If you’re serious about growing your brand and justifying every marketing dollar, tracking the right KPIs makes all the difference between coasting and outperforming your competitors. Too many businesses throw money at campaigns without clear performance indicators. It’s like throwing darts in the dark.

To maximize your chances of gleaning actionable data from your next marketing campaign, you should know about some top marketing KPIs and how to calculate them. Here’s a closer look at the top marketing KPIs to monitor, plus why some are especially critical for outdoor advertising.

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

What is CAC?

Customer acquisition cost tells you how much you’re paying to bring in each new customer. It’s calculated by adding up all your marketing and sales expenses over a period (things like ad spend, salaries, and agency fees) and dividing by the number of new customers acquired. CAC is foundational because it connects your marketing budget directly to sales output.

Why CAC Matters

If your CAC is too high, you could be burning through cash without realizing your customers won’t spend enough to cover it. For instance, if you spend $500 to acquire a customer who only ever spends $300, you’re losing money before factoring in your other costs. Keeping tabs on CAC helps ensure your campaigns stay profitable.

How to Measure CAC

CAC = (Total Sales & Marketing Expenses) / (Number of New Customers)

2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV)

What is Customer Lifetime Value?
Customer Lifetime Value predicts how much revenue a single customer will bring in during their entire relationship with your business. It considers repeat purchases, subscriptions, and referrals. You usually look at average purchase value, how often customers buy, and how long they stay.

Why CLV matters

CLV puts your CAC in perspective. If it costs $1,000 to acquire a customer but they’ll spend $5,000 over several years, that’s a sustainable model. If your LTV is close to or less than your CAC, you may need to rethink pricing or loyalty efforts.

How to measure CLV

Here is a simple formula for calculating CLV. More advanced models also factor in margins and churn:

Customer Lifetime Value = (Average Purchase Value x Purchase Frequency) x Average Customer Lifespan

3. Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)

What is ROMI?
ROMI measures how much profit your marketing generates. Unlike broad ROI metrics, ROMI focuses on the money you spend on marketing versus the revenue you get back from those efforts.

Why ROMI Matters
ROMI is your clearest view of campaign effectiveness. A ROMI of 5 means every $1 in marketing produces $5 in revenue. That’s a solid case for scaling up.

How to Measure ROMI 

ROMI = ((Revenue from marketing – Marketing expenses) / Marketing expenses) * 100

4. Conversion Rate

What is Conversion Rate?

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who complete a desired action after engaging with your marketing. This could include submitting a form, scheduling a consultation, or making a purchase.

Why Conversion Rate Matters

A flood of traffic means little if visitors don’t take action. Conversion rate reveals if your creative, offers, and landing pages actually persuade people.

How to Measure Conversion Rate

Tools like Google Analytics or your CRM often calculate this automatically. Here is a simple formula to do it yourself:

Conversion Rate = (Number of Conversions / Total Number of Visitors) * 100

5. Website Traffic & Engagement Metrics

What is Website Traffic/Engagement?

Website metrics track how many people visit your site, where they come from, and what they do once they land there. This includes total sessions, unique users, pages per session, average time on site, and bounce rate.

Why Web Traffic Matters

Your site is often your brand’s first handshake. Even if your end goal is in-person visits, web data reveals how well your campaigns spark interest.

How to Measure Web Traffic

Use platforms like Google Analytics to monitor these metrics. Compare periods before, during, and after campaigns. For big brand pushes, check if direct or branded search traffic climbs. If your brand is implementing SEO (search engine optimization) or running PPC (pay-per-click) ads, organic traffic and paid traffic will be your respective KPIs.

6. Share of Voice (SOV)

What is Share of Voice?

Share of Voice shows how much visibility your brand has versus competitors. This might be your percentage of PPC impressions, social mentions, or the chunk of outdoor ad inventory you control in a city.

Why Share of Voice Matters

The more people encounter your brand, the more you crowd out competitors. A consistently high SOV often leads to a bigger market share over time.

