The Metrics That Matter
For Your Business Model

CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions)

What a thousand displays of your ad cost you.

The metric of awareness campaigns: Display, YouTube, Meta. On the Google Display Network, CPM bidding works on viewable impressions (vCPM): you pay only when the ad could actually be seen. A low CPM tells you the display is cheap; real attention shows up next, in the CTR and in what happens after the click.

Impression Share

The share of impressions your ad received out of all those it was eligible for.

It tells you whether your campaign has room to grow. It becomes truly useful with its two companions: the share lost to budget, and the share lost to Ad Rank. The first is fixed with budget; the second with the bid and the quality of the ad.

CTR (Clickthrough Rate)

The share of people who click your ad after seeing it.

It measures how appealing your ad is; the sale shows up further down, in the conversion rate. Google uses it to estimate your expected CTR, one of the components of Quality Score. A good CTR depends on what you sell and on the network you run on: compare it with your own history, never with an average read elsewhere.

CPC (Cost Per Click)

The average price you pay for a click on your ad.

You set a maximum bid (max. CPC) and often pay less: the amount actually charged is called the actual CPC. A CPC is always judged together with the conversion rate behind it, since CPA = CPC ÷ conversion rate. A click that costs twice as much and converts three times better lowers your CPA.

Quality Score

Google's 1 to 10 score for each keyword, comparing your ad and landing page with those of other advertisers.

Google presents it as a diagnostic tool: it shows you where to act, it is not a target to optimize. Each of its three components gets a status, "Above average", "Average" or "Below average", and each one points to a different lever: the ad, how well it matches the search, or the landing page.

CVR (Conversion Rate)

The share of clicks that end in an order.

The bridge between traffic and sales. A CVR dropping at constant traffic points to the site (speed, product page, checkout), not the campaigns. Segment by device: a marked mobile/desktop gap usually reveals a mobile experience issue.

Landing Page CVR

The share of clicks that turn into a lead on the page receiving the traffic.

The yield of the page receiving the traffic. Doubling this rate halves the CPL at constant budget: that is arithmetic. Message, social proof, form length and load speed weigh more than a tenth bidding tweak.

Cart Abandonment Rate

The share of shoppers who add a product to the cart without completing the order.

Where the funnel leaks most: the majority of carts never become an order. Every point you win is revenue gained without one extra euro of media. Shipping fees discovered late, forced account creation and a slow checkout are the first three suspects.

Qualification Rate

The share of forms that become real opportunities.

Generating 200 forms with 2 customers inside costs more than 50 forms with 5 customers. It is the first filter between advertising volume and commercial reality.

Lead Score

Lead quality graded on your criteria: company size, budget, urgency, source.

Its real power in Paid Media: sending different values back to the platforms depending on the score, so bidding learns on quality instead of volume.

Closing Rate

The share of opportunities that turn into signed customers.

The silent multiplier of the account: going from 25 % to 35 % closing raises your acceptable CPL by 40 % without touching the campaigns. The best Google Ads consultant on a lead gen account is sometimes the 5-minute lead callback.

Lead-To-Customer Rate

The end-to-end view: out of 100 forms, how many become customers.

It absorbs qualification and closing into a single number, and translates any customer target into a lead volume to generate, hence a budget.

Average Conversion Delay

The average time between the click on your ad and the customer signing.

The metric that sets your analysis window. If your CRM takes 8 weeks to qualify a lead, a 30-day analysis is not cautious, it is wrong: conversions from recent clicks have not had time to exist yet.

Activation Rate

The share of signups who actually use the product: first key action, setup completed, value perceived.

Activation predicts retention far better than the signup: the frontier between a future customer and a curious visitor.

Trial-To-Paid Rate

The share of free trials that move to a paid plan.

The verdict on acquired traffic quality: trials that never convert to paid signal targeting or an ad promise misaligned with the product. Two sources at the same cost per trial can convert three times apart.

CPA (Cost Per Conversion)

What each conversion counted by the platform costs you on average.

The "Cost / conv." column in Google Ads. It only counts the actions included in the "Conversions" column, so a CPA always reads together with the definition of the conversion it counts. A purchase, a form and a click on your phone number are not worth the same, and a CPA that adds them up treats them as equal.

CPL (Cost Per Lead)

What each form or call generated costs you on average.

The column everyone watches. Useful daily to compare campaigns and audiences, as long as you never read it alone: a CPL going down while quality erodes is fake good news.

CPQL (Cost Per Qualified Lead)

What a lead that passes your qualification costs you.

The real steering column. Two campaigns at the same CPL can have CPQLs three times apart depending on traffic quality. This metric, not raw CPL, should drive the budget arbitrage between campaigns.

Cost Per Opportunity

The stage between the qualified lead and the signed customer: what a real sales conversation costs.

Closer to revenue than the CPL, faster to measure than signed revenue: often the best steering compromise on long cycles.

CAC

The cost of a new customer.

E-commerce The nuance vs CPA: CPA counts every conversion, returning buyers included. A stable CPA can hide a degrading CAC when the share of repeat purchases grows.

SaaS The cost of a paying customer, not a signup. Counting free accounts in the denominator produces a flattering, wrong CAC: churn from never-activated free users will blow it up three months later.

Cost Per Activated Customer

What a signup who reaches activation costs you.

Activation is the signal to feed the bidding algorithms: optimizing on free signups means optimizing on volume that churn will sort out for you, at full price. This is the acquisition cost that actually predicts future MRR.

