Have you ever thought to yourself, “Man, I wish I could spend the whole month of May thinking about go to market metrics and how getting good at them will help my business grow faster?” Or perhaps, “April Showers bring May Metrics!”? Well. I have some good news for you! This is the first of a three part series with everything you need to know to really know your business.
Part 1 covers every acronym you’ve ever run across and thought, huh? Part 2 digs into what metrics matter most to your business. Part 3 covers what to go do with your metrics once you have them because numbers without action are, well, just numbers.
Why yes, thinking about marketing metrics sometimes does feel as much like gibberish as this poorly created AI image.
Part 1: What Are Metrics?
So, you’ve officially launched. You’ve got customers, you’re running marketing programs and making sales. And, when you look around, you really feel like you’re on the path to explosive growth. But. Wouldn’t it be better to know rather than feel that your go-to-market efforts are working?
That’s where metrics come in. And yes, there are an overwhelming number of things you could be tracking—from email open rates to return on ad spend to customer churn to coupon redemption to loyalty program sign ups to landing page click through to…. Oh shoot, that sounds like a lot. In a world overflowing with dashboards and KPIs, the most important skill isn’t tracking everything—it’s knowing what to track, why it matters, and how to use the data to grow your business.
At the heart of all go-to-market measurement is one really simple question:
Am I making more money from this customer than I spent to acquire them?
Everything else (every tactic, every metric, every spreadsheet) feeds into that answer. In this post, we’ll walk through how to think about metrics across different types of businesses (whether you’re B2B, running a local shop, or selling subscriptions), break down the marketing acronym soup, and help you set up smarter measurement habits for both short-term wins and long-term strategy.
The Two Big Buckets: Consumption vs. Impact
When it comes to go-to-market measurement, I find it helpful to sort metrics into two main categories: consumption metrics and impact metrics.
Consumption metrics are all about visibility. They help you understand how many people are seeing your message, how many are engaging at the surface level, and where that early-stage or top of funnel attention is coming from. These metrics are often associated with awareness-building efforts—things like homepage views, email open rates, social media interactions, or foot traffic to a retail location. On their own, they don’t tell you if you’re making money but, they do tell you how broadly your message is being seen.
You’ve heard of the “Marketing Rule of 7” - that it takes 7 brand impressions for a message to stick? Yeah, that was developed in the 1930s when people saw 10 ads per day, in their penny newspaper, taped to a phone pole, and on a couple billboards. There isn’t necessarily a new “rule” for today’s times but there’s lots of discourse - check some of it out here, here, and here. We see a lot more advertising on a daily basis than when the Rule of 7 was introduced; logic follows that it takes more impressions to, well, make an impression. Having an overview of your consumption metrics helps you understand your reach and your optimal impressions before conversion.
Impact metrics, on the other hand, go deeper. These are the metrics tied more directly to revenue and results. They help answer questions like: How many people bought? What did it cost me to get that sale? How many of those customers came back? Impact metrics give you a sense of how effective your message is and how efficient your marketing machine really is. Think of conversion rate, customer acquisition cost (CAC), or lifetime value (LTV). These metrics are more strategic—and usually more complex—but they’re the ones that help you optimize for growth and profitability.
In short: consumption metrics measure attention, while impact metrics measure outcomes. You need both, but understanding the difference helps you make smarter decisions on your go-to-market programs. Nobody wants to throw a parade for increasing email open rates when overall revenue is down, you know?
Quick Question: What Do All These Acronyms Mean?
Let’s be honest—marketing and growth metrics come with their own language, and it can get confusing fast. So here’s a quick translation guide for the most common acronyms you’ll come across when measuring go-to-market performance. (Was this list pulled from the back page of my first ever big-kid job notebook? Much like Gossip Girl, I’ll never tell.)
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): This is how much it costs you to acquire a single new customer. It’s one of the most important numbers in your business because it directly impacts profitability.
LTV (Lifetime Value): The total revenue a customer brings in over the entire time they do business with you. A healthy business usually has an LTV that is significantly higher than CAC.
LTV/CAC (Lifetime Value: Customer Acquisition Cost): This ratio compares the two things above and tells you if you are bringing in business profitably - ie. the lifetime value of the customer (total revenue) is more than the cost it took to acquire them.
