“How well is your marketing working?” It’s easy for D2C brands to feel stumped by this simple question — the connection between a company’s success and metrics like video views and website visits can be murky. To find an answer, marketers not only have to comb through an overwhelming amount of data, but they also must understand topsy-turvy customer journeys that warrant different attribution models.
No need to stress: We compiled this cheat sheet of common digital marketing KPIs. All you have to do is select the ones most relevant to your marketing channels and business objectives (you don’t have to measure everything), choose the proper monitoring tools, and regularly review your progress.
The amount of monthly traffic to your website can be a good indicator of your marketing pipeline’s success in encouraging shoppers to click on links, CTAs, and ads.
Measurement tools: Google Analytics, KissMetrics, Matamo, Woopra
How to improve:
Optimize SEO to boost organic visitors
Increase paid advertising
Make sure all CTAs drive to key website pages
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Number of pages per visit
Average time spent on page
For more on improving website traffic:
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The average cart abandonment rate hovers at 68.8% — but that doesn’t mean abandoned carts are a lost cause! Consider the reasons people may be abandoning their carts: Is your checkout page confusing? Too lengthy? Are your shipping and returns policies not shopper-friendly? Identifying these pain points and easing shoppers’ concerns can easily reduce this number.
How to calculate:
Cart abandonment = 1 - (# of shoppers completing transactions / # of shoppers adding items to carts)
How to improve:
Optimize checkout pages
Send cart abandonment recovery emails
Create cart abandonment retargeting ads
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Browse abandonment rates
For more on pushing past cart abandonment:
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The percentage of returning vs. new website visitors reveals the engagement level of your target audience. For example, if your content pages have few return visitors, it may be time to review your content strategy.
Measurement tools: Google Analytics, KissMetrics, Matamo, Woopra
Google Analytics makes it easy to see the number of new users. Source: Greet More
How to improve:
Determine which pages are seeing fewer return visitors, then update them using new images or copy
Revamp your content strategy — ensure that every piece of content you create is useful, entertaining, and compelling
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Number of unique visitors
Page/scroll depth
Top exit pages
What good is a website if it doesn’t convert? (Spoiler alert: Not much.) Luckily, there are ways to improve your site so that people don’t just window shop but engage with reviews, explore content, and purchase products.
Measurement tools: Google Analytics, KissMetrics, Matamo, Woopra
How to improve:
Craft strong and catchy CTAs (and conduct A/B testing if you’re not sure which ones are the most effective)
Make sure the site hierarchy, navigation, and visual design all drive visitors to the CTA. Pro tip: Instead of burying your CTA at the bottom of the page, sprinkle it throughout the site
Regularly update your copy, images, and design
Optimize the checkout process
Conduct an SEO audit, focusing specifically on load times, mobile device friendliness, and intuitive navigation
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Click-through rate (CTR)
For ways to optimize online checkout for conversion:
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A successful social media strategy is one that creates buzz. Think of Wendy’s or Denny’s, both of which have distinctive tongue-in-cheek tones and timely content that people love. But snarkiness is not the magical solution to engagement — ultimately, it depends on who your target audience is.
Engagement rates can be calculated in various ways but typically encompass metrics such as post shares, likes, clicks, and comments. Case in point: The higher your engagement rate, the larger your reach.
Measurement tools: Hootsuite, Buzzsumo
How to improve:
Create more engaging (and genuinely valuable) content: ask a question, encourage followers to share their experience, put your spin on trending moments
Review your social media strategy to ensure that posts — including copy, visuals, and content type — are aligned with your target audience’s interests, desires, and habits
Develop targeted social media campaigns
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Number of social media followers (new and lost)
For ways to build an engaging brand on social media:
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Social media mentions are another great way to monitor both positive and negative reactions to your brand, product, and customer experience — your whole brand image, if you will.
Measurement tools: Sprout Social, Agorapulse
How to improve:
Thank customers for leaving positive feedback
Leverage social media mentions for a future user-generated content campaign
Use negative mentions as an opportunity to remedy poor customer experiences
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Percentage of positive and negative reviews
Having an engaged community on social media is great, but having them become buying customers is even better. By monitoring the amount of website traffic from social media, you can see if the posts you are painstakingly crafting are actually contributing to sales and revenue.
Measurement tools: Google Analytics, KissMetrics, Matamo, Woopra
How to improve:
Add CTAs to your social posts
Experiment with social shopping
Create promotional campaigns
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Traffic from video content
With widespread changes to user privacy and third-party cookies, first-party data is more critical than ever. With that being said, it’s not surprising that emails remain one of the reigning champs of digital marketing — for every $1 you spend on emails, the expected ROI is a whopping $42!
Having a high subscribe rate not only indicates that your website is doing an excellent job encouraging people to subscribe, but it also means you can disseminate your marketing messages more widely.
