A dashboard with forty widgets is a way of avoiding a decision. Here are the five numbers I put in front of leadership, and the question each one answers.
1. Qualified leads, not leads
Anyone can grow form fills. Qualified means it passed whatever bar sales actually uses. Agreeing that definition with sales is the single highest-leverage hour in the job.
2. Cost per qualified lead
Total marketing spend divided by number one. It moves slowly, which is the point.
3. Pipeline influenced
Value of open opportunities that touched a marketing channel. Imperfect attribution beats no attribution, as long as everyone knows the model.
4. Non-brand organic sessions
Brand search reflects everything else the company does. Strip it out and you can see whether content and SEO are compounding. See SEO that actually ranks.
5. One qualitative note
A short paragraph on what we learned that month. It is the only part anyone quotes back to me.
If a metric has never changed a decision, stop reporting it.