How to Choose Marketing Metrics That Actually Drive Sales

Marketing is one of the biggest investments your company makes. You’re hiring people, running ads, creating content, optimizing your website, producing videos, sending emails, managing social media, investing in PR—the list goes on. And in today’s competitive environment, none of it comes cheap.

Many marketing teams are tracking the wrong metrics. Numbers that look good on a dashboard but have no connection to sales.

Too many companies pour time and money into marketing without a clear line of sight to revenue. They focus on vanity metrics (traffic, clicks, and social engagement) because they’re easy to measure. Meanwhile, sales teams struggle to convert leads, and leadership questions the ROI of marketing efforts. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

The good news? You can fix this. And it starts with tracking the right stuff.

As the CEO of IMPACT, I’ve helped businesses move beyond surface-level metrics and build marketing programs that actually fuel growth. In this article, I’ll walk you through how to identify the numbers that truly matter, how to build a marketing dashboard that reflects real business impact, and how to create alignment between marketing and sales so that every effort drives revenue.

By the time you finish reading, you’ll know:

• How to identify the single most important marketing metric for your business and why MQLs and SQLs should be your primary focus.
• How to track MQLs and SQLs over time using tools like HubSpot and diagnose where leads get stuck in the pipeline.
• Why most attribution models fail and why trust, not a single touchpoint, is what ultimately drives sales.
• How to evaluate marketing metrics like website traffic and social engagement, and determine whether they’re useful indicators or just vanity numbers.
• How to separate vanity metrics from meaningful ones so you can focus on what actually generates revenue.

If you’re investing heavily in marketing, you deserve to see a return. Let’s make sure you’re tracking the metrics that move the needle.

Marketing metrics start with sales goals

If you’re like most businesses, your marketing dashboard is packed with data—traffic, email open rates, social engagement, and lead volume.  It looks impressive, but do those numbers actually tell you if you're going to hit your revenue target?

The real issue is that marketing often tracks success in a vacuum. Teams celebrate website traffic spikes or a growing email list without a direct connection to revenue. Meanwhile, sales teams are left wondering, "Where are the real buyers?"

If you want your marketing to drive growth, flip your thinking. You need to work backward from sales.

Instead of asking, What should marketing achieve?, ask:

• How many new customers do we need this quarter?
• How many proposals or deals does that require?
• How many sales conversations are needed to get there?
• What marketing efforts will drive those conversations?

At IMPACT, this shift changed everything. We had a quarterly goal of signing 15 new Mastery clients, one of our core offerings. We worked the numbers:

To close 15 clients, we needed about 25 proposals sent.

To generate 25 proposals, we required 40 qualified sales opportunities (not every proposal lands).

To get 40 sales opportunities, we needed 100 initial sales appointments, which meant marketing’s job was to generate those 100 calls.

That became our most important marketing metric: sales appointments. Not traffic. Not social shares. Not general inquiries. If an effort didn’t contribute to driving appointments, it wasn’t a priority.

So, what’s your most important marketing metric?

It depends on how your business converts customers. Ask yourself: “What is the final outcome marketing is responsible for delivering?”

If your company has a sales team, marketing’s primary metric is often the number of sales-qualified conversations generated. That could be booked demos, appointments, or proposal-ready leads.

If your business is e-commerce or self-service, marketing’s metric might be purchases completed, free trials started, or accounts created.

Whatever it is, your most important marketing metric should be a single, measurable outcome that directly moves the business forward. Not impressions. Not engagement. Not brand awareness.

When you identify and track the right marketing metric, everything changes. Campaigns become more focused. Budgets become more efficient. And marketing’s contribution to revenue becomes undeniable.

What if we have multiple products or services?

Many companies push back on the idea of choosing just one marketing metric, saying, We have multiple products and services. We have different goals across different departments. How can we pick just one?

The reality? Most businesses do not have the resources to invest heavily in multiple product lines at once. Instead of spreading marketing efforts too thin, focus on your primary product or service, the one that, if scaled, would have the biggest impact on the company.

If you asked the CEO, If we could only scale one product or service dramatically, which one would it be?, most leaders would have an answer. That’s the one that should drive your marketing strategy.

For most businesses, the smartest move is to take all available marketing resources—budget, content, ad spend, and team focus—and direct them toward moving that one main number.

