TL;DR: The top eight types of metrics product marketers mostly track in their companies are: customer acquisition, customer engagement, product usage, customer retention, revenue and financial, market and competitive, campaign performance, and product-specific metrics, as revealed in our Product Marketing Metrics eBook.
As product marketers, we're constantly striving to prove our value and drive tangible results.
But in a world of endless data points, how can you effectively measure your impact and steer your strategies in the right direction?
Enter product marketing metrics – they provide invaluable insights into the success of your initiatives and empower you to make informed decisions, justify your strategies, and maximize your impact on key business outcomes such as revenue growth, customer acquisition, and market share.
The question then becomes: how can you measure the success of your product marketing without the right metrics? It would be a tall order.
This article offers a sneak peek at the metrics product marketers are tracking and discusses:
- What product marketing metrics are
- Qualitative vs. quantitative metrics
- KPIs vs. OKRs vs. metrics
- Setting goals and objectives
- The eight types of metrics you should be tracking
Defining product marketing metrics
Let's face it: without data, we're just another person with an opinion. In product marketing, gut feelings and hunches simply don't cut it.
Product marketing metrics provide the hard evidence you need.
They help track various aspects of a product's market performance, customer engagement, and overall business impact, covering key areas such as customer acquisition, retention, revenue, financial performance, market and competition analysis, campaign performance, product-specific performance, and leadership and team performance.
By mastering metrics, you'll gain:
- Clear visibility into what's working (and what's not)
- The ability to make data-driven decisions that drive real results
- Tools to demonstrate your impact on key business outcomes
- A competitive edge in an increasingly data-centric industry
But here's the kicker: not all metrics are created equal. The key is knowing which ones truly matter for your product and your business goals.
Types of metrics: qualitative vs. quantitative
What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative metrics?
- Quantitative metrics: These are numerical and easily measurable, such as sales figures, conversion rates, or market share percentages. They provide concrete, objective data that can be tracked over time and compared across products or campaigns.
- Qualitative metrics: These focus on non-numerical data that offer insights into customer perceptions, preferences, and experiences, including customer feedback, brand sentiment, or user satisfaction ratings.
KPIs vs. OKRs vs. metrics
- Metrics: Foundational measurements tracking various aspects of product and marketing performance.
- KPIs (key performance indicators): A subset of metrics critical to evaluating success in achieving specific business objectives, typically long-term and ongoing.
- OKRs (objectives and key results): A goal-setting framework combining ambitious objectives with specific, measurable key results, usually set for shorter periods (often quarterly).
Setting goals and objectives
Setting clear goals provides direction, focus, measurable progress, effective resource allocation, accountability, adaptability, stakeholder alignment, and a framework for performance evaluation.
The SMART goals framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) ensures that KPIs are meaningful and aligned with business objectives.
KPIs should be relevant and consistent across the organization, involving all stakeholders in defining and monitoring them.
Regular review and updates are crucial to maintain relevance and alignment with business goals.
The eight types of metrics you should be tracking
1. Customer acquisition metrics
Commonly tracked metrics include annual recurring revenue (ARR), churn, expansion revenue, customer acquisition cost (CAC), monthly recurring revenue (MRR), conversion rates, and customer lifetime value (CLTV).
These metrics help optimize customer journeys and forecast financial planning.
In the Product Marketing Metrics eBook, we found that ARR is the most tracked metric, chosen by 53.5% of product marketers. Clearly a priority for many.
2. Customer engagement metrics
Product marketers track metrics like messaging effectiveness, go-to-market strategy execution, acquisition, adoption, usage, retention experience, sales enablement, competitive analysis, positioning, and content creation to ensure seamless and engaging user experiences.
Messaging comes out on top with 42.3% of product marketers tracking it. This highlights how critical it is to ensure clear and effective communication with users.
3. Product usage metrics
Metrics like daily, weekly, and monthly active users (DAU, WAU, MAU), session duration, feature adoption rate, and net promoter score (NPS) help marketers understand user behavior, identify trends, and enhance product engagement and satisfaction.
Calculation methods vary based on the specific metrics tracked. Common approaches include analytics tools (like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Amplitude) to track and report on user interactions, session data, and feature usage.
Lawrence Chapman
4. Customer retention metrics
Churn rate, customer retention rate, repeat purchase rate, customer satisfaction score (CSAT), and renewal rates are critical for understanding and improving customer retention and satisfaction.
5. Revenue and financial metrics
Metrics like win/loss ratio, revenue growth rate, average revenue per user (ARPU), gross margin, customer profitability, and ROI are vital for assessing financial health and growth, helping to prioritize high-return initiatives.
When we asked product marketers, “how do you tie metrics to business objectives/revenue?” we received many answers that included:
“To tie metrics to business objectives and revenue, focus on tracking what truly matters – from customer conversion rates to cost per acquisition. By aligning your metrics with your bottom line, you'll ensure your efforts drive results that count.” — Kannan Gophal, Product Marketing Expert
“GTM support and assets matter. Enablement usage and completion matters. Messaging and positioning effectiveness matter. Partners and customers' satisfaction matter. Win rates matter.” — Patricia Arancibia, Product and Solutions Marketing Leader
“I tie metrics to business objectives and revenue by measuring the impact of my marketing efforts on the bottom line. This includes looking at how many new customers I am able to acquire, how many leads I can generate, and how much revenue can be attributed to my campaigns.” — Shantanu Sharma, Associate Digital Marketer at Emplay Analytics
6. Market and competitive metrics
Product marketers track competitive intelligence KPIs such as win rate, average deal size, revenue impact, ROI, content adoption, competitive displacements, and deal support requests to understand market position and strategy effectiveness.
As found in our eBook, win rate and average deal size are each tracked by 43.7% of product marketers, highlighting just how important it is to understand the success rates and financial impact of deals.
7. Campaign performance metrics
Campaign ROI, click-through rate, cost per click, cost per acquisition, conversion rate optimization, and the distinction between marketing qualified leads, and sales qualified leads are essential for evaluating and optimizing marketing efforts.
Charley Gale
8. Product-specific metrics
Product-specific metrics are crucial for understanding and optimizing the unique aspects of a product's performance. These metrics provide detailed insights into how users interact with specific features and functionalities of a product, helping product marketers refine their strategies and improve user experiences.
Product marketers mainly track conversion rate (47.9%), but other metrics they measure include adoption rate, activation rate, usage frequency, average session duration, and upsell rate, among others.
Get the full story
