The Problem With Most Marketing Dashboards
Here is what happens at most companies. Marketing sends over a monthly report. It has 40 metrics on it. Impressions are up. Click-through rate improved 0.3%. Social followers grew by 200. The CEO looks at it, nods, and has no idea whether marketing is actually working.
That is not a reporting problem. That is a "nobody agreed on what matters" problem.
The fix is simple: track fewer things, and make sure those things connect directly to revenue. The 15 metrics below are the ones we track for every client at Fusion Marketing, as part of our fractional CMO engagements. Not because they are the only metrics that exist, but because they are the ones that tell you whether your marketing spend is producing a return.
Revenue Metrics: The Ones Your CFO Cares About
1. Marketing-Sourced Revenue
This is the dollar amount of closed business that originated from a marketing touchpoint. Not "influenced" — originated. The lead came in through a marketing channel, went through the pipeline, and became a customer. If you cannot track this number, you have an attribution problem that needs to be solved before anything else.
2. Marketing-Influenced Revenue
Broader than sourced revenue. This includes deals where marketing played a role somewhere in the buyer journey — a prospect saw your content, attended your webinar, or clicked your ad even if they originally came in through a referral. Most B2B companies find that marketing influences 40-60% of their pipeline, even when sales gets credit for "sourcing" the deal.
3. Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)
Revenue generated divided by marketing spend. Simple math, hard to get right. The key is being honest about what counts as marketing spend — not just ad dollars, but salaries, tools, agency fees, and content production. A healthy ROMI varies by industry, but if you are not seeing at least 3:1 on your total marketing investment, something is off.
Acquisition Metrics: What It Costs to Get a Customer
4. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Total sales and marketing cost divided by the number of new customers acquired. This is the number that tells you whether your growth is sustainable. If your CAC is higher than your first-year revenue per customer, you are losing money on every new client. We have seen companies with CACs of $2,000 selling products worth $1,500 annually and wondering why growth feels painful.
5. CAC by Channel
Your blended CAC hides the real story. Google Ads might deliver customers at $400 each while LinkedIn costs $1,200. That does not necessarily mean you should cut LinkedIn — those customers might have higher lifetime value. But you need to see the breakdown to make smart allocation decisions.
6. Cost Per Lead (CPL)
What it costs to generate a single lead. Important context: a "lead" should mean someone who fits your target profile and has expressed interest, not just anyone who filled out a form. If your CPL is $50 but 80% of those leads are junk, your real CPL is $250.
7. Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate
What percentage of leads become paying customers? This is where marketing and sales accountability overlap. If marketing generates 200 leads per month and only 5 become customers, either the leads are not qualified or sales is not closing them. This metric forces that conversation.
Pipeline Metrics: The Leading Indicators
8. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
Leads that meet your criteria for sales readiness. The definition matters more than the number. If your MQL definition is "downloaded a whitepaper," you will have lots of MQLs and an angry sales team. If your definition is "requested a demo and has budget authority," you will have fewer MQLs but they will actually close.
9. Pipeline Velocity
How fast deals move through your pipeline. This is calculated as: (number of deals x average deal value x win rate) divided by average sales cycle length. Pipeline velocity tells you how much revenue your pipeline is producing per day. If the number is going down, something is broken — even if individual metrics look fine.
10. Sales Cycle Length
How long it takes from first touch to closed deal. Marketing can directly influence this by providing better original content for the middle of the funnel — case studies, comparison guides, ROI calculators — that help prospects convince themselves (and their bosses) faster.
Engagement Metrics: The Ones That Predict Future Revenue
11. Website Conversion Rate
The percentage of website visitors who take a desired action — fill out a form, request a demo, call the number. Industry averages are 2-3%, but that number is meaningless without context. A page getting 10,000 visitors with a 1% conversion rate is still generating 100 leads. A page getting 500 visitors with a 5% rate is generating 25. Both numbers matter.
12. Email Engagement Rate
Open rates and click rates combined. Open rates alone are unreliable since Apple's privacy changes, but click rates still tell you something real. If people are clicking links in your emails, your content is relevant. If they are not, you are talking about the wrong things or talking too often.
13. Content Engagement
Which blog posts, videos, and downloads are getting the most traffic and engagement? More importantly, which content is generating the most leads? We worked with a B2B company that was producing 20 pieces of content per month. When we analyzed performance, 4 of those pieces generated 80% of the leads. We cut the other 16 and redirected that effort toward more content like the top 4. Lead volume went up 35%. Understanding which content drives results is a critical part of building an effective digital marketing program.
Efficiency Metrics: Are You Getting Better Over Time?
14. CAC Payback Period
How many months of revenue from a new customer does it take to recoup the cost of acquiring them? If your CAC is $3,000 and the customer pays $500 per month, your payback period is 6 months. Anything under 12 months is generally healthy. Over 18 months is a problem.
15. LTV:CAC Ratio
Customer lifetime value divided by customer acquisition cost. This is the single most important metric for understanding whether your growth model works. A 3:1 ratio means every dollar you spend acquiring a customer generates three dollars of lifetime value. Below 3:1, your margins are too thin. Above 5:1, you are probably underinvesting in growth.
How to Actually Use These Numbers
Tracking these metrics is step one. Using them is step two. Here is the framework we use with every client:
- Monthly review: Look at the trends. Are the leading indicators (MQLs, pipeline velocity) going in the right direction?
- Quarterly analysis: Analyze CAC by channel, content performance, and conversion rates. Reallocate budget based on what the data shows.
- Annual planning: Use LTV:CAC ratio and ROMI to set next year's marketing budget with confidence instead of guesswork.
Stop Reporting and Start Deciding
If your marketing team cannot tell you within 30 seconds how much revenue marketing generated last month, you have a measurement problem. And that measurement problem is costing you money — either through wasted spend or missed opportunities.
These 15 metrics are not theoretical. They are the exact framework we use to manage marketing programs that produce measurable, attributable revenue growth.
Fusion Marketing builds and manages marketing programs measured by revenue, not vanity metrics. If your current reporting does not tell you what marketing is producing, we should talk. Call us at (704) 749-0642 or reach out at contact@fusionmarketing.biz — we will show you exactly what a proper marketing dashboard looks like for your business.