That said, if your company is large enough to have dedicated marketing teams for different product lines, each team may have its own key metric tied to its line of business. In that case, your organization may track multiple primary numbers, but each team is still focused on moving one specific outcome.

For the majority of companies, though, simplification is the key to growth.

A great framework for this comes from EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), which many companies use to clarify their focus. In EOS, leadership defines a single, measurable number in their Vision Traction Organizer (V/TO), the one that matters most for company growth.

If your company runs on EOS, you likely already have this number defined. And if you don’t, take a step back and ask: What’s the one metric that, if we move it, moves the entire business forward?

By choosing a primary marketing metric tied to this bigger goal, everything else becomes clearer, and marketing efforts become significantly more effective.

What about lead quality? Defining your sales qualified lead (SQL)

Having a quantifiable marketing metric is important, but quality matters just as much as quantity. A hundred leads mean nothing if they’re not the right leads. This is where SQLs come into play.

An SQL isn’t just any lead, it’s one that meets a standard high enough that your sales team sees value in pursuing it. If marketing floods sales with low-quality leads, sales teams waste time chasing dead ends. On the other hand, if marketing focuses on generating fewer, higher-quality leads, sales teams become more efficient, deals close faster, and revenue grows.

So, how do you define an SQL?

At IMPACT, we developed a clear standard for what makes a lead sales qualified:

1. They understand our core philosophies They Ask, You Answer and Endless Customers: If a lead comes in with no knowledge of our frameworks, they’re not ready for a coaching conversation.
2. They’ve actively engaged with our brand: Maybe they’ve attended one of our events, watched Marcus Sheridan speak, or joined IMPACT+. Passive leads don’t become great clients.
3. They fit our ideal client profile: We evaluate the size, industry, and business model to ensure they’re a good fit for both our coaching approach and services.
4. They are ready to invest: An SQL isn’t just interested; they have the budget and timeline to move forward with a coaching engagement in the near future.

Only if a lead meets all of these criteria will we pass them to sales. Otherwise, if they don’t, marketing keeps nurturing them until they do.

How to define your SQL

Your SQL definition will depend on your business, but here’s how to build one:

1. Start with your best customers. What common characteristics did your most successful clients or customers have before they bought? What actions did they take before becoming a deal?
2. Collaborate with sales. Ask them: What makes a lead worth their time? Which leads usually close, and which ones waste effort?
3. Look at behavioral engagement. Did they book a demo, download a high-intent piece of content, or engage in a meaningful way? What actions typically indicate strong intent?
4. Factor in fit. Do they match your target industry, company size, budget, or other key criteria?

Most companies that rely on a sales team should make SQLs their most important marketing metric because marketing’s job isn’t just to generate leads, but to generate leads that will close.

By tightening your SQL definition, marketing and sales become more aligned. Sales gets better leads, marketing gets credit for revenue impact, and the entire business moves faster.

What about leads that aren't sales-ready yet? Defining MQLs

Not every lead that enters your pipeline is ready for sales. Some people are still in research mode, exploring options, or simply not the right fit. This is where Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) come in.

An MQL is a lead that has shown interest in your business and engaged with your marketing efforts, but they’re not ready to be handed off to sales yet. They need more education, nurturing, or time before they become a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).

The difference between an MQL and an SQL

Think of your SQL definition as the standard that makes a lead worthy of a salesperson’s time. But before they reach that stage, they go through a marketing qualification process.

Here’s the key difference:

How to define an MQL for your business

Your MQL criteria should be based on real data from past leads who eventually became customers. To define yours, ask:

1. What actions do buyers take before they’re ready for sales? Do they consume a certain amount of content? Download a high-intent resource? Engage in a conversation with marketing?
2. What behaviors indicate strong interest? Someone who downloads a pricing guide is further along than someone who reads a blog post. A webinar attendee may be more engaged than someone who likes a LinkedIn post.
3. What disqualifies a lead? Just because someone fills out a form doesn’t mean they should be an MQL. Do they meet basic fit criteria—industry, company size, job title?

At IMPACT, we consider someone an MQL when they’ve engaged with high-value content, such as an in-depth guide or a workshop, and demonstrated repeated interest by visiting key pages, attending events, or watching a webinar. They also need to fit the general profile of our best customers, even if they’re not quite ready to commit just yet.