How to Measure Share of Voice

Digitally, tools like SEMrush or Google Ads report impression share. For outdoor, it’s about calculating how many billboards, transit ads, or street kiosks you hold versus the total available in your target areas.

7. Cost Per Lead (CPL)

What is Cost Per Lead?

CPL tracks how much you pay to generate each new lead. As a refresher, a lead refers to someone who expresses interest by filling out a form, calling, or subscribing.

Why Cost Per Lead Matters

It’s a quick way to spot campaign efficiency. But it needs to pair with conversion and sales data so you don’t get stuck chasing cheap, unqualified leads.

How to Measure CPL

Cost per Lead = Total Marketing Spend / Total Leads Generated

8. Brand Awareness & Brand Lift

What is Brand Awareness/Lift?

Brand awareness measures how well people recognize or recall your brand. Brand lift looks at how perceptions improve after seeing your campaign, essentially whether more people say they’d consider buying from you.

Why Brand Awareness Matters

Not every campaign’s goal is an immediate sale. Especially with outdoor advertising, building mental familiarity pays off when buying decisions come later. Just don’t jeopardize your brand’s reputation and health by engaging in false advertising.

How to Measure Brand Awareness/Lift

Use brand lift studies or surveys to gauge recognition. Watch for increases in direct or branded searches and web traffic from your key markets.

KPIs Specific to Outdoor Advertising

Outdoor campaigns are uniquely powerful for broad awareness, but the metrics you’ll monitor look a bit different.

9. Reach & Impressions

What Are Reach/Impressions?

Reach counts the unique people exposed to your ad. Outdoor ad impressions count every time an ad is viewed, including repeats by the same person. For outdoor, these are estimated using traffic counts, pedestrian flows, and dwell-time studies.

Why Reach and Impressions Matter

Outdoor is about scale—getting your message in front of thousands (or millions). It also informs your CPM, helping you compare costs across different media types.

How to Measure Reach/Impressions

Most outdoor advertising vendors (like Alluvit Media) provide weekly reach and impression estimates based on audited data.

10. Geotargeted Website Traffic & Foot Traffic Lift

What is Geotargeted Web Traffic?

This looks at whether people in your target geographies are engaging more after you launch an outdoor campaign.

Why Geotargeted Web Traffic Matters

It ties outdoor awareness directly to consumer action, bridging the gap between big impressions and real-world behavior.

How to Measure Geotargeted Web Traffic

Use Google Analytics location reports to spot traffic spikes in ZIP codes where your billboards run. If you have physical stores, geofencing tools or WiFi data can show lift in visits.

11. Ad Recall & Recognition

What is Ad Recall?

Ad recall measures if people remember seeing your ad, while recognition tests if they correctly connect it to your brand. When it comes to the highest rates of ad recall, outdoor ads are among the top advertising formats. Check out our 10 advertising facts post for more.

Why Ad Recall Matters

Outdoor ads often build familiarity first. If few people recall your message, your creative might need a sharper hook.

How to Measure Ad Recall

To measure ad recall, commission post-campaign brand surveys. With digital out-of-home (DOOH), some platforms provide interactive engagement or camera-based metrics.

12. Competitive Share of Outdoor Inventory

What is Competitive Share of Outdoor Inventory?

This tracks how much of the local billboard, transit, or street furniture inventory your brand controls relative to competitors.

Why It Matters

Owning a bigger slice means not only more impressions for you but fewer opportunities for rivals. It amplifies your Share of Voice in crowded markets.

How to Measure Competitive Share

Work with your outdoor advertising agency to map total inventory versus your share. It’s a strategic view that shapes long-term brand dominance.

Track Marketing KPIs That Really Matter 

No single KPI tells the full story. Smart marketers keep a balanced dashboard that pairs brand-building numbers with bottom-line figures like conversions and revenue. For outdoor campaigns, it’s critical to link massive reach and recall to what follows: are more people searching your brand, visiting your website, or walking through your doors?
When you’re ready to turn that interest into something unforgettable, request a billboard proposal from Alluvit Media. We don’t just secure placements, we help build campaigns with measurement built in, so every impression goes further for your brand.