaction.  This measurement helps to determine which pages in your site contribute most to the revenue. The value of each page is assigned in Google analytics when the goal is initially set up.

Pages Per Session – In Google Analytics, the number of pages per session is the average number of pages a visitor visits during a single session.

Page Response Time – The page response time is the length of time it takes for an inquiry from a user to receive a response from the user. The response time is defined as the time to the first byte (TTFB) or the time it takes for the browser to receive the first byte of data from the server.

Post Impressions – Social media post impressions is the number of times an individual post was visible in user feeds. Impressions are the number of times a post appeared for people but it does not mean that it was viewed or interacted with.

Post Reach – Post reach is the number of unique people who have seen the post. Unlike impressions, reach focuses on the number of people the post appeared for, whereas impressions are the number of appearances.

Potential Reach – The potential reach is a real-time estimation of how many people may see your ad on social media. The potential reach can be increased by earning more followers.

Product Qualified Lead (PQL) – Leads that have experienced value from your product through a free trial or freemium model.

Qualified Leads – A potential customer that fits within set criteria based on your business requirements. Unlike purchased leads and databases, qualified leads willingly give their information.

Quality Score – The quality score is a rating system used by digital ad providers, like Google, to determine the quality and relevance of your keywords and ads. The quality score is determined by multiple factors including the CTR, relevance of each keyword to its ad group, landing page quality and relevance, the relevance of the ad text, and the historical performance of the account. Better quality scores can result in higher rankings and lower costs.

Referral Traffic – Referral traffic is defined as visits to your website from links that appear on other sites. This does not include visitors that come from the search engine results page.

Registrants – Registrants are the number of people who signed up to attend your live or virtual event. Registration count gauges how interested people are in attending your event but does not guarantee attendance.

Repeat Attendees – Repeat attendees are the number of webinar viewers who have watched more than one webinar. Repeat attendees is a good way to gauge how relevant and trustworthy your content is to your audience.

Repeat Opens – In email marketing, repeat opens is the number of times a recipient opens the same email. If the recipient opens the same email multiple times, they may have a higher interest in your offer.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – The return on ad spend measures the amount of revenue earned from advertising compared to the amount spent. This is calculated by dividing the revenue earned from ads and dividing it by the cost of advertising.

Return on Investment (ROI) – Return on investment is used to measure the profitability or performance of an investment. The ROI can be calculated by subtracting the cost of investment from the profit then dividing by the investment.

Return on Marketing Investment (RoMI) – The return on marketing investment is a measurement used to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing initiatives. This is calculated by subtracting marketing expenses from the revenue earned from marketing then dividing that by the marketing expenses.

Returning Visitors – In Google Analytics, returning visitors are visitors that have visited your website in the past. If a visitor hasn’t visited your site in more than two years they will be counted as a new visitor.

Revenue Per Subscriber – The average revenue per subscriber is the total monthly recurring revenue divided by the number of active subscribers. This is used to calculate the average value of each subscriber.

Review Response Rate – The review response rate measures the percentage of reviews responded to by the brand. The more reviews a brand responds to, the more likely customers are to leave reviews.

Response Time –  Response time is the average time it takes a sales rep to respond to inbound leads.

Sales Accepted Leads (SAL) – An MQL that has been reviewed and accepted by the sales team. Deemed worthy of pursuing.

Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) – Qualified leads that meet the minimum criteria for sales outreach.

Sales Revenue – The sales revenue is any revenue generated from sales. Sales revenue does not include revenue generated from interest or activities outside of the core business. Sales revenue is calculated by units sold multiplied by the sales price.

Sales Velocity – Sales velocity measures how quickly deals are moving through the pipeline in the form of the dollar amount. This is calculated by taking the number of deals in your pipeline, multiplying it by the overall win percentage and the dollar amount of the average deal size then dividing that by the number of days in the sales cycle.

Sales Win Rate – The sales win rate is defined as the percentage of deals closed-won in relation to the total number of deals in the pipeline during a set period of time. This is calculated by taking the number of deals closed-won and dividing it by the number of closed-won plus closed-lost deals for that same period of time.

