Marketing measurement helps organizations understand whether their advertising, media, content, customer-acquisition, and sales-support efforts are producing meaningful results. The AAMA Marketing Metrics & KPI Reference brings together commonly used advertising and marketing measurements in one practical resource and explains how those metrics are typically interpreted.
This reference is designed for professionals, agencies, brands, students, academics, analysts, and anyone responsible for evaluating marketing performance. Each metric includes a concise explanation of what it measures, how it is commonly used, and, where appropriate, the formula used to calculate it.
Not every measurable number should be treated as a key performance indicator. A useful KPI should connect directly to an objective and help someone make a decision, evaluate progress, compare performance, or identify a meaningful change.
Advertising & Media Metrics
Impressions
Impressions measure the number of times an advertisement, piece of content, or media placement is served or displayed. They represent total exposure opportunities and may include multiple exposures to the same person.
Impressions are commonly used when evaluating campaign scale, media delivery, frequency, CPM, and awareness-oriented advertising.
Reach
Reach measures the number or percentage of unique individuals, households, or users exposed to an advertisement or campaign during a defined period. Unlike impressions, reach attempts to count each person only once within the measurement window.
Reach is especially useful when advertisers want to understand how broadly a campaign is distributing its message across an intended audience.
Related AAMA Resource: Reach Calculator
Frequency
Frequency measures the average number of times each reached individual is exposed to an advertisement or campaign. It is commonly evaluated alongside reach when planning and analyzing media.
Formula: Frequency = Gross Impressions ÷ Reach
Frequency can help advertisers determine whether an audience is being exposed often enough to reinforce a message without creating unnecessary repetition.
Related AAMA Resource: Frequency Calculator
Gross Impressions
Gross impressions represent the total number of advertising exposures generated by a campaign, including repeated exposure to the same people. They provide a useful measure of overall media volume.
Formula: Gross Impressions = Reach × Frequency
Gross impressions are commonly used alongside reach and frequency when evaluating campaign delivery.
Related AAMA Resource: Gross Impressions Calculator
Cost per Mille
Cost per mille, or CPM, measures the cost of 1,000 advertising impressions. It is one of the most common measures used to compare the cost efficiency of media placements.
Formula: CPM = Advertising Cost ÷ Impressions × 1,000
CPM is especially useful when exposure and audience delivery are primary campaign objectives.
Related AAMA Resource: CPM Calculator
Cost per Click
Cost per click, or CPC, measures the average advertising cost associated with each recorded click. It is commonly used in paid search, paid social, display advertising, and other digital channels.
Formula: CPC = Advertising Cost ÷ Clicks
CPC can help compare the relative cost efficiency of campaigns or placements designed to generate traffic or interaction.
Related AAMA Resource: CPC Calculator
Click-Through Rate
Click-through rate, or CTR, measures the percentage of impressions that generate a click. It is commonly used to assess whether an advertisement, message, placement, or offer is encouraging users to interact.
Formula: CTR = Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100
CTR should generally be interpreted alongside conversion and business-outcome metrics rather than treated as a complete measure of campaign effectiveness.
Related AAMA Resource: CTR Calculator
Cost per Acquisition
Cost per acquisition, or CPA, measures the average cost required to generate a defined acquisition. Depending on the campaign, an acquisition may represent a sale, registration, subscription, qualified lead, application, or another completed action.
Formula: CPA = Campaign Cost ÷ Acquisitions
CPA is especially useful when comparing campaigns designed around measurable outcomes rather than exposure alone.
Related AAMA Resource: CPA Calculator
Viewability
Viewability estimates whether a digital advertisement had an opportunity to be seen rather than simply being technically served. A served impression may still appear outside the visible area of a page or fail to meet the criteria used by a measurement provider.
Viewability can help advertisers evaluate placement quality and media delivery, particularly in display and video advertising.
Video Completion Rate
Video completion rate measures the percentage of video starts or impressions that reach the end of the video. It can help marketers understand whether viewers remain engaged with a video advertisement or piece of content.
Formula: Video Completion Rate = Completed Views ÷ Video Starts × 100
Completion rate is most useful when interpreted alongside viewing duration, audience quality, clicks, conversions, or other measures tied to the campaign objective.
Website & Digital Performance Metrics
Users
Users represent estimated distinct individuals who visit or interact with a digital property during a specified period. Measurement may depend on cookies, devices, logged-in accounts, identifiers, or modeled data.
