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5 Metrics Digital Agencies Need to Provide to Their Clients

Andrew Sheridan Business Intelligence Project Manager, DialogTech

In the competitive world of digital marketing agencies, customer retention is crucial to success. You may have the best digital advertising campaign known to man, but this means nothing if you can’t tie it back to your clients’ revenue. If you can’t prove the value you provide, your client may start looking for another agency.

Sometimes retaining clients is as simple as providing them with the right qualitative metrics. Show them how your efforts have added leads to the funnel, and more importantly, that you are having a significant impact on revenue. With the following 5 metrics, digital agencies can provide clients with the peace of mind that will keep them with you for years to come.

1. Number of New Leads

This is the absolute top-of-the-funnel metric. You can provide a thousand different data points such as impressions, click-through-rates, and site traffic, but those hardly matter without any conversions. Getting those website visitors to turn into known leads is what your client needs to see. You may be driving a ton of traffic to their website, but if none of those visitors are converting to leads, any number of things may be wrong. It is your job as the agency to prove that your efforts are working, and working well.

The most common way of tracking lead conversion can also be the most deceiving. All too often, conversions are solely measured by form fills – the number of people who complete and submit a web form. However, this is not the only way for a person to convert into a lead. Often times, new leads will call your clients instead of filling out a form. This is especially relevant for mobile campaigns as it is much easier to simply click-to-call the displayed phone number than to fill out a form on a small mobile keyboard. Using call tracking technology, you can have visibility into how many leads were created by phone calls in addition to form fills. And with phone leads converting into revenue 10x more often than web leads, this is data you don’t want to neglect. Without attribution for both calls and forms, you cannot properly track the rest of your key metrics as they move further through the funnel.

2. Cost Per Lead

This is where dollar values come into play. A simple count of new leads is important, but this is put into context only when paired with spend. Evaluating how many new leads are being generated compared to how much your client is paying demonstrates where their money is actually going. Keeping your cost per lead low is a sure way to keep your clients happy.

3. Lead-to-Opportunity Conversion Rate

It is not enough to simply generate a large number of new leads for your clients: leads have to convert into opportunities (or appointments, depending on your client’s business model) in order to hold value. The percentage of leads that convert to opportunities is a great measure of lead quality. This is where you start to have a visible effect on your clients’ pipeline. If your conversion rate is too low, poor lead response could be the cause, but your client is more likely to see this as a result of subpar lead quality.

4. Value of New Opportunities

As opportunities continue to progress through your pipeline, the value of those opportunities increases in significance. Every bit of revenue is important, but your clients really want to see high-value opportunities come down the pipeline. The cumulative and average value of opportunities is another key indicator of lead quality. High-value opportunities that come from your lead generation campaigns easily prove the benefits of a relationship with your agency.

5. Return on Investment (ROI)

This is what the world of marketing metrics is all about. You may be contributing to your clients’ pipeline, but this means nothing if that doesn’t turn into actual revenue. This is heavily dependent on your clients’ ability to close deals, but your campaigns absolutely have to contribute to the bottom line. Your clients’ ROI is what will be reviewed at the highest level in their organization and will make or break your relationship with them. If you can’t prove that their money is well spent, they may soon be taking their business elsewhere.


Each of these metrics are increasingly important through the progression of the sales funnel. It ultimately comes down to the king of all marketing metrics, ROI, but this number is highly dependent on each of the metrics preceding it. If you can’t nail your attribution at the very beginning of the funnel, then the rest of your numbers lose significance. This means you have to accurately attribute every lead from your marketing campaigns.

Without tracking inbound calls alongside form fills, your metrics will be skewed from the very beginning. To learn more about the importance of call attribution for agencies, download our white paper, Agency Marketing in a Mobile World: Prove and Improve ROI with Call Attribution and Automation.