KPIs for your marketing strategy

Coded with ♡ von Stephan

Which key figures are crucial for successfuly managing campaigns? Our free KPI calculators provide you with the answers. Simply calculate your values online and immediately see where your performance stands and where you can make adjustments.

• CAC Calculator
• CPA calculator
• CPC calculator
• CPL calculator
• CPM Calculator
• CPV calculator
• CR Calculator
• CTR Calculator
• ER Calculator
• LDCR Calculator
• LTV calculator
• MER calculator
• ROAS calculator
• ROI calculator
• SOV calculator

CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost

The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) shows you how much a new customer costs you on average. This key figure is important in order to better manage marketing and sales expenditure.

• Costs per customer acquired
• Linking marketing and sales
• CAC Calculator

CPA: Cost per action

The cost per action (CPA) measures the costs when a user performs a desired action – such as a purchase or registration.

• Costs per desired action
• Particularly valuable for performance campaigns
• CPA calculator

CPC: Cost per Click

You can use the cost per click (CPC) to determine how much each click on your ad costs you. This key figure is central to ads and social media.

• Cost per click
• Key performance indicator in online advertising
• CPC calculator

CR: Conversion Rate

The conversion rate (CR) shows you how many users actually carry out a desired action – for example, a purchase. One of the most important measures of success in marketing.

• Percentage of users with action
• Direct feedback on campaign quality
• CR Calculator

ROI: Return on Investment

The return on investment (ROI) measures whether your investments are really worthwhile. This gives you a universal key figure for measuring the success of every marketing measure.

• Profit in relation to the stake
• Universally usable for all investments
• ROI calculator

LTV: Lifetime Value

The Lifetime Value (LTV) gives you an indication of how valuable a customer is over the entire duration of their relationship with your company.

• Customer value over the entire duration
• Important basis for budget decisions
• LTV calculator

Why use KPI calculators?

With KPI calculators, you can evaluate your data in real time. This not only saves time, but also gives you clarity about your marketing goals. Whether it’s an increase in sales, reach or lead generation – the right KPI shows you whether you’re on track.

• Simply calculate online
• Free tools for all relevant KPIs
• Direct optimization of your campaigns

Marketing calculator online: All tools

Looking for free marketing tools? We’ve collected them all for you! You can calculate the most important KPIs for your marketing such as CPC, CR or ROI directly online. We also have social media ad calculators for budget and reach, including for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Search engine and display ads calculators are also included, such as for Google Search, Google Display or Microsoft Bing. With the right bidding strategies, you can work wonders in online marketing. Start now and optimize your campaigns online for free!

• Marketing calculator free of charge
• Marketing Tools: List

KPI at a glance: This is what you learn here

Tip! Below you will find detailed explanation, formula and examples for all KPIs. This is what you learn here:

KPI calculators

Engagement rate

Formula: How to calculate the engagement rate?

• Engagement Rate = ( Engagement [Likes, Comments and Shares] / Followers ) x 100

Example

If a total of 120 engagements (such as video views, likes, comments, shares, etc.) are recorded on one of your social media channels and you have a total of 3,600 users following you, the engagement rate is about 3.23%.

Calculator

Calculate your engagement rate online for free:

• Engagement Rate Calculator

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) / Return on Invest (ROI)

Formula: How to calculate Return on Ad Spend?

• ROAS = advertising revenues / advertising costs

Example

If you spent 20,000 euros on Facebook ads in January and generated a total profit of 80,000 euros, the return on ad spend is 4 euros. This means that every euro invested generated a profit of 4 euros.

The ROAS analysis shows whether an analyzed social media channel is profitable for you. After all, you certainly don’t want to spend more money on advertising in the long term than it brings in. So a higher ROAS is better.

Calculator

Calculate your return on ad spend online for free:

• Return on Ad Spend Calculator

Impressions vs. reach

We’ve included this metric separately because it’s important to not just look at impressions or reach individually, but to combine both metrics. In a nutshell:

• Impressions = number of ad views
• Reach = number of people who have seen the content

Cost per thousand contacts (CPM) / Cost per reach (CPR)

Formula: How to calculate the cost per thousand contacts?

• CPM = (advertising costs / reach) x 1,000

Example

Let’s say you spent 10,000 euros on an Instagram ad campaign that was seen by 400,000 users. The CPM is then 25 euros per 1,000 users reached.

Calculator

Calculate your cost per thousand contacts for free online:

• CPM / CPR Calculator

Click Through Rate

Formula: How to calculate the click through rate?

