Measuring Marketing: Track what matters.
Measuring marketing is important for understanding what’s working. It also helps you make improvements that boost your return on investment and support long-term business growth.
Surprisingly, many businesses don’t have a marketing plan or measure their efforts—without a plan, they lack strategic direction, and without measurement, they can’t tell what’s working and what’s not.
Why Measuring Marketing Matters
Marketing is one of the core pillars of a successful business—alongside financials, products or services, and customer service. If you don’t invest in marketing, your business won’t grow.
Understanding Timeframes
Marketing is a long-term investment. You may start generating leads and sales within three months, with momentum building from six months onward. Over one to three years, consistent marketing builds brand awareness and trust—maximising your return on investment.
The time to see results also depends on your offering. High-involvement purchases, like purchasing a new home, may take 6 to 12 months. Low-involvement purchases, such as booking a table at a restaurant or Club, can generate results in days.
Measuring Tactics
To measure your marketing effectively, you first need a balanced marketing plan. Without it, not only will your results fall short—but you’ll struggle to measure what’s working in any meaningful way. Relying on a single tactic, no matter how well executed, won’t give you the insights or ROI that come from a well-rounded strategy.
Each marketing tactic requires different types of measurement and operates on its own timeframe. For example:
- Website Performance
With a new website, start by tracking which pages are the most popular—especially action-oriented pages like “Book a Meeting,” “Buy Now,” or “Call Us.” As traffic builds, measure total visitors, growth over time, channel performance (e.g., organic, direct, social), bounce rates, high-performing content, and the number of leads or sales generated.
- Social Media
If you're just getting started, focus on growing your follower base, as well as post reach and engagement. If you’re running ads, measure the number of leads, cost per click, and cost per acquisition to assess efficiency.
- Email Newsletters
Track open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber growth. Reviewing results over one and two-week periods often captures the majority of results.
- Public Relations
Measure the number of media mentions, reach, and the Advertising Space Rate (ASR) to estimate the equivalent value of earned media.
- Marketing Campaigns
For specific marketing campaigns, such as events or promotions, track bookings, income generated, new member attraction or retention, leads, and direct sales outcomes.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Monitor organic traffic growth, keyword rankings, click-through rates (CTR), and the performance of key landing pages using tools like Google Search Console and GA4.
- Google Ads
Measure impressions, CTR, CPC, conversion rates, and quality scores.
- Referral Sources
Identify where your leads and customers are coming from—such as Google, social media, email marketing, direct visits, or personal referrals. To capture this data, you can use CRM tools, UTM tracking links, or invoice-level notes.
Personalising marketing metrics to your business
The metrics you use should reflect the type of marketing you’re doing and what’s measurable in your business. We don’t all operate in an ideal world, so working with what you have is important—and building from there.
One simple and effective method I often recommend for small B2B businesses is recording the referral source of each new customer directly in your accounting software at the invoice level. This allows us to analyse the income received for each marketing channel.
What we measure for clients
Here are some of the key metrics we track for our clients for marketing measurement, tailored to their specific marketing activities and goals:
1. Surveys
We conduct annual surveys for clients to measure brand awareness, client satisfaction and the words their customers use.
2. Websites
At a starting point, we track the number of visitors and growth in traffic over time. We also look at engagement metrics, channel performance (e.g., where traffic is coming from), and which content is generating the most interest and conversions.
3. Newsletters
We analyse open rates and click-through rates and assess how these change over time. This helps refine subject lines, content and calls to action for better engagement.
4. Social Media
We measure follower growth, reach, engagement, leads generated, and, where relevant, the cost per lead or acquisition.
5. Public Relations
For PR activities, we track media coverage, estimated reach, and the Advertising Space Rate (ASR) to determine the equivalent value of earned media.
6. Leads and Sales
For clients with more advanced tracking in place, we measure leads generated through their website and monitor overall sales performance—daily, monthly, and annually. This allows us to benchmark against previous periods and identify meaningful trends or shifts.
Unusual measurements
Sometimes, the impact of marketing is most evident when it's absent. For instance, a client who shifted marketing responsibilities to their sales team experienced a $1,000,000 drop in sales within a year. Another client saw membership decline from nearly 10,000 to approximately 8,000 within two years of ceasing our services.
Results we achieve
Marketing success can be measured in many ways—from increased sales and leads to improved brand perception, media coverage, and long-term business growth. Below are just some of the results we’ve achieved for our clients across a range of industries:
- Compass Fire & Safety: Successfully transitioned the business away from a franchise brand, retaining all clients and building immediate confidence in the new brand through strategic communications.
- K&G Automotive: Our ongoing marketing has helped K&G Auto double its staff and win multiple industry awards, boosting brand awareness and customer trust.
- Little Ship Club: Our annual campaign for the Little Ship Club’s Seafood Spectacular has delivered strong results year-on-year:
- 2025: $52,427 in sales, $23,354 profit
- 2024: $40,294 in sales, $17,000 profit
- 2023: $40,193 in sales, $14,300 profit
- 2022: $26,488 in sales, $13,299 profit
- 2021: $33,574 in sales, $8,930 profit
- Kiddo: A targeted PR campaign delivered national media coverage, resulting in a strong increase in app registrations and bookings.
- Sovereign Lady Charters: Launched a new tourism business with immediate success—achieving regular bookings and profitability within the first few months.
- Sports Aviation Federation of Australia:
- Increased member retention and secured earlier renewals through an annual membership campaign.
- Grew Facebook fans organically from 1,424 (Jan 2017) to 9,790 (May 2025), with an average monthly reach of 20,997 and a very strong engagement rate of 6.44% in April 2025.
- Secured national TV coverage on the Today Show featuring SAFA’s glider simulator and presence at Wings over Illawarra.
- Model Aeronautical Association of Australia: The “Have a Go” campaign (2017–18) led to 11% growth in membership, a total membership of 9,653, and an improved retention rate of 90%.
- City Tree Services: Enhanced brand professionalism and digital strategy, resulting in new income streams that enabled the business to hire a general manager and, later, created a business development manager role.
- CTEK: Contributed to CTEK becoming the number one battery charger brand in Australia and New Zealand through strategy, PR, advertising, and influencer campaigns.
- Smartcool: Reduced the typical sales cycle from 12–18 months to just 3–6 months, accelerating business growth and enabling a successful business sale.
- Garwoods: Improving the professionalism of their branding and giving them a digital presence, enabled them to achieve a successful business sale.
- One Life Medical: Achieved 12-month targets with increased patient numbers and a higher ratio of non-bulk billing clients. Built strong brand awareness and community trust that supported ongoing growth.
How we can help
Tracking marketing performance is about more than just numbers. When you personalise your metrics to suit your business, you’ll make better decisions, improve your ROI, and support sustainable growth.
Contact us for a complimentary audit if you're concerned about your marketing performance. We'll identify areas for improvement and help you achieve your business goals.
Contact us on 07 3446 5837 or email us here.
Sustainable Marketing Services is an award-winning Brisbane digital marketing agency with a long history of delivering sustainable success for our clients.