If a lead checks those boxes, we consider them an MQL. But they’re not an SQL until they meet our full qualification criteria, which means marketing keeps nurturing them until they’re sales-ready.

Moving MQLs to SQLs

So how do you turn an MQL into an SQL? This is where lead nurturing comes in.

Not every lead is ready to buy today, but if you continue engaging them with the right content, emails, and offers, you guide them toward becoming an SQL. This could mean:

• Sending case studies to show them how companies like theirs succeeded.
• Offering a consultation or demo at the right moment.
• Providing answers to their biggest concerns (pricing, implementation, ROI).

Can we really track what led to a sale?

Marketing teams love attribution. We want to know exactly which blog post, ad, or webinar tipped someone into becoming a customer. It feels like we should be able to trace the path.

The truth? You’ll never know the full story.

Sure, Google Analytics or your HubSpot portal might tell you where someone came from. Maybe they landed on your website from an organic search, clicked a LinkedIn post, or came in through a paid ad. But what really led them to you? Maybe:

• They saw your content in their feed five times before they clicked.
• A friend mentioned your company in a meeting three weeks ago.
• They watched a YouTube video you posted months ago and just now took action.

These are all invisible touchpoints. The ones no platform tracks but often carry the most weight in a buying decision.

Most of what drives trust and buying decisions can't be measured

We track what we can, but that doesn’t mean we’re seeing the most important influences. Think about it:

• A buyer searches for a topic, clicks your article, and reads it. What made them search in the first place?
• A prospect Googles your brand name and lands on your site. Who or what put your name in their head?
• Someone signs up for your webinar. Did a trusted peer mention you last week?

Most attribution models focus on the last thing a person did before converting (last-click attribution) or the first thing that got them in the door (first-click attribution). But the real decision-making process happens in between. And that middle part, the way trust builds over time, isn’t something an algorithm can measure.

Want better attribution? Ask your customers

If you want to know what actually influenced a sale, talk to your customers.

Make it a habit to ask during sales calls or onboarding:

• How did you first hear about us?
• What made you decide to reach out?
• What content, events, or interactions helped you make your decision?

You’ll start spotting patterns that no attribution report will ever show you. At IMPACT, we’ve heard things like:

• “I’ve followed you for years—read your book, saw your videos, and when I finally had budget, I knew exactly who to call.”
• “A friend told me about your company, and then I started seeing your content everywhere.”
• “I saw Marcus Sheridan speak at an event, then started following your blog, and now we’re ready to move forward.”

None of that would have shown up neatly in an attribution report. That's trust in motion.

Trust is built through repetition

People don’t buy from companies they don’t trust. And trust isn’t built in a single, trackable moment.

It’s built over multiple subconscious impressions, seeing your name repeatedly in different places, getting value from your content, and hearing about you from peers.

They see your name in search.
They scroll past your content on LinkedIn.
They hear your name in a conversation.
They click after seeing you five times.

This is why being consistently visible in the market matters more than perfectly tracking clicks and conversions.

What to focus on instead

Instead of chasing a perfect attribution model (which doesn’t exist), focus on:

1. Showing up everywhere your customers are. Be impossible to ignore.
2. Delivering value long before they’re ready to buy. People remember the companies that helped them, not the ones that just sold to them.
3. Asking customers what actually influenced them. The best data comes straight from the source.

Attribution software won’t give you the full picture. Trust and awareness, not clicks, are what ultimately lead to sales.

Now that we’ve established that trust—not a single marketing touchpoint—is what leads to sales, the next step is understanding which marketing metrics actually signal growth and which are just distractions. That’s where useful vs. vanity metrics come in.

Are all marketing metrics created equal?

By now, it’s clear that MQLs and SQLs are the marketing metrics that truly matter. They’re the ones that tie your work directly to revenue. But what about everything else? Website traffic, email click-through rates, ad impressions—do they even matter?

The short answer is yes, but only if they contribute to generating MQLs and SQLs.

Too often, marketing teams get caught up in tracking everything without understanding what actually moves the needle. The key is knowing which numbers are indicators of success and which ones are just noise.

It’s important to know the difference between a useful metric and a vanity metric. A useful metric is a number that, when improved, increases the number of MQLs and SQLs. A vanity metric is a number that looks good on a report but doesn’t meaningfully impact revenue.

Let’s break it down with some examples:

Website traffic: Useful or vanity?

