Marketing metrics: what a marketer is accountable for, and what not

"Marketing doesn't work" is a phrase we hear in the MakeSales group more often than we'd like. Almost every time the cause is the same: nobody agreed in advance on what counts as a result. In summer 2025 we devoted a MakeSales Meet business breakfast to this topic and kept coming back to it in discussions. Here is the essence.

Marketing has three jobs

Strip away the buzzwords and marketing does three things:

• acquire customers;
• retain customers;
• win back customers who left.

Then come average order value, purchase frequency and customer lifetime value (LTV). Marketing can measure and improve all of these. Company profit, however, also depends on pricing, cost of goods, sales, logistics and many other things a marketer doesn't control.

“Marketing can't be responsible for all of the company's profit, but it can be responsible for conversions.

Definitions first, numbers second

Before asking "how much does a lead cost", decide what a lead is. A phone call? A quote request? A person who walks into the office with a coupon? These are three different events with different prices and different chances to buy.

The same goes for a "high-converting website". Conversion from what to what? "50% of requests become sales", "first page of search for three queries", "a lead under 3 dollars": these are tasks. "Make it convert" is not.

Metrics that show a marketer's work

A marketer's success can be expressed in numbers:

• lower cost per install, lead and action (CPI, CPL, CPA);
• higher lead-to-customer conversion;
• higher LTV and average order value;
• timely exit from products and channels that don't pay off.

Above them sit business metrics: return on marketing investment (ROMI) and customer acquisition cost (CAC). They are calculated together with finance, because without revenue and margin they mean nothing.

Who owns what

Split the funnel into areas of responsibility:

• marketing: reach, traffic, leads, cost per lead, repeat purchases;
• sales: lead-to-deal conversion, average deal size, response speed;
• product and service: returns, reviews, willingness to recommend (NPS);
• owner and finance: margin, profit, cash flow.

Many leads and no sales is a question for lead handling and the offer itself, not for advertising. Few leads that close well is a marketing task.

Keep the numbers in one place

Reports a marketer assembles by hand from five ad accounts eat hours and still arrive late. In MAKE TALK #33 we discussed how to bring ad data into one view and make decisions on fresh numbers. In the #ProЦифры series with Umar Alimov we talked about how marketing metrics connect to the P&L and cash flow.

Where to start this week

• Write down what counts as a lead in your company and agree on it with sales.
• Pick 3-5 metrics for the month, not 30.
• Assign an owner to each.
• Review the numbers weekly in one table.

Want your case reviewed on a live example? Bring it to a Brainstorm in the MakeSales group: members look at the task from different angles and suggest solutions.