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KPIs Every VP of Marketing Must Track

VP Marketing owns the demand generation engine, managing the channel mix, conversion funnel, and marketing budget to deliver pipeline at target CAC.

Vice President of Marketing
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Why These Metrics Matter

The VP of Marketing is accountable for translating budget into qualified pipeline. This requires command of the full performance marketing stack: ROAS and CPA at the campaign level, CTR and CPC as diagnostic signals for creative and bidding health, and conversion rate at each funnel stage from click to MQL. Organic traffic represents the compounding, lower-CAC channel that VP Marketing must develop alongside paid channels to build a sustainable growth engine. Email engagement metrics (open rate, CTR) reflect the health of the owned audience. The VP Marketing bridges the gap between top-funnel awareness metrics and bottom-funnel revenue attribution, ensuring that the marketing team can demonstrate contribution to ARR not just in terms of leads generated but in terms of revenue closed from marketing-sourced pipeline. Blended CAC management requires understanding the contribution and efficiency of every channel in the mix and making continuous budget reallocation decisions based on marginal return data.

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Questions You Should Be Able to Answer

If you cannot answer these, you are missing critical visibility into your function.

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Your Core KPIs

Every metric includes definition, formula, platforms, causal drivers, and Q&A.

Return on Ad Spend
ROAS
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) measures the gross revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.
Click-Through Rate
CTR
Click-Through Rate (CTR) measures the percentage of people who click on a link or ad after seeing it, expressed as clicks divided by impressions.
Cost Per Click
CPC
Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on a paid ad, determined by auction dynamics, quality score, and bid strategy.
Cost Per Mille
CPM
Cost Per Mille (CPM) measures the cost an advertiser pays per 1,000 ad impressions, making it the standard pricing metric for brand awareness and display advertising campaigns.
Conversion Rate
CVR
Conversion Rate (CVR) measures the percentage of users who complete a desired action out of all those who had the opportunity to do so, such as the percentage of website visitors who complete a purchase or form submission.
Marketing Qualified Lead
MQL
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a prospect who has met a predefined set of behavioral or demographic criteria indicating sufficient purchase intent to be worth sales follow-up, but has not yet been accepted by the sales team.
Email Open Rate
Email Open Rate measures the percentage of delivered emails that are opened by recipients, indicating how effective subject lines and sender reputation are at compelling engagement.
Customer Acquisition Cost
CAC
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) measures the total sales and marketing expenditure required to acquire one new paying customer over a given period.
Organic Traffic
Organic Traffic refers to website visitors who arrive through unpaid search engine results, driven by SEO content strategy, technical site health, and domain authority.
Cost Per Acquisition
CPA
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) measures the total advertising cost required to generate one desired conversion action, such as a form fill, trial signup, or purchase.
Share of Voice
SOV
Share of Voice (SOV) measures a brand's proportion of total advertising or media presence within its competitive category, expressed as a percentage of total category impressions, mentions, or spend.
Bounce Rate / Engagement Rate
Bounce Rate (in Universal Analytics) measured the percentage of sessions where a user visited only one page and left without further interaction.
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How Causal Analysis Changes the Game

For VP Marketings: VP Marketing uses incrementality testing on paid channels and A/B testing on landing pages and emails to generate causal evidence for budget and creative decisions rather than relying on attributed performance metrics that often overstate channel contribution.
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Explore Other Role Guides

Each guide covers the full set of KPIs for that function with role-specific context.

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Know Why Every Metric Is Moving

askotter gives VP Marketings causal visibility into every metric on this list, so you can act on root causes, not symptoms.

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