Users are generally more useful than sessions when the objective is to estimate audience size rather than total visit activity.
Sessions
A session represents a period of activity by a user on a website or digital property. Analytics platforms define session boundaries differently, so marketers should understand how their measurement system counts them.
Sessions are useful for evaluating traffic volume, campaign response, content consumption, and overall site activity.
Pageviews
Pageviews measure the number of times webpages are viewed. Multiple views by the same user may each count as separate pageviews.
Pageviews can help marketers evaluate content consumption, navigation patterns, and overall website activity.
Engagement Rate
Engagement rate measures the percentage of users, sessions, impressions, or followers that generate a defined form of interaction. The exact formula depends on the platform and the actions being measured.
Engagement may include clicks, reactions, comments, shares, saves, replies, video activity, or other meaningful interactions. Marketers should always document the denominator and actions included when reporting engagement rate.
Average Engagement Time
Average engagement time estimates how long users actively engage with a website, application, or piece of content. It can provide useful behavioral context when evaluating educational, editorial, or long-form content.
This metric is generally more informative when interpreted alongside conversion, scroll depth, content views, or other measures of user behavior.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate generally measures the percentage of sessions in which a visitor leaves without completing additional meaningful interaction, although its exact definition varies by analytics platform. Different measurement systems may calculate bounce rate in substantially different ways.
Marketers should confirm how their analytics platform defines a bounce before comparing results across platforms, campaigns, or reporting periods.
Landing Page Conversion Rate
Landing page conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who complete the primary action associated with a landing page. It is useful when evaluating campaign-message continuity, page design, offer strength, friction, and calls to action.
Formula: Landing Page Conversion Rate = Conversions ÷ Landing Page Visits × 100
Related AAMA Resource: Landing Page Evaluation Checklist
Conversion & Campaign Performance Metrics
Conversion
A conversion is a completed action that has been defined as valuable to a campaign or organization. Examples include purchases, registrations, downloads, requests for information, subscriptions, appointments, and applications.
A conversion should be clearly defined before campaign measurement begins so reporting remains consistent.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures the percentage of users or interactions that result in a defined conversion. The denominator may include visits, users, clicks, leads, sessions, or another relevant population depending on the activity being measured.
Formula: Conversion Rate = Conversions ÷ Total Opportunities × 100
Conversion rate is one of the most useful measures for understanding how effectively marketing activity moves people toward a desired action.
Related AAMA Resource: Conversion Rate Calculator
Return on Ad Spend
Return on ad spend, or ROAS, measures revenue attributed to advertising relative to advertising spend. It is frequently expressed as a ratio or multiple.
Formula: ROAS = Attributed Revenue ÷ Advertising Spend
A ROAS of 4.0 means that four dollars in attributed revenue were generated for every dollar spent on advertising. Whether that performance is profitable depends on margin, operating costs, customer value, and other financial factors.
Related AAMA Resources: ROAS Calculator and Break-Even ROAS Calculator
Marketing Return on Investment
Marketing return on investment measures financial return relative to the cost of a marketing investment. Organizations should clearly define which costs and returns are included because methodologies can differ.
A common approach is:
Formula: Marketing ROI = (Return Attributed to Marketing – Marketing Cost) ÷ Marketing Cost × 100
Marketing ROI is most useful when the underlying assumptions and attribution methodology are clearly documented.
Related AAMA Resource: Marketing ROI Calculator
Break-Even ROAS
Break-even ROAS estimates the minimum return on ad spend required for advertising revenue to cover the cost structure used in the calculation. It is especially useful when evaluating whether a campaign can generate enough revenue to support acquisition costs.
The exact calculation depends on gross margin and the financial assumptions being used.
Related AAMA Resource: Break-Even ROAS Calculator
Customer Acquisition & Value Metrics
Customer Acquisition Cost
Customer acquisition cost, or CAC, measures the average cost required to acquire a new customer. Depending on the purpose of the calculation, acquisition costs may include advertising, marketing personnel, sales costs, software, agency fees, promotions, and other expenses.
Formula: CAC = Customer Acquisition Costs ÷ New Customers Acquired
CAC is particularly useful when evaluated alongside customer lifetime value and retention.
