— KPI Glossary
Marketing KPI definitions, formulas, and benchmarks
Plain-language explanations for every marketing metric — with formulas, industry benchmarks, and the one thing that actually moves each number.
46 KPIs defined7 categoriesFormula + benchmark + improvement tactic for each
Paid Advertising
ROAS— Return on Ad Spend
Revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.
CPA— Cost Per Acquisition
The cost of acquiring one customer or conversion event through paid advertising.
CPL— Cost Per Lead
The cost of generating one marketing lead through paid advertising.
CPC— Cost Per Click
The average amount paid for each click on a paid advertisement.
CPM— Cost Per Mille
The cost to show your ad 1,000 times (one thousand impressions).
CTR— Click-Through Rate
The percentage of ad impressions that result in a click.
Ad Frequency
The average number of times each unique person in your target audience has seen your ad.
Blended ROAS
Total revenue from all sources divided by total paid media spend across all channels — not limited to a single platform.
Quality Score
Google Ads' rating (1–10) of the relevance and quality of your keywords, ads, and landing pages.
IS— Impression Share
The percentage of eligible impressions your ads received out of the total impressions they could have received.
CPI— Cost Per Install
The average cost of acquiring one app install through paid user acquisition campaigns.
Attribution & Revenue
CAC— Customer Acquisition Cost
The total cost to acquire one new paying customer, including all marketing and sales expenses.
LTV— Customer Lifetime Value
The total revenue a business expects to earn from a customer over the entire relationship.
MRR— Monthly Recurring Revenue
The predictable monthly revenue a business earns from all active subscriptions.
ARPU— Average Revenue Per User
Average monthly or annual revenue generated per active customer.
CAC Payback Period
The number of months required to recover the cost of acquiring a customer from their subscription revenue.
Customer Churn Rate
The percentage of customers who cancel their subscription in a given period.
ROMI— Return on Marketing Investment
The revenue return generated per dollar of total marketing investment, including all marketing spend (not just paid ads).
AOV— Average Order Value
The average revenue generated per transaction, calculated as total revenue divided by number of orders.
MER— Marketing Efficiency Ratio
Total revenue divided by total marketing spend across all channels — a platform-agnostic efficiency measure that avoids last-click attribution bias.
Creative & Content
Creative Fatigue
The degradation of ad performance caused by an audience seeing the same creative too many times, leading to declining engagement and rising costs.
Reach
The number of unique individuals who saw your ad at least once during a given period.
VCR— Video Completion Rate
The percentage of video ad viewers who watched the video to completion (or to the 95% mark).
Website & Funnel
CVR— Conversion Rate
The percentage of visitors (or clicks) who complete a desired action — a purchase, signup, or lead form submission.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors who leave a page without taking any action or visiting another page.
Average Session Duration
The average amount of time users spend on your website in a single visit.
Pages Per Session
The average number of pages a visitor views during a single website session.
Landing Page Conversion Rate
The percentage of paid traffic visitors to a specific landing page who complete the intended conversion action.
Trial-to-Paid Conversion Rate
The percentage of free trial users who convert to a paid subscription.
Organic Traffic
Website visitors who arrive via unpaid search engine results.
Cost Per Content Lead
The cost to acquire a lead through content marketing (blog, SEO, webinar, gated content) as opposed to paid advertising.
Paid to Organic Traffic Ratio
The proportion of your website traffic that comes from paid channels versus organic channels.
Email Open Rate
The percentage of delivered emails that were opened by recipients.
Email CTR— Email Click-Through Rate
The percentage of delivered emails that received at least one click on a link.
Email Unsubscribe Rate
The percentage of email recipients who unsubscribe after receiving a single email.
Email Deliverability Rate
The percentage of sent emails that successfully reach the recipient's inbox (as opposed to being bounced or filtered to spam).
Pipeline & CRM
MQL— Marketing Qualified Lead
A lead that marketing has determined is more likely to become a customer based on engagement criteria, fit criteria, or both.
SQL— Sales Qualified Lead
A lead that a sales representative has evaluated and confirmed as a genuine sales opportunity worth pursuing.
Pipeline Velocity
The speed at which deals move through your sales pipeline and generate revenue, measured as revenue per day.
Cost Per MQL
The total marketing spend required to generate one Marketing Qualified Lead.
Sales Win Rate
The percentage of sales opportunities that result in a closed-won deal.
Average Deal Size
The average contract value of closed-won deals in a given period.
Brand & Awareness
Brand Search Volume
The monthly number of Google searches for your brand name or brand-specific terms.
SOV— Share of Voice
Your brand's advertising presence as a percentage of total advertising in your market category.
NPS— Net Promoter Score
A customer satisfaction measure based on a single question: "How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?" Scored 0–10.
Impressions
The total number of times an ad or piece of content was displayed, including multiple views by the same person.
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