• Click Through Rate = Clicks / Total Reach x 100

Example

For example, if an ad is displayed 500 times and is clicked on 10 times, the click-through rate is 2%.

The click-through rate is another key figure in online marketing. It indicates the ratio of the number of clicks on an ad to the total reach. If the CTR of an ad is particularly low, you should check whether the targeting is addressing the right target group or whether changes need to be made to the image, text or call-to-action.

Calculator

Calculate your click through rate online for free:

• Click Through Rate Calculator

Conversion Rate

Formula: How to calculate the conversion rate?

• Conversion Rate = (Conversions / Interactions) x 100

Example

Conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of interactions that resulted in a conversion in the same time period. Assuming you have 100 conversions from 2,000 interactions, the conversion rate is 5% because 100 / 2,000 = 5%.

Conversion rate is the percentage of users who perform a desired action. A typical example is the percentage of visitors to a website who make a purchase. The conversion rate can also be related to the respective marketing channels, e.g. to calculate the conversion rate of your social media ads.

Calculator

Calculate your conversion rate online for free:

• Conversion Rate Calculator

Lead-to-Deal Conversion Rate (LDCR)

How do you calculate the lead-to-deal conversion rate?

• Lead-to-Deal Conversion Rate = (Deals / Leads) x 100

Example

Let’s say you generated 2,000 new leads through your social media ads in October, which resulted in 40 deals. Then the lead-to-deal conversion rate is 2% because 40 is divided by 2,000 and multiplied by 100.

Calculator

Calculate your lead-to-deal conversion rate online for free:

• Lead to Deal Conversion Rate Calculator

Cost per lead

Formula: How to calculate the cost per lead?

• CPL = advertising costs / leads

Example

To calculate the cost per lead, you must first track your conversions to determine the number of leads generated. This tells you what happens after a user clicks on your ad. The cost per lead is calculated by dividing the cost of an ad or campaign by the conversions it generates.

Calculate your cost per lead for free online:

• Cost per lead calculator

Cost per click

Formula: How to calculate the cost per click?

• CPC = advertising costs / clicks

Example

To calculate the CPC, you divide the total cost of advertising by the total number of clicks on the ad. Let’s say you spent 400 euros on an ad that generated 100 clicks, then the CPC is 4 euros.

Calculate your cost per click for free online:

• Cost per click calculator

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Formula: How to calculate the cost per lead?

• CAC = ( marketing costs / sales )

Customer acquisition cost is undoubtedly one of the most important metrics for a growing business. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), as the name suggests, tells you the total cost of acquiring a new customer.

This metric is critical because it gives you a clear guideline to evaluate your marketing activities. If a marketing campaign doesn’t generate new customers at a lower price than your current customer acquisition costs and instead helps increase them, it’s probably not an activity that justifies your team’s valuable time.

Calculator

Calculate your cost per click for free online:

• Customer Acquisition Cost Calculator

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Building customer trust and loyalty is a major challenge for companies. An important key figure in this area is the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). This value reflects the average value that a customer has for a company over the entire duration of the customer relationship.

Share of Voice (SOV)

Formula: How to calculate the Share of Voice?

• Share of Voice = (Sum of own mentions / Sum of all relevant mentions of all competitors) x 100

Example

For example, if your company hashtags were mentioned 60 times and the other relevant hashtags were mentioned a total of 100 times, you would have a share of voice of 60%. This would mean that you have established yourself as a thought leader in your field.

Calculator

Calculate your Share of Voice online for free:

• Share of Voice Calculator

Social media channel and content

Followers / Fans

Nowadays, the sheer number of followers or fans doesn’t tell you much about a social media profile. Many users buy likes or followers to look better at first glance (read more in our post about fake influencers). Even if you don’t, it’s not advisable to rely only on the number of your followers as a metric. For example, if you serve a niche topic, you will have a smaller audience.

Much more important are the following questions:

• How has the number of your followers developed in the last few months?
• How often do your fans interact with your content?

Share / Repost

The number of shares or reposts shows how often your posts or content have been shared. When your posts are shared further, you benefit not only from your own reach, but also from the reach of other users and their networks. This allows your post to go viral and reach new audiences.

So if your goal is to generate more reach and increase your visibility, you should work on getting the an

increase the number of shares and retweets.

Comments

The number of comments is also an engagement metric. On Facebook, the number of comments can also increase reach, as your posts show up in the feeds of those users who have commented. However, it’s important to not only look at the number of comments as a metric, but also consider the quality of the comments. Comments are expressions of opinion, and it is important not to neglect the qualitative aspect.