It can be a powerful metric if it leads somewhere. 

Traffic can be a useful metric when it increases while maintaining or improving conversion rates.  More of the right visitors  = more MQLs = more SQLs. That’s when it matters.

But it would be considered a vanity metric if you’re driving traffic from the wrong sources that don’t end up converting (like ranking for irrelevant keywords or getting a surge from an unrelated press feature); then it’s just noise. Despite a big number, there’s no business impact behind it.

We’ve seen this firsthand at IMPACT. At one point, our blog was pulling in 700,000 visits per month. Huge traffic. But many of those visitors weren’t a good fit.  After refocusing on content that attracted qualified buyers, traffic dropped, but SQLs increased. And that’s what actually mattered.

Social media engagement: Useful or vanity?

It depends on who’s doing the engaging and why.

Social media engagement is a useful metric when it helps you reach more potential customers and drive meaningful interactions. A high-performing LinkedIn post, for example, can expand your reach among potential buyers and nudge them further into your ecosystem.

It would be considered a vanity metric if engagement comes from the wrong audience, such as people outside your target audience, in industries you don’t serve, or in regions you don’t operate. Then it’s just noise. For example, if you sell to enterprise executives in the U.S., but all your engagement comes from people outside that audience, it’s not helping sales.

A strong social presence can signal credibility to potential buyers. If they see others engaging with your brand, it reinforces trust. But fake engagement or irrelevant followers won’t move the needle.

How to track SQLs and MQLs (without getting lost in the data)

Once you’ve defined what an MQL and SQL look like for your business, the next step is tracking them consistently and making adjustments as needed. 

To track MQLs and SQLs properly, you need a system that helps you:

• Capture lead activity—What pages they visit, emails they open, and actions they take.
• Score and qualify leads based on engagement and fit.
• Show where leads are getting stuck in the journey from MQL to SQL to customer.

That’s where your CRM becomes the most powerful tool in your marketing tech stack.

Let’s take HubSpot as an example. It gives you everything you need to build a full-funnel lead tracking system that not only captures activity but also helps you take action. 

Start by setting clear rules using custom properties. What if a lead views your pricing page twice, downloads a high-intent guide, and fits your ICP? You can have HubSpot tag them as an MQL automatically. From there, it can trigger workflows—like enrolling them in a nurturing sequence or assigning a follow-up task to sales.

Want to know when a lead is getting hot? Use predictive lead scoring or set up your own rules to weigh key behaviors—like demo requests or repeat visits to your case studies.

And instead of guessing where your leads are dropping off, you can follow them in a visual pipeline using Lifecycle Stages. You’ll see exactly when someone moves from Lead to MQL to SQL to Opportunity to Customer—and where they’re getting stuck.

On top of that, attribution reports show which blog posts or campaigns are actually creating SQLs, so you can double down on what’s working. And when an SQL gets created, your sales team can get a real-time Slack alert or task notification, so they never miss a high-intent lead.

If you already use HubSpot but aren’t leveraging these features, or if you want help setting up an MQL/SQL tracking system, we’d be happy to help you implement it.

Track the metrics that move the needle

At the end of the day, marketing isn’t about more dashboards or chasing numbers, it’s about driving real business growth.

And that starts with knowing exactly which metrics matter. MQLs and SQLs are the metrics that matter most because they connect directly to revenue. Everything else—website traffic, social engagement, email clicks—is useful only if it helps generate more qualified leads and moves them toward becoming customers.

So, as you evaluate your marketing efforts, ask yourself the questions that actually matter:

• Are we tracking numbers that actually impact sales?
• If we improve this metric, will it lead to more SQLs or MQLs?
• Are we prioritizing trust and long-term brand visibility over short-term vanity wins?

The best marketing teams aren’t just measuring everything; they zero in on the numbers that move revenue.

Your next move

If you’ve been drowning in marketing reports, trying to find which numbers actually lead to revenue, now’s the time to shift your focus. 

Define your most important metric. Align your MQL and SQL criteria with your sales team. Build a tracking system that connects activity to revenue—and stop wasting time on anything that doesn’t.

You’ve already made the investment in marketing. Now it’s time to make sure every effort leads to real growth.

Start by defining your most important metric, track what moves the needle, and cut out any noise. If you need help building a marketing system that does exactly that, let’s talk.