Scroll Depth – The scroll depth represents the percentage of a web page a visitor has seen. The average scroll depth is 50%. Webpages with higher scroll depth typically outperform those with lower scroll depth.

Search Rankings – Search rankings refer to where a webpage lands on the search engine results page (SERP). This is dependent on the query being searched. The first 5 organic results on the SERP earn 67.6% of all clicks.

Sessions – A session is considered to be any time a visitor lands on your website until they leave or they’ve been inactive for 30 minutes. Sessions account for all user activity from the time they land on your site until the time they exit.

Share of Voice (SOV) – The share of voice (SOV) is the measurement of how much market presence your brand has compared to the competition. The SOV is used to measure brand visibility and can be used to track the share of individual keywords, channel presence, or general visibility in the market. It is calculated by taking a brand metric and dividing it by the total market metric. For example, if you have a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign you can use the impressions to measure the share of voice by looking at how many times your ad was actually shown compared to the total number of times it could have been shown.

Social Share of Voice (SSoV) – The social share of voice is the same as the share of voice but it only accounts for a brand’s market presence on social media.

Spam Complaint Rate – The spam complaint rate is the number of times your emails have been reported as spam or junk mail. High spam complaint rates can affect your deliverability. 

Spam Score – The spam score is used by search engines to determine how trustworthy your site is. Sites with high spam scores are at risk of being penalized by search engine sites. Sites that with many backlinks from untrustworthy sites will likely earn a higher spam score.

Star Rating – Every business listed on a customer review site (Google, Yelp, etc.) earns an average star rating. This can be tracked by individual channel or measured as a combined score. Consumers are more likely to purchase from brands with ratings between 4.0 and 4.7.

Store Visits – Store visits are used to estimate how many people visited your physical store after clicking on a location-based online ad. Not all online to offline conversions can be tracked so this metric is only an estimation.

Survey Response Rate – The survey response rate refers to the percentage of people who completed your survey compared to the number of people the survey was sent to. The average survey response rate is around 30%.

Total Pipeline Value – Is used to measure the potential revenue in your sales pipeline. This is calculated by adding up the estimated revenue across every lead.

Time on Page – Time on page is a measurement of how long a visitor spent on a single page. Time on page does not include exit pages or bounces in order to get a more accurate understanding of the average amount of time users spend on a page.

Time to Conversion – This is the amount of time it took for a visitor to convert after clicking an advertisement. A conversion is considered to be anything that requires taking an action such as filling out a form, purchasing a product, or watching a video.

Total Opens – Total opens is the number of times your email was opened including repeat opens from the same person.

Total Visits – Total visits is the sum of all visits to your website over a set period of time. The total visits metric can be used to measure the effectiveness of your content.

Traffic by Source – Measuring your website traffic by source can help you to better understand how effective your marketing efforts are on different channels. Google Analytics measures four buckets of sources: Organic Search, Referral, Direct, and Social.

Unique Opens – Unique Opens is the number of recipients who opened your email, regardless of how many times they opened it.

Unique Visitors – A unique visitor is someone who has visited your website at least once in a set time period. Unique visitor count does not include repeat visitors unless those visitors used a different device to access your website.

Unsubscribe Rate – The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of email recipients who opted out from your mailing list. This is calculated by taking the number of unsubscribes and dividing it by the number of emails delivered. High unsubscribe rates can affect your email deliverability.

Video Views – Video views are the number of people who watch your video for a minimum amount of time. This time can vary by site. YouTube counts a video view when someone watches at least 30 seconds of a video. On Facebook, someone who watches three seconds or more counts as a video view.

Virality Rate – Virality rate is used to measure how often your social post was shared compared to impressions. The virality rate is calculated by taking the number of shares and dividing it by the number of impressions.

Need a better approach to tracking, analyzing, and prioritizing your marketing KPIs? Discover how the Unsupervised automated analytics platform is helping brands like yours make better marketing decisions by speaking with one of our experts today.

Subscribe for updates

By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy.

Keep Exploring

Prepare for Take Off

Find more insights. Understand why metrics are moving. Start with a quick look at our platform.