Have you ever been in a meeting with your CEO and caught a subtle eyebrow raise when you brought up social impressions or brand awareness? Trust me, you’re not alone.
CEOs care about marketing—but only when it connects to growth. They don’t just want flashy campaigns or a killer Instagram reel (fun as those may be). They want results they can measure.
Here’s the thing: Marketing is nothing if not a growth engine. The metrics that matter now are the ones that tie directly to business performance. Let’s look at five KPIs that will grab a CEO’s attention—and how you can build strategies to drive them.
1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): What’s It Cost to Win a Customer?
CEOs love efficiency, and CAC tells them how much you’re spending to bring in a single customer, from ad budgets to sales costs. It’s calculated by dividing your total acquisition spend by the number of new customers.
Why does CAC matter? Because if you’re spending more to acquire a customer than they’re worth, then your business isn’t sustainable.
How to make it work for you:
Track CAC by channel. Is your Google Ads spend delivering cheaper conversions than your LinkedIn campaigns? If so, you may want to double down on the Google Ads. But don’t just stop at cost—evaluate the quality of those leads. Cheap leads that don’t convert down the funnel are just wasted money.
2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The Bigger Picture
It’s not just about getting customers—it’s about keeping them. CLV measures how much revenue a customer will generate over their entire relationship with your business.
Think of it this way: A customer who spends $50 a month with you for five years is more valuable than someone who makes a one-time $500 purchase. CEOs love this metric because it highlights the long-term value of marketing and retention strategies.
How to make it work for you:
Pair CLV with CAC. If your CAC is high but your CLV is higher, then you’re in great shape. Focus on nurturing loyalty through email marketing, personalized offers and killer customer experiences. Remember, retention often costs less than acquisition—and it pays off.
3. Revenue Growth: The Holy Grail
If there’s one metric that speaks directly to a CEO’s heart, it’s revenue. Yes, marketing is absolutely a creative department, but it’s a revenue driver, too. CEOs want to know how your campaigns are contributing to the bottom line.
How to make it work for you:
It’s imperative to tie your marketing efforts to sales outcomes. For example, track how many leads from your campaigns convert into paying customers. If you’re running a paid ad campaign, measure the direct revenue it generates. Attribution and reporting can be tricky, but tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot or Salesforce can help you connect the dots.
4. Market Share: Are You Winning or Losing?
CEOs don’t just want growth—they want growth that outpaces the competition. Market share shows how much of the pie your business controls in comparison to competitors. It’s an indicator of whether you’re gaining ground or falling behind.
How to make it work for you:
Marketing can drive market share by differentiating your brand. Think about how Apple doesn’t just sell phones—it sells a lifestyle. Use branding, customer experience and creative campaigns to position your business as the go-to in your space.
5. Lead Conversion Rate: Turning Interest into Action
Traffic and impressions are great, but if they’re not converting into leads or sales, then those metrics aren’t as useful as they could be. Conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, whether it’s filling out a form, scheduling a demo or making a purchase.
How to make it work for you:
Optimize, optimize, optimize. Test your landing pages, tweak your CTAs and make the user journey as smooth as possible. If your conversion rate is low, figure out where you’re losing people. Are your forms too long? Is your messaging unclear? Small changes can lead to big improvements.
Putting It All Together
When you focus on these five metrics, you’re not just proving marketing’s value—you’re driving meaningful results that CEOs can’t ignore. From acquisition to retention to revenue, every piece of the puzzle matters.
Here’s the challenge: Tracking these metrics is one thing, but building strategies that improve them? That’s where the magic happens. Because while these five metrics are universal, the strategies to improve them should be tailored to the unique goals and challenges of your business.
At Brand825, we specialize in turning metrics into actionable marketing strategies. Want to lower your CAC, increase your CLV or see a bigger slice of the market? Let’s talk about how we can make marketing work harder for your business.
Kedran Brush, Brand825’s Co-Founder and CEO, has more than 28 years of marketing leadership experience at the SVP and CMO levels, including revenue growth, customer satisfaction, brand awareness, etc. When she’s not helping brands be their best, Kedran can be found jumping out of planes, at Tennessee Titans games and watching her two boys crush it on the baseball diamond.