CVR (Conversion Rate): The percentage of people who take a desired action, like filling out a form, signing up, or making a purchase. It tells you how effective your messaging and UX are at driving action. It’s important to note that there are hundreds of conversion rates you can measure - form fills, sign ups, in-store activations, promotions - there’s a whole industry around CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). You’ll want to know what conversion points are most important to your business and pay close attention to those.
CPL (Cost per Lead): How much you spend to acquire a new lead. This is especially relevant for service businesses or B2B companies with longer sales cycles. One note about looking at metrics at the lead level - you can spend a loooooot of money bringing in leads that don’t really benefit your business, even if there’s a lot of them and the CPL is low. If you have “lots of leads” but have issues moving them down funnel, your lead metrics have stopped being of use. I’d recommend, instead, looking at:
CPO (Cost per Opportunity): How much you spend to generate a new, qualified opportunity. This is the aggregate cost of all the leads you need to acquire to get one opportunity and is a much better indicator of how your top of funnel is doing.
CPO (Cost per Order): (Yes, there’s two different CPOs. How very clear.) How much it costs you to get someone to place an order. Similar to CPA, but with a specific focus on transactional businesses.
CPA (Cost per Acquisition): A general term for how much it costs to get someone to take a key action, whether that’s a signup, a download, or a purchase, though it most often refers to purchase. This is the sum total of all the dollars spent to acquire that customer; thing: aggregated cost per lead, any additional funnel marketing programs, staffing costs, etc.
CTR (Click-through Rate): The percentage of people who saw a link and clicked it. High CTR can indicate strong creative or compelling copy, especially in ads or emails. You can also talk about the CTR of an email, the percentage of people who click on a link or download from an email.
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): How much revenue you generate for every dollar spent on advertising. A ROAS of 4.0 means you earned $4 for every $1 spent.
AOV (Average Order Value): The average dollar amount a customer spends in a single purchase. Increasing AOV is one of the most efficient ways to boost revenue.
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User): Common in SaaS and subscription businesses, this metric shows the average revenue generated per customer during a set period.
NRR (Net Revenue Retention): A key SaaS metric that measures how much recurring revenue you keep (and grow) from existing customers, factoring in upgrades, downgrades, and churn.
MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue): The total predictable revenue you expect each month from subscriptions. It’s a foundational number in SaaS and membership models.
ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue): The total predictable revenue you expect annually from subscriptions; this one is often seen as a north star for subscription & SaaS companies.
Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who stop doing business with you over a set period. Lower churn means higher retention and a more sustainable business.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of people who land on a page and leave without taking any further action. High bounce rates on landing pages can be a red flag.
TOFU/MOFU/BOFU (Top/Middle/Bottom of Funnel): Not acronyms in the traditional sense, but often used to describe where a customer is in the journey. TOFU focuses on awareness, MOFU on consideration, and BOFU on conversion.
PCR (Repeat Customer Rate): Used by SMBs, this refers to the percentage of customers who come back and make a second purchase, useful for showing how good your business is at turning one-time visitors into repeat customers.
CRR (Customer Retention Rate): The percentage of customers you’re retained over a given period (month, quarter, year). Often used for service-based businesses (like a nail salon or cleaning service) where customers should be regularly returning.
Don’t get bogged down in memorizing every single acronym. Save our handy acronym glossary and reference it if anyone ever throws a string of letters at you that feel vaguely familiar. The quick guide reference also includes the exact formulas to calculate the metric, if needed.
Feel Like A Metrics Expert Yet?
This was a lot of data points! Good job! For today, that’s enough. Think through the key metrics that are important for your business and come back next week where we’ll talk about getting clarity on what metrics matter most for your business.
Need Help Getting Started?
We’re Rising Tide Partners and our mission is to help SMBs and Seed-Cs grow their businesses. And you know what makes growing a business easier? Understanding your most important business metrics! If you don’t know where to start or have a pile of data to make sense of, Rising Tide can help by providing fractional marketing leadership that digs in, makes sense of your data, and provides actionable recommendations.
Let’s grow something great together!