Short answer
- The core marketing metrics for a small business are leads, cost per lead, conversion rate, customers, cost per customer and customer value.
- Digital marketing performance metrics like clicks, CTR and CPC are useful for diagnosing ads, but they're not the goal.
- Track a handful monthly, in one place, by channel.
- Any benchmark you read online varies hugely by industry and city, so compare against your own past months first.
Three tiers of metrics
| Tier | Question it answers | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Business | Is marketing paying off? | New customers, revenue, cost per customer |
| Funnel | Where are people dropping off? | Leads, conversion rate, close rate |
| Channel | Why is a channel doing well or badly? | CTR, CPC, impressions, open rate |
Look at the business tier first. Only dig into channel metrics when something at the top looks wrong.
The 10 metrics, with formulas
- Leads: calls, forms, bookings and messages from new prospects. Count them by source.
- Cost per lead (CPL): marketing spend ÷ leads.
- Website conversion rate: leads from the website ÷ website visits.
- Close rate: new customers ÷ leads. Low close rates usually mean poor-fit leads or slow follow-up.
- New customers: the number that matters most.
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC): marketing spend ÷ new customers.
- Average order or job value: revenue ÷ number of orders or jobs.
- Customer lifetime value: average value × how many times a customer usually buys. Even a rough estimate changes how much you can afford to spend.
- Return on ad spend (ROAS): revenue from ads ÷ ad spend.
- Repeat rate: share of customers who come back within a year.
Worked example (hypothetical): $600 spent, 30 leads → CPL $20. 9 become customers → close rate 30%, CAC about $67. Average job $250, customers return twice a year → about $500 a year each. Spending $67 to win $500 a year is a good deal.
Metrics by channel
| Channel | Watch | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Calls, direction requests, website clicks | How well the map listing turns views into action |
| SEO | Clicks and impressions in Search Console, leads from organic | Whether more people find you without ads |
| Google Ads | CPC, conversion rate, cost per conversion | Keyword and landing page quality |
| Facebook & Instagram ads | CPM, CTR, cost per result | Creative and offer strength (see CPC vs CPM) |
| Email & SMS | Click rate, bookings, unsubscribes | Whether messages bring people back |
| Social media | Profile visits, messages, saves | Interest that could turn into enquiries |
Email open rates have become less reliable because some email apps load images automatically, so treat clicks and bookings as the better signal.
Vanity metrics to ignore (mostly)
- Followers and likes on their own
- Impressions and reach without leads
- Time on site without conversions
- Keyword rankings for searches nobody makes
They're not useless, but they're inputs. If a report only shows these, ask what happened to leads and customers.
A monthly review in 20 minutes
- Fill in leads, customers and spend for each channel.
- Calculate CPL and CAC per channel.
- Compare with last month and the same month last year (seasonality matters).
- Pick one thing to change and one thing to keep doing.
- Write it down so next month's review starts with "did that work?".
Every BossRise monthly plan comes with a plain-English report built around these numbers. For the bigger picture, read Marketing analytics, and to plan spend, try the Marketing budget calculator.