Related AAMA Resource: Customer Acquisition Cost Calculator
Customer Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value, commonly abbreviated CLV or LTV, estimates the value a customer is expected to generate throughout the relationship with an organization. Different organizations use different formulas depending on available data, margins, purchase frequency, retention, and forecasting requirements.
One simplified approach is:
Formula: LTV = Average Purchase Value × Purchase Frequency × Average Customer Lifespan
More advanced models may incorporate gross margin, retention probability, churn, contribution margin, and discount rates.
Related AAMA Resource: Customer Lifetime Value Calculator
LTV:CAC Ratio
The LTV:CAC ratio compares estimated customer lifetime value with the cost of acquiring that customer. It provides a useful view of the relationship between acquisition spending and expected customer value.
Formula: LTV:CAC Ratio = Customer Lifetime Value ÷ Customer Acquisition Cost
A higher ratio indicates that estimated customer value is large relative to acquisition cost, although an unusually high ratio can also suggest that an organization may be underinvesting in growth.
Related AAMA Resource: LTV:CAC Ratio Calculator
Customer Retention Rate
Customer retention rate measures the percentage of customers who remain customers over a specified period. It is particularly important for subscription businesses, recurring-service organizations, and other models where long-term customer relationships drive value.
A common formula is:
Formula: Retention Rate = (Customers at End of Period – New Customers Acquired During Period) ÷ Customers at Start of Period × 100
Retention can help marketers understand whether customer value is being sustained after acquisition.
Customer Churn Rate
Customer churn rate measures the percentage of customers who stop doing business with an organization during a defined period. Churn is often evaluated alongside retention because the two metrics describe different sides of the same customer relationship.
Formula: Churn Rate = Customers Lost During Period ÷ Customers at Start of Period × 100
High churn can reduce customer lifetime value and make acquisition spending less sustainable.
Repeat Purchase Rate
Repeat purchase rate measures the percentage of customers who make more than one purchase within a defined period. It can help marketers evaluate loyalty, product satisfaction, customer experience, and purchasing behavior.
This metric is particularly useful for organizations where repeat transactions contribute significantly to long-term customer value.
Lead Generation & Sales Metrics
Leads
A lead is a person or organization identified as a potential customer or prospect. Organizations should clearly define what qualifies as a lead so reporting remains consistent.
Raw lead volume should usually be considered alongside lead quality, conversion, revenue, and acquisition cost.
Cost per Lead
Cost per lead, or CPL, measures the average marketing cost required to generate a lead. It is commonly used when evaluating lead-generation campaigns and acquisition channels.
Formula: CPL = Marketing Cost ÷ Leads Generated
CPL does not reveal whether the leads eventually become customers, so it should be interpreted alongside downstream conversion metrics.
Marketing-Qualified Lead
A marketing-qualified lead, commonly abbreviated MQL, is a lead judged to meet defined marketing criteria indicating a higher level of potential interest or fit. Criteria vary by organization and may include firmographic data, behaviors, engagement, demographics, product interest, or lead-scoring thresholds.
A consistent MQL definition is important when marketing teams compare lead volume and quality over time.
Sales-Qualified Lead
A sales-qualified lead, or SQL, is a prospect that has met criteria indicating readiness for direct sales engagement. The definition should reflect the organization’s actual sales process and qualification standards.
Clear handoff rules between marketing and sales help ensure that MQL and SQL reporting remains meaningful.
Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate
Lead-to-customer conversion rate measures the percentage of leads that ultimately become customers. It can help marketers evaluate both lead quality and the effectiveness of the broader marketing and sales process.
Formula: Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate = New Customers ÷ Leads × 100
This metric is especially useful when comparing lead sources that produce different volumes and levels of quality.
Email Marketing Metrics
Delivery Rate
Delivery rate measures the percentage of sent emails that are successfully accepted by recipients’ mail systems. A low delivery rate may indicate list-quality, authentication, reputation, or technical problems.
Formula: Delivery Rate = Delivered Emails ÷ Emails Sent × 100
Delivery rate provides an important foundation for interpreting the rest of an email campaign’s performance.
Open Rate
Open rate estimates the percentage of delivered emails that register an open. Privacy protections and automatic image loading can make open-rate data imperfect, so the metric should be interpreted with caution.
Formula: Open Rate = Recorded Opens ÷ Delivered Emails × 100
Open rate is generally more useful when considered alongside clicks, conversions, unsubscribes, and delivery quality.
