Is Your Marketing Working? How to Measure What Really Matters
Marketing can sometimes feel like shouting into the void—and then obsessing over how many people heard you. Likes, followers, impressions… they’re easy to see, easy to count, and tempting to fixate on. But here’s the hard truth: just because a post garnered 500 likes doesn’t mean it moved the needle for your business.
Small business owners can easily fall into this trap, mistaking vanity metrics for real results. It’s not that engagement isn’t useful—it’s that engagement alone doesn’t pay the bills. To understand if your marketing is working, it’s important to focus on metrics that connect to your business goals.
Leading vs lagging indicators
In marketing, metrics are split into two categories, leading indicators and lagging indicators.
Leading indicators are signals that something is happening. These might include clicks on your website, newsletter opens, or social media engagement. They’re useful because they show how well your campaigns perform in real time.
Lagging indicators measure the results that matter for your business, like sales, revenue, customer retention, or repeat purchases. They tell you whether your marketing is producing the outcomes you want.
Both matter, but many businesses focus too much attention on leading indicators, without checking their lagging ones. A spike in Instagram engagement is great, but if it doesn’t result in more customers or sales over time, it’s just noise.
Simple metrics that matter
You don’t need an expensive dashboard or a team of analysts to track what counts. Here are some small-business-friendly ways to measure marketing ROI:
Sales growth from campaigns. Track how a promotion, newsletter, or social media effort impacts purchases. Even a simple spreadsheet linking campaign dates to sales can reveal patterns.
Customer acquisition cost. How much are you spending to gain a new customer? Compare this to the revenue that the customer generates.
Repeat purchase rate. Loyal customers often drive more revenue than new ones. Are your marketing efforts encouraging customers to come back?
Website or landing page conversions. If people click, do they follow through? Even basic tracking in Google Analytics can tell you a lot.
The key is to not measure everything—that’s overwhelming and a time waster!—it’s to measure what matters for your business.
Long-term brand building vs short-term sales
It’s also important to balance short-term performance with long-term brand building. Quick wins—like discounts, flash sales, or pay-per-click ads—can elicit immediate returns, but can be brand-damaging over time. These focus on consistency, so customers think of them first when it’s time to buy.
Think about Apple. Every product launch drives immediate sales, but the company invests heavily in building a brand that’s recognised globally, remembered for quality, innovation, and style. That long-term strategy multiplies the impact of short-term campaigns.
Avoid the vanity trap
A common pitfall is measuring engagement for engagement’s sake. Ask yourself before assessing each metric: Does this metric tell me whether my business is growing? If not, it’s probably a vanity metric.
Instead, focus on insights that gauge decisions. Which campaigns are leading to more sales? Which content encourages repeat visitors? Which channels bring in the highest-value customers? These are questions that link marketing efforts to outcomes that matter.
The takeaway
Marketing ROI isn’t about counting everything—it’s about counting what counts. Engagement, likes, and impressions can be useful signals, but they’re only meaningful when tied to results that drive your business forward.
Track metrics that reflect actual customer behaviour, understand the difference between leading and lagging indicators, and balance short-term wins with long-term brand building. This approach will cut through the noise, helping you invest where it matters, leading to sustainable growth.
When you measure the right things, you stop guessing and start knowing, and that’s when marketing really works.