Cost Per Euro Of New MRR

What each euro of recurring revenue won by advertising costs.

The same trade-off as the payback, seen per euro of MRR: it compares campaigns and channels on what they really build, recurring revenue, not signups.

ROAS

Return on ad spend: a ROAS of 4 means 4 € of revenue per euro invested.

The day-to-day steering metric, available everywhere in real time. Its limit: it talks revenue, never profit.

Break-Even ROAS

The minimum ROAS below which your ad-driven sales lose you money.

Your profitability floor. At 40 % gross margin, break-even is 2.5. Below it, every sale costs you money even if the account shows conversions everywhere. It is the first number I compute on any account I take over.

POAS

The real profit per euro of advertising.

It takes more work (feeding product margins into the platform), but it tells the truth: on a catalog with mixed margins, two campaigns at the same ROAS can have opposite profitability.

Contribution Margin

What actually stays on each order once everything is paid: product, shipping, payment fees, advertising.

The only number that says whether an order builds or erodes the business, line by line.

First-Order ROAS

The immediate profitability of a new customer, with no bet on the future.

It answers a strategic question: can you acquire at a loss on the first order and recover on repeat purchases? Without solid repeat behavior, the answer is no.

MER

All your revenue divided by all your ad spend, across every platform.

The zoom-out. No attribution, no debate between platforms: all the revenue, all the spend. If your platform ROAS climbs while your MER declines, your platforms are claiming sales that would have happened anyway.

Marginal ROAS

The ROAS of the last euros invested, not the account average.

The first 1,000 € of budget return more than the next 1,000 €: scaling "because the average ROAS looks good" means buying the next euros at the price of the previous ones.

Advertising ROI

The lead gen zoom-out: the revenue actually signed against the spend, on a window aligned with the sales cycle.

The number that speaks to management, and the one that justifies (or not) next year's budget.

Net Profit Margin

The final judge: what stays once everything is paid, acquisition included.

An account can produce leads at a fine CPL and erode margin when sales processing costs grow faster than revenue. The number that ties Paid Media to the actual health of the business.

Payback Period

The time for a customer to pay back their acquisition cost.

120 € CAC, 40 €/month margin: paid back in 3 months. The speed metric: it decides how fast you can reinvest without cash-flow issues.

AOV (Average Order Value)

The average amount of an order.

It conditions everything: a higher average order value allows a higher CPA at equal profitability. Before raising budgets, raising the AOV (bundles, free-shipping threshold, cross-sell) is often the cheapest lever on the account.

RPV (Revenue Per Visitor)

CVR and AOV combined into a single number: what each visitor sent to the site is worth.

Ideal to compare traffic sources: an audience that clicks a lot but buys small shows up immediately.

Customer Value

What a signed customer is really worth, in margin, not revenue.

The starting point of every lead gen calculation. Without this number, there is no way to say whether an 80 € lead is expensive or cheap.

Revenue Per Lead

Signed revenue divided by the number of leads generated.

Quality and value summarized in one number. It compares campaigns generating leads of different natures: a campaign with a higher CPL but double the revenue per lead is the better of the two, which the CPL alone hides.

Pipeline Generated

What the campaigns put into the sales pipeline before any signature.

On a 6-month cycle, it is the leading indicator that defends a budget without waiting for revenue: tomorrow's revenue reads in today's pipe.

CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)

What a customer brings over the whole relationship.

Example: 80 € basket, 3 orders a year, 60 % retention (2.5 years of lifetime): CLV = 600 €. It is what justifies, or not, accepting a CAC above the first-order margin.

LTV

What a customer returns in margin over their whole lifetime.

With a 100 € ARPU, 80 % margin and 2 % churn (50 months of lifetime): LTV = 4,000 €. The number that defines the rational maximum CAC.

MRR

The monthly pulse of the business: all active subscriptions normalized to the month.

On the acquisition side it is the basis of everything: customer value, acceptable CAC and payback all derive from it.

ARR

The annualized view of recurring revenue.

The number for projections and valuation, and the one that authorizes a much higher CAC than one-shot models: a 1,200 € ARR per customer justifies a 300 to 400 € CAC.

ARPU

Average revenue per customer per month.

It segments everything: a 29 € plan and a 299 € plan cannot share the same target CAC or the same campaigns. The building block of the LTV calculation.

Expansion MRR

Upgrades, added seats, options: the revenue that grows without acquisition.

The stronger the expansion, the higher the CAC you can afford: the installed base funds the conquest of new customers.

Repeat Purchase Rate

CLV made concrete: the share of customers who come back to buy.

It is what turns an aggressive CAC into a good investment. With weak repeat purchase, all acquisition has to be profitable on the first order, which caps the bidding.

Churn Rate

The share of customers who cancel their subscription over the period.

Monthly attrition, and the most under-used lever: customer lifetime = 1 / churn. 5 % churn: a customer stays 20 months. 2 %: 50 months. Reducing it multiplies customer value without one extra euro of advertising.

MRR Churn

Churn in euros, not customers.

The nuance matters: losing three small accounts or losing your biggest customer is the same customer churn and a very different revenue churn. It says what acquisition has to compensate every month.

Net MRR Churn

The net churn once upgrades and upsells from existing customers are counted.

A negative net MRR churn means the installed base grows on its own: every acquisition euro adds to growth already secured.