Reactions / Likes

This is about the number of reactions to your posts on social media, not the likes for your accounts themselves. Of course, you always want users to like your content and give it likes or emoji reactions on LinkedIn, for example. You can monitor this KPI over time to see if the quality of your posts continues to improve.

What does KPI mean? Quickly explained

Simply explained: The abbreviation KPI stands for “Key Performance Indicator”. This means that we are talking about a key performance indicator. KPIs are therefore key figures that can be used to measure, display and check the performance of various social media (marketing) activities.

Term:

KPIs = Key Performance Indicator

While success factors in the form of KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) are difficult to track for many classic measures (such as posters). Many measure success by these key performance indicators in particular: Clicks (redirection to the desired content), leads (pre-defined deals), shares (shared content), likes (likes).

Key KPI examples: CPM, CPC, PPC

Here are a few examples of important KPIs you’ll encounter more often in social media marketing.

ROI (Return of invest)

ROI indicates how profitable an individual campaign or an operational area is in relation to the investment made. In simple terms, ROI means: When will the expenditure (for advertising strategy XY, for example) be recouped?

• ROI (Return of invest)

CPM (Costs per mille)

Anyone who talks about CTR (Click Through Rate) should also know CPM, also Costs Per Thousand. It is indispensable in monitoring, for success control. What CPM is and what the difference between CPM and CPC is, you can learn here.

• CPM (Costs per mille)

CPC (Costs per click)

What does CPC mean? What is a good CPC? What is an average CPC? How much do you pay when a user clicks on the ad? After our great articles on the topic in Google Ads, we receive particularly frequent questions about the cost of advertising on search engines. Therefore, we want to enter this single article once again in detail on the cost systematics of paid reach in search engines.

• CPC (Costs per click)

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click (PPC) – What is PPC? The term PPC stands in full for “pay-per-click”. The whole thing is a model in the field of internet marketing. Here, advertisers pay money every time one of the ads you create is clicked. The big goal behind the campaigns is to attract visitors to their own website, e-commerce.

• Pay Per Click (PPC)

Tip. Perfect for evaluation, our software recommendations.

Making users measurable: Example UTM parameters

Among other things, KPIs can be measured using UTM parameters. These are small attachments that appear at the end of a URL (website). This is how visitor flows can be measured.

Example: Tracking users with ID

Let’Let’Let’s sayy visitor 153.963 gets the ID 153963, we attach this to his visit and so we see which visitor it is. Let’Let’s sayy our visitor jumps from ad A to offer A (online store). This is also marked, for example, by the ID Campaign_A. This way our online store (offer A) recognizes that a visitor has come from ad A.

• URL before: website.com
• URL after: website.com/?user=153963&?campaign=campaignA

More on the topic of UTM parameters:

• UTM parameters

Podcast episode on Spotify: Lean Canvas (2/3) Special

Back to overview: Marketing Podcast.

Now stream & learn for free on:

• Spotify – Marketing Podcast
• ITunes – Marketing Podcast
• Amazon – Marketing Podcast
• Deezer – Marketing Podcast
• Google – Marketing Podcast

Marketing Shorties: Lean Canvas

More Marketing Snippets? Follow us on Youtube, too. Topic of the week:

1. Unfair pitch advantage! + Your X like Y
2. Key figures: Prove your potential success
3. Target Groups: Avatars and first movers

As a speaker, we show up to 200 participants in our workshop how to build a business. One part of this is the Lean Canvas. A simple way to develop business ideas and test them. On the second day, 40 groups then present their business ideas. A bit like “Höhle der Löwen”, you probably know the TV series. However, before it comes to the pitch, a solid business idea has to be in place. In this podcast episode we talk about that among other things.

Unfair pitch advantage! + Your X like Y

The episode starts with your (ultimate) “unfair advantage”. Simply put: You have 10 years of experience in sales, others don’t have that. Or, you can develop online shops yourself, very few can do that. All this saves you time, money and opens doors faster. Or in short: Your unfair advantage as a founder! First of all, here’s a tip to save 2 minutes of time in your pitch! With your “X like Y”. Simply put, this means: Your business idea is a platform where dog owners can get to know each other. To do this, you use the all-too-familiar Tinder effect. Swipe right: commitment. Swipe left: Decline. Simply put. So instead of explaining at length which technical functions you use, you simply say: “We are the Tinder for dog owners”!

Key figures: Buyers, production, etc.