Email Click-Through Rate
Email click-through rate measures the percentage of delivered emails that generate a click. It can help assess whether email content and calls to action encourage recipients to take the next step.
Formula: Email CTR = Email Clicks ÷ Delivered Emails × 100
Email CTR is generally more behaviorally meaningful than open rate because it reflects an additional user action.
Click-to-Open Rate
Click-to-open rate compares clicks with recorded opens. It is sometimes used to evaluate how effectively email content generates response among people who opened the message.
Formula: CTOR = Clicks ÷ Opens × 100
Because open tracking has limitations, those same limitations also affect how click-to-open rate should be interpreted.
Email Conversion Rate
Email conversion rate measures the percentage of email recipients or clickers who complete a defined conversion. Marketers should specify whether the rate is calculated using delivered emails, clicks, or another denominator.
Email conversion rate is often one of the strongest indicators of whether an email campaign supports a meaningful business objective.
Related AAMA Resource: Email Marketing Metrics Calculator
Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rate measures the percentage of delivered emails that result in an unsubscribe request. Trends in unsubscribe activity can help identify problems with message relevance, targeting, audience expectations, or communication frequency.
Formula: Unsubscribe Rate = Unsubscribes ÷ Delivered Emails × 100
A rising unsubscribe rate should be considered alongside complaint rates, engagement, content strategy, and list growth.
Social Media Metrics
Followers
Followers represent users who have chosen to follow, subscribe to, or otherwise receive updates from an account. Follower count can provide context about audience size, but it should not be treated as a complete measure of influence, reach, engagement, or business value.
Changes in follower count are most useful when considered alongside the quality and behavior of the audience.
Social Reach
Social reach estimates the number of unique users exposed to a piece of content or account activity. Platform definitions and measurement methods vary, so comparisons across platforms should be made carefully.
Reach is useful for understanding how broadly social content is being distributed.
Social Impressions
Social impressions represent the total number of times content is displayed, including multiple exposures to the same user. A post may therefore generate more impressions than reach.
Impressions can help marketers understand total exposure and repeated distribution within a social platform.
Social Engagement
Social engagement refers to measurable actions taken in response to social content. Depending on the platform, these may include likes, comments, shares, saves, replies, clicks, reposts, or video interactions.
Engagement should be evaluated in the context of the campaign objective rather than treated as inherently valuable.
Engagement Rate
Social engagement rate compares engagement activity with a selected audience or exposure measure. Common denominators include reach, impressions, followers, and views.
Because there is no universal engagement-rate formula, reports should always state how the rate was calculated.
Share Rate
Share rate measures how frequently users redistribute content relative to impressions, reach, views, or another chosen denominator. Shares can be particularly useful when evaluating whether content motivates audiences to extend its distribution.
The denominator should always be stated clearly when comparing share rates across campaigns or platforms.
Content Marketing Metrics
Content Views
Content views measure how many times a piece of content is viewed. Depending on the platform, the threshold required to count a view can vary.
Views are useful for understanding consumption volume but should generally be interpreted with engagement, completion, conversion, or retention measures.
Average Time on Content
Average time on content estimates how long users spend engaging with a piece of content. It can help evaluate whether long-form articles, videos, guides, research, and other educational materials hold audience attention.
Time-based metrics should be interpreted in the context of the content format and intended user behavior.
Scroll Depth
Scroll depth measures how far users move through a webpage or long-form digital experience. It can provide insight into whether users reach important information, calls to action, or later sections of a page.
Scroll depth is especially useful for evaluating articles, landing pages, guides, and other vertically structured content.
Content Conversion Rate
Content conversion rate measures the percentage of users who complete a defined action after interacting with a piece of content. The action may include downloading a resource, registering, subscribing, requesting information, or purchasing.
This metric helps connect content performance with a broader marketing or business objective.
Brand & Awareness Metrics
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness measures the extent to which audiences recognize or recall a brand. It may be evaluated through surveys, recognition tests, search behavior, brand tracking, market research, and other methods.
Awareness is especially important for brands seeking to increase consideration or establish a stronger presence within a category.
Unaided Brand Recall
Unaided brand recall measures whether a person can name a brand without being shown a list or specific brand prompt. For example, respondents might be asked to name brands that come to mind within a particular product category.
Unaided recall generally reflects stronger memory availability than simple recognition.
