Understanding whether or not a business is going in the right direction commercially is, broadly speaking, black and white: get five figures right, and you will grow. These key metrics have been well-documented for some time, with any business leader knowing their revenue, margin, CAC, CLTV, and churn rates – and how each interacts to drive value and long-term growth.
But the metrics to inform, build and constantly measure brand growth have been more art than science. With so many channels, each with varying degrees of data sophistication and difficulty of attribution, it remains an open debate around what the key metrics really should be.
As business leaders – from c-suite to marketing, advertising and communications – strive to invest in the right areas to ensure both commercial and brand growth, they often find themselves lost in a sea of metrics, each claiming to be the key to unlocking it. But not all metrics are created equal, and the challenge lies in ensuring you are looking at what really matters.
There are, quite literally, thousands of different data points you can look at – from the macro to the very micro. At BoldLens, we have spent years working with clients and businesses to hone these metrics into a set of 54 – all outlined in detail in our data glossary – that, combined, give you an accurate and reliable picture of how your brand is growing in the context of your market.
Here are the 10 metrics that every business leader must know, monitor, track, and seek to positively influence.
1. Customer acquisition cost (CAC): The foundation of brand growth begins with expanding your customer base. Calculating CAC helps you understand how much it costs to acquire a new customer. Keeping CAC in check ensures that your marketing strategies are efficient and sustainable.
2. Customer lifetime value (CLTV): Knowing the value a customer brings over their time with your brand is key. A high CLTV indicates strong customer loyalty and demonstrates long-term sustainability.
3. Conversion rate: This metric unveils the effectiveness of your website, landing pages, and sales funnels. Tracking the percentage of visitors who turn into paying customers sheds light on the areas you need to focus on to boost brand growth.
4. Churn rate: Sustained growth isn’t solely about acquiring new customers – it’s also about retaining them. Churn rate measures the rate at which customers leave your brand. Lowering this rate ensures you’re not constantly running (and spending) just to stand still.
5. Brand awareness and consideration: Understanding target customer awareness and consideration on an ongoing basis is critical to ensure your strategy at the top of the funnel is working. Without it, all other metrics will struggle.
6. Website traffic and engagement: Long-term traffic growth is indicative of a healthy brand. Ultimately, delivering awareness and engagement that leads to intent is vital. Monitoring website traffic, time spent on site, and bounce rates ensures you know how effectively your digital platforms engage and retain visitors.
7. Media and social media: Tracking your brand’s reach, engagement levels, sentiment, and share of voice – set amongst your core competitor set – across platforms ensures you have an additional understanding of how you are building and sustaining awareness.
8. Search: Understanding how potential customers are finding your brand online is key, and monitoring how organic branded search performs over time as well as how your paid search or SEO-driven activity is performing is an important part of driving lower CAC.
9. Market share and performance against your competitor set: A thriving brand is one that continually gains ground amongst its peer group. Monitoring market share offers insights into your brand’s competitive positioning and potential for expansion. You need to know your performance against this competitor set by measuring share of voice, search and traffic, brand awareness, and consideration. Do you have access to all these metrics of your competitors, from their web traffic to ad spend? Did you even know this data was available? If not – get in touch.
10. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) and net promoter score (NPS): Happy customers are the bedrock of brand growth. CSAT gauges overall customer satisfaction, while NPS assesses their willingness to recommend your brand. These metrics reflect the emotional connection customers have with your products or services, driving down CAC and churn while ensuring increased conversion and LTV.
Don’t know where to start? Help is at hand
Whether you’re a business with well-established metrics, being tracked in real-time, or are just setting out on a journey to define or redefine the critical factors in measuring your brand growth, these 10 are a great place to start. Align them with your business and obsess over them, while letting others obsess over the hundreds or thousands of other metrics that sit underneath and ladder up to the success of each.
The BoldLens glossary outlines the 54 key metrics you should have readily available access to and understanding of. While this list provides you with a solid starting point to inform your approach, the next step is often the hardest: accessing, interpreting and understanding what to do with the data. That is where BoldLens comes in.
Tracking and nurturing these diverse metrics remains a challenge for businesses of all sizes, with multiple data sources and varying levels of expertise in accessing, interpreting and being able to take action to drive performance. BoldLens integrates all of this data, makes it easy to understand and provides automated, AI-driven, actionable insights in real-time. Within a month of signing-up, you will have access to the most powerful brand value measurement platform around, saving you months or years in development costs and time.
If you’d like to see inside the platform and what it could do to supercharge your growth, get in touch today.