In real investor pitches, many talk about their idea for 8 minutes and numbers for 1 minute – wrong! In this episode we will show you how important the field “key figures” alone is in the Lean Canvas. To put it simply: Calculate potentials! Example: you open a stylish food store in the city, with vegan snacks. Then ask yourself, for example: How many people are there in the immediate, run-wide vicinity that would stop by your store for vegan snacks. If so, how often would they stop by? How high can you set prices, also in terms of competition? How much vegan competition is there in general? How much does your direct competition sell for? These are all important metrics that give investors (and banks) a quick insight into your industry and your potential.

Target Groups: Avatars and first movers

Who is really important for your later marketing measures? The most common mistake in pitches: target groups from 20-99 years. Wrong! Your target group must be exact. Ideally, you create avatars for them, i.e. an exact description of the person. This exact, specific description brings many advantages. From more targeted advertising budgets to an exact address. For this we also show you the example of Amazon. Started as a bookstore, with ambitions to deliver everything to everyone. It did! In the beginning, the target group was very precise. An insight into target groups and avatars of the Lean Canvas, or company foundation. Also, first movers! They help you establish your business idea faster by being multipliers for you. You’ll learn what that means in this episode from the Marketing Podcast!

Lean Canvas Special: All Parts

Here you can find all parts of the Lean Canvas Special at a glance:

Part: Problem, solution and USP

Part 1: Problem, solution and USP

Part: Marketing and Finances

Part 3: Marketing and finance

Digital trade: Which methods do you use for your idea?

Before you start your startup, you need to think a lot about your technical options. This is also a warning if you get involved with the wrong system and pay monthly for it, you will quickly become dependent. For example, there are various online shop providers for whom you have to pay triple-digit amounts every month. They promise you advantages in return. Advantages that you can all realize yourself with Open Source solutions – you just have to look for them. But yes, the service saves a lot of time, e.g. if you have absolutely no technical knowledge of digital solutions. If, however, you choose the wrong product and only notice this after three months or half a year, everything is already installed on this system. The change is then not so problem-free possible and the change is connected with further costs. Suddenly you pay for the development of two online shops. Furthermore, with this restructuring, you would lose rankings with regard to the placement in the search engine, as the page structure changes due to the new system and with it the individual URLs. Wrong decisions and their consequences.

Scaling in online marketing

“Scale” means staircase and derived from it, scale stands for expand. In business administration and at start-ups, scaling is the topic par excellence. Those who have achieved their proof-of-concept (profitable business model) must, in the next step, manage to generate more profits with less investment. The lower the cost of new revenue, the better. Certain processes can be automated so that some tasks no longer require personnel, but only software and licenses.

• What is a scalable business model?

Learn to scale with Affiliate / Advertisements

Many young entrepreneurs in the online marketing sector often and gladly start their first scaling in the affiliate marketing sector. Every time a user buys a product by referring to an affiliate link, the blog owner earns between 5% and 20% (usually 10%) of the sales.

The basis is often a small blog with articles, or a landing page (single HTML page with sales-optimized design). On this blog there is then e.g. test report, to topics like E-cigarettes, the classical coffee machine or also still more particularly the ?coffee machines Pad test? Exactly the same it goes naturally also for bicycles, special E-Bikes or still special lamp E-Bike comparison .

Affiliate Marketing Advantages

The affiliate links are then stored in the individual blog articles. This is how affiliate marketing works – scaling on a small scale.

• Little effort
• Low risk
• Simple growth
• Relatively high yield

The scaling is fast, all the affiliate marketer needs are SEO texts and / or social / search engine ads (social networks and search engine).

The aim of the young entrepreneur is to buy targeted reach through placement in search engines and / or through advertisements in social networks, so that sufficient sales are generated. The advertisements initially start with small budgets and, if they perform well, are turned up and run through for months. Each side and/or also advertisement those sufficiently sales generates, becomes then a lasting project for the entrepreneur that constantly more profits gains, without considerable expenditure.

With a small budget they now test different advertisements for effectiveness and compare the campaigns with each other. The investment is not too high, because each campaign is tested with maybe only 20 or 30 € per day.

How does Affiliate / Advertisements Scale?

After the first 20, 30 or 50 articles in the blog, the articles are equipped with advertisements (Facebook). Every single article gets an ad campaign. Within this advertising campaign (folder) there are then the different advertisements (according to photos, videos, target groups, place of residence etc.), which are tested against each other.

So it could be a photo of a person riding an e-bike. A second graphic shows the e-bike in detail. A third graphic shows the e-bike in the garage, without a person. Which of these three graphics will bring the most clicks and the most sales? With all 50 articles 150 different advertisements would develop so. After a short running time of 2, 3 days the results can be evaluated. Individual advertisements that convert badly, i.e. provide for few clicks and sales, are switched off early. After monitoring, it is decided which campaigns are shut down and which are continued.

