Marketing Metrics
Comprehensive guide to key performance indicators, measurement metrics, and analytics terms used in digital marketing. Learn how to track, measure, and optimize your advertising campaigns with these essential marketing metrics and KPIs.
- metrics defined
- 60 metrics defined
- with practitioner FAQs
- 42 with practitioner FAQs
- with industry benchmarks
- 40 with industry benchmarks
Each entry includes a working definition, the calculation formula, segment-level industry benchmarks where available, and FAQs grounded in real practitioner questions.
Return on Ad Spend
A performance metric measuring revenue generated relative to advertising spend.
Click-Through Rate
The percentage of ad impressions that result in a click.
Cost Per Action
The average cost to drive a specific user action or micro-conversion.
Cost Per Acquisition
The average cost to acquire a customer or generate a full conversion.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of users who complete a desired conversion action.
Ad Frequency
The average number of times a unique user is exposed to an ad.
Cost Per Mille
The cost to deliver 1,000 ad impressions to target audience.
Cost Per Click
The average cost paid for each click on an advertisement.
Pay-Per-Click
An advertising model where advertisers pay only when users click their ads.
Reach
The number of unique users exposed to an advertisement.
Engagement Rate
The percentage of users who interact with content through measurable actions relative to total reach or impressions.
Add-to-Cart Rate
The percentage of product page views or interactions that result in an add-to-cart event, typically on e-commerce sites.
Initiate Checkout Rate
The percentage of shopping sessions that begin the checkout process, with definitions that can vary by context.
Video Completion Rate
The percentage of video ad impressions where users watch to completion (100%).
Cost Per View
The average cost paid for each qualified video view based on platform-specific view criteria.
View Through Rate
Percentage of users who convert within the attribution window after viewing but not clicking an ad.
Cost Per Completed View
Average cost paid for each full video view completion (100% viewed).
Customer Lifetime Value
The predicted total revenue a business expects from a customer throughout their relationship.
Bounce Rate
Percentage of single-page sessions where users exit without meaningful interaction.
Session Duration
The length of time a user spends actively engaged during a single website visit.
Average Order Value
A key e-commerce metric measuring the average monetary value of each completed transaction.
Customer Acquisition Cost
The total business cost required to convert a prospect into a paying customer.
New Customer Acquisition Cost
Cost specifically to acquire first-time customers.
Blended Customer Acquisition Cost
Total marketing spend divided by total new customers acquired across all channels โ the holistic, attribution-agnostic counterpart to platform-reported CAC.
Marketing Efficiency Ratio
Total revenue divided by total marketing spend, measuring overall marketing effectiveness.
Attributed Marketing Efficiency Ratio
Revenue attributed to paid marketing divided by total marketing spend.
New Marketing Efficiency Ratio
Revenue from new customers divided by marketing spend, measuring acquisition efficiency.
Thumbstop Rate
Percentage of users who pause scrolling to view content for a meaningful duration.
Thumbstop Click Rate
Percentage of users who click after meaningfully pausing to view content.
ThruPlay Rate
Percentage of video ad impressions that result in complete views or 15-second watches.
Hold Rate
Percentage of hooked viewers (3-second video views) who keep watching to the 15-second mark.
View Rate
Percentage of video ad impressions that result in views meeting platform-specific duration thresholds.
Cost Per ThruPlay
Average cost of achieving a ThruPlay (complete view or 15-second watch) for video ads.
First-Time Impression Ratio
The percentage of ad impressions that are shown to users who have never seen the ad before.
Impressions
The total number of times an ad is displayed to users.
Share of Voice
Percentage of market presence across advertising, social media, and PR relative to total market or competitors.
Churn Rate
Percentage of customers who stop using a product or service during a given time period.
Customer Retention Rate
Percentage of existing customers who remain active with a business over a given time period.
Return on Investment
Net profit or loss generated relative to total investment cost, expressed as a percentage.
Moving Average
Rolling calculation that smooths data fluctuations over time.
Exponential Moving Average
Weighted moving average giving more importance to recent data.
Statistical Significance
Measure of whether results are likely due to chance or a real difference.
Confidence Interval
Range of values likely to contain the true population parameter.
Margin of Error
Maximum expected difference between sample estimate and true value. A measure of the precision of a sample estimate.
Sample Size
The number of observations in a sample, critical for the accuracy and reliability of statistical estimates.
Variance
The average of the squared differences from the mean.
False Positive
An error in data analysis where a test incorrectly indicates the presence of a condition or effect that is not actually present.
Control Group
A segment of users or data points that receive no treatment or intervention, serving as a baseline for comparison in experiments.
Overfitting
A modeling error where an algorithm learns the training data too precisely, capturing noise rather than underlying patterns, resulting in poor performance on new data.
False Negative
An error where a test incorrectly indicates the absence of a condition when it is actually present.
Population Mean
The average value of a variable across an entire population, representing the central tendency of the complete dataset.
Anomaly Detection
The systematic process of identifying data points that significantly deviate from expected patterns and thresholds.
Standard Deviation
Measure of variability or dispersion in advertising performance metrics.
Annual Recurring Revenue
The normalized, annualized value of a subscription business's recurring revenue, excluding one-time fees.
Monthly Recurring Revenue
The normalized total of predictable subscription revenue a business earns each month.
Net Revenue Retention
The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, including expansion and net of churn.
Activation Rate
The percentage of new sign-ups that reach a defined first-value milestone (the activation event).
Net Promoter Score
A customer-loyalty index, from โ100 to +100, based on how likely customers are to recommend a brand.
Rule of 40
A SaaS health benchmark stating that revenue growth rate plus profit margin should exceed 40%.
Viral Coefficient
The average number of new users each existing user generates through invitations and referrals.
Other Categories
AโZ index of Marketing Metrics
Every term in this category, alphabetized.
