The Executive Dashboard: The Only 5 Marketing KPIs That Matter

Information Overload: What to Cut

Most dashboards are cluttered with vanity metrics:

What to Remove

• Pageviews (unless connected to revenue)
• Impressions (meaningless)
• Social followers (quantity ≠ quality)
• Email opens (broken metric)
• Time on site (can mean they're lost)
• Bounce rate (misleading)

KPI 1: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

The most important metric:

Why It Matters

• Tells you if marketing is efficient
• Shows if you can scale profitably
• Helps budget allocation decisions

How to Calculate

CAC = Total Marketing Costs / Customers Acquired

Include: Ad spend, salaries, tools, overhead

KPI 2: Lifetime Value (LTV)

How much a customer is worth:

Why It Matters

• Shows customer value
• Helps justify acquisition costs
• Guides retention strategy

How to Calculate

LTV = Average Revenue Per Customer × Gross Margin % × Average Lifespan

KPI 3: Marketing Originated Revenue

Revenue from marketing-attributed customers:

Why It Matters

• Proves marketing's impact
• Shows ROI
• Justifies marketing budget

KPI 4: Pipeline Velocity

How fast deals move:

Why It Matters

• Faster velocity = better cash flow
• Shows sales efficiency
• Helps forecasting

How to Calculate

Pipeline Velocity = (Opportunities × Avg Deal Size × Win Rate) / Sales Cycle Length

KPI 5: Retention Rate

How many customers you keep:

Why It Matters

• Retention is cheaper than acquisition
• Shows product-market fit
• Predicts growth sustainability

Conclusion

Cut the noise. Focus on these 5 KPIs: CAC, LTV, Marketing Originated Revenue, Pipeline Velocity, and Retention Rate. These metrics drive decisions. Everything else is just data.