Of 150 ads, maybe 20 or 30 will survive. These are profitable! Each individual page or ad costs €50 per day (Facebook Ads cost) and brings affiliate revenue of €70 per day – €20 profit. Thus with only 20, 30 advertisements a daily profit of 400 to 600 € results, monthly without fluctuations a yield of 15.000 €. Thus from a small Blog or a Landing Page to the topic product comparisons and tests became a genuine Proof OF Concept with over 100.000 ? annual profit, with only one person.

The functioning business model will then be further optimized, budgets have been reallocated and thus further and further expansion will take place. For a single person, good work since the risk investments for expansion are low. At the same time, the business model is easily expandable, more reach does not mean more effort (personnel, space, insurance, purchasing, advance payment, etc.).

Key indicators for measuring success

ROI (Return of Investment) for investors and valuation

The Return of Investment is, besides “scaling”, one of the central factors in business administration and therefore naturally also for you and your considerations on the profitability of projects. The ROI indicates how economical a product, a single campaign or an operational area is in relation to the investment made. It does not indicate time, but a relation (investment to turnover). On the basis of this ratio you can compare and evaluate different products, campaigns or business areas and make decisions.

• Analysis and comparison of individual divisions and investment properties
• Determining and evaluating the performance of an investment for a past period
• Planning and controlling future investments

By deciding to focus on the most profitable areas, you will make the most profit.

To make sure you understand the ROI absolutely, here are two examples of the question:

• How does the ROI in your company look like?
• How does the ROI for investors look like?

Whether influencer campaign on YouTube or re-targeting for your own online shop – also for classic TV advertising. In all cases, certain funds are invested in order to achieve a certain goal. The question now is, which campaign promises more profitability? Which campaign brings more profit, per invested Euro??

Even in advance, in concept and strategy, costs play an extremely important role. Ultimately, the campaigns are limited to a certain period of time. Sometimes through a fixed budget, sometimes through seasonal characteristics (fashion), sometimes through the half-life of the product, e.g. with trend products or video games, whose platform is constantly technically accessible.

Now (in our ROI example) in Social Media Marketing we have different possibilities on our desk. Community management, ads on Facebook, ads on Instagram, ads on YouTube, organic reach, we all video clips, the whole range of possibilities is open to you. In order to make a comparison and an evaluation, the key figures of the individual areas are consulted.

Calculation and formula

You have a media budget of 50.000 €. With this budget you ideally want to realize as much as possible. As much reach as possible, as much sales and as much turnover as possible. If your expected turnover is then 70.000 € (the profit accordingly is 20.000 €), your Return of Invest is 0.40..

• Earnings/capital employed = ROI
• 20.000 Euro / 50.000 Euro = 0.4

The Return of Invest now means that you will earn 0.40 Euro for every Euro you invest. If dunun compares different campaigns with each other and compares their costs and expected profits, you can make statements about which social media campaigns you invest in and which you don’t.

ROI for comparison – investment decision

How does ROI work for investors? Let’s say an investor wants to invest 1 million in a new round and spread the capital over 2 start-ups. She or he looks at 10 different start-ups and their business plans. The big question: Which investment is worthwhile? The answer: comparison based on ROI. All Start Ups estimate your profit for the 1st – 3rd year. The investor will then know how high the profit will be over the first three years.

• Start Up A has a ROI of 0.18
• Start Up B has a ROI of -0.24
• Start Up C has a ROI of 0.13
• Start Up D has a ROI of 2.53
• Start Up E has a ROI of 0.45
• …

Start Up D with a ROI of 2.53 (if all concepts have the same quality) promises the greatest opportunities for the investor. Start Up E with a ROI of 0.45..

Cooperation partner for additional range

Cooperation partners are particularly helpful in public relations and marketing. The clever combination not only makes it possible to live out creative marketing ideas, such as events, but also to create completely new products, e.g. a specific chocolate and biscuit brand. Both sides profit from the mutual advertising effect. At the same time, cooperation partners usually don’t take away customers, but rather play to customers. In the ideal case, cooperations result in meaningful synergies.

Cooperation Principle: Win-Win

For cooperation to be successful, the goals must first be clarified. Why do people work together? How do you work together and in what format must each individual brand perform? What success is expected in the end? How do you achieve this success? Of course, there are many other questions as well, such as financing or personnel resources – after all, it should be a win-win business. In principle, however, cooperations are about profitable cooperation. The big advantage are the well-known synergy effects.