Aided Brand Awareness
Aided brand awareness measures whether a person recognizes a brand after being shown or told its name. Aided awareness generally produces higher results than unaided recall because respondents are given a prompt.
Both aided and unaided measures can be useful when evaluating different levels of brand familiarity.
Share of Voice
Share of voice compares a brand’s presence within a market, media environment, advertising category, or conversation with the total activity of relevant competitors. The exact definition varies depending on whether the measurement uses advertising spend, impressions, media mentions, search presence, social conversation, or another form of exposure.
Share of voice should always be interpreted in the context of the specific channel or market being measured.
Brand Consideration
Brand consideration measures the percentage of an audience that would consider purchasing, selecting, or using a particular brand. It is often tracked alongside awareness, preference, intent, and actual purchase behavior.
Consideration can help identify whether awareness is translating into stronger commercial potential.
Purchase Intent
Purchase intent measures the reported likelihood that a person will purchase or consider purchasing a product or service. It is commonly measured through surveys and research studies.
Intent is useful as an attitudinal measure, but it should not be treated as identical to actual purchasing behavior.
Customer Experience Metrics
Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction, commonly abbreviated CSAT, measures how satisfied customers report being with a product, service, interaction, or overall experience. It is typically collected through surveys using a rating scale.
CSAT can be useful when evaluated over time or across different customer touchpoints.
Net Promoter Score
Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is based on responses to a standardized question asking how likely a customer is to recommend an organization, product, or service. Respondents are categorized as promoters, passives, or detractors.
Formula: NPS = Percentage of Promoters – Percentage of Detractors
NPS should be interpreted as one customer-experience indicator rather than a complete measure of loyalty or business performance.
Customer Effort Score
Customer effort score, or CES, measures how easy or difficult customers report finding a particular task or interaction. It is often used to evaluate support experiences, onboarding, purchasing, account management, and other customer processes.
CES can help organizations identify friction that may negatively affect satisfaction, retention, or conversion.
Revenue & Commercial Metrics
Revenue
Revenue represents the income generated from sales of products or services before expenses are deducted. Marketing teams may use total, attributed, or incremental revenue depending on the purpose of the analysis.
Revenue becomes more useful as a marketing metric when the attribution method is clearly defined.
Average Order Value
Average order value, or AOV, measures the average amount spent in each transaction. It can help marketers evaluate pricing, promotions, cross-selling, upselling, and customer purchasing behavior.
Formula: AOV = Revenue ÷ Number of Orders
Changes in AOV should be considered alongside order volume, margin, and customer mix.
Revenue per Customer
Revenue per customer measures average revenue generated by each customer over a specified period. It can help evaluate customer value and changes in purchasing behavior.
Formula: Revenue per Customer = Total Revenue ÷ Customers
This metric may be particularly useful when comparing customer segments or acquisition channels.
Revenue per Lead
Revenue per lead compares total revenue generated with the number of leads acquired. It can provide additional context when comparing lead-generation programs that produce different volumes and levels of lead quality.
Formula: Revenue per Lead = Revenue ÷ Leads
Revenue per lead is most useful when the organization has a consistent definition of what qualifies as a lead.
Choosing the Right KPIs
A metric becomes useful as a KPI when it connects clearly to an objective. A campaign focused on broad awareness may prioritize reach, frequency, impressions, brand awareness, and cost efficiency, while a customer-acquisition campaign may instead prioritize conversion rate, CAC, CPA, ROAS, revenue, and customer lifetime value.
Avoid selecting KPIs simply because they are easy to measure. Large numbers of impressions, clicks, followers, or pageviews can look impressive while providing little information about whether the underlying objective is being achieved.
A practical measurement framework should distinguish among activity metrics, performance metrics, customer outcomes, and business outcomes. That structure makes it easier to understand not only what happened, but whether the result actually mattered.
Related AAMA Resources
Continue exploring the AAMA Resource Library with the Marketing & Advertising Glossary, Common Marketing Formulas, Advertising & Marketing Acronyms Guide, Marketing Channels Reference Guide, Media Planning Fundamentals, Campaign Measurement Framework, and AAMA Calculators & Tools. These related resources provide additional definitions, formulas, planning guidance, and interactive tools for many of the metrics included in this reference.
As technologies, platforms, measurement practices, and professional standards evolve, AAMA will continue reviewing and expanding this reference to reflect the metrics used across advertising and marketing.