Measurement tools: AdRoll, MailChimp
How to improve:
Review your email sign-up form — make sure you are providing value via content, a discount, or other exclusive perks
Minimize the clicks it requires for website visitors to subscribe
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
List growth rate
For more ways to collect email addresses:
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With more and more brands realizing the potential of emails, marketers now have mere seconds to capture attention via catchy and relevant headlines. If nobody is opening your emails, start by asking yourself why.
How to calculate:
Email open rate = unique opens / (number of emails sent - bounces)
How to improve:
Craft short and snappy headlines. Don’t be afraid to experiment with personalization to boost each email’s relevancy
Test email frequency. Nobody wants to receive a dozen promotional emails from the same brand in a week
Mix up your sales-related content with entertaining, brand-related, or informative content
Try segmenting your emails to send the right marketing message to the right people
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Unsubscribe rate
Spam complaints
Emails should serve as an introduction to your brand, products, or a promotional campaign. Therefore, the goal of each email is to encourage people to click on a link and take a desired action, whether it’s to shop a sale, return to their abandoned cart, or sign up for an event.
How to measure:
Email CTR formula. Source: Brainpulse Technologies
How to improve:
Make sure your CTA is prominent and clear
Experiment with different CTAs
Use graphics to jazz up your emails (but make sure that load times remain low!)
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Number of emails delivered
Number of forwards
Email conversions
For ways to use data to send smarter emails:
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“Just Google it” is one of the most popular modern sayings for a good reason — search engines can deliver you the answer to (almost) anything. Unfortunately, this means that brands must fight for coveted space on search engine result pages (SERP). If you see low traffic from organic search, it’s time to improve your SEO.
Measurement tools: Google Analytics, SEMRush, Moz
How to improve:
Review your keyword strategy — you’ll want to rank highly for targeted keywords
Publish new content related to keywords, or optimize existing content
Do an SEO audit, then use findings to improve your website
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Number of leads from organic search
Conversions from organic search
Keyword click-through rate
Keyword rankings
For more on building an SEO strategy:
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The more inbound links you have from sites with high page authority, the better your site will perform in search engine results.
Measurement tools: Moz, SEMrush, Ahrefs
How to improve:
Partner with industry leaders in a content exchange (reports, case studies)
Pen guest posts for authority sites
Interlink pages on your website, especially blog content
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Domain authority
For more on creating content that improves search rankings:
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Paid ads (displayed on sidebars, search results, or social media) are an easy way to generate more traffic, leads, and conversions — but only when they work. If your click-through rates are low, it means your ads are being seen but ignored.
Measurement tools: Google Analytics (for Google Ads), AdRoll
How to improve:
A/B test every aspect of your digital ads (design, copy, CTA)
Experiment with different types of PPC advertising
Review your landing pages — you want to provide a seamless user journey from an ad to its respective landing page
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Cost per acquisition
Cost per conversion
One of the biggest headaches that marketers face happens when shoppers click on paid ads but don’t convert — essentially eating up the marketing budget. Ouch. Luckily, there are quick and easy fixes for low conversion rates.
Measurement tools: Google Analytics (for Google Ads), AdRoll
How to improve:
Review your keyword strategy; target paid keywords with less competition
A/B test your ad copy, images, ad types, and CTAs — make sure they clearly convey your unique value proposition
Optimize your landing pages
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Leads from paid advertising
Acquiring leads is easy. Acquiring affordable leads is a challenge. To gauge whether your marketing efforts have a positive ROI, you’ll need to calculate the cost per lead.
How to measure:
Average cost per lead = total marketing cost / number of new leads in a set period
In this case, the total marketing costs include:
Your time spent managing a lead acquisition source (e.g., social media, blog, Google Ads campaign)
The cost associated with the lead acquisition source (includes relevant resources and tools)
How to improve:
Experiment with free marketing channels, such as organic social media
Update your marketing campaign targeting to make sure you’re reaching the right audience at the right time
Review your marketing funnel as a whole — each touchpoint should work seamlessly with one another
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Cost per conversion
Acquiring a new customer is challenging (and expensive!), so why not encourage them to come back for more? In other words, once a customer converts, your work doesn’t end there — you’ll want to continue engaging with them by delivering a new series of marketing messages.
How to calculate:
Customer Retention Rate formula. Source: ProductPlan
How to improve:
Provide excellent customer care
Send post-purchase follow up emails
Respond to all negative feedback
Similar digital marketing KPIs:
Customer lifetime value
Attrition/churn rate
For more on how personalized marketing can boost customer retention:
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Whew, that was a lot of digital marketing KPIs! To make it easier for you, we’ve created a super handy checklist — now, you and your team can quickly keep track of all business goals, KPIs, and reporting responsibilities.
And don’t forget to bookmark this cheat sheet for future reference! As your brand grows, your business goals will change, which means you’ll need to update your digital marketing KPIs.
Last updated on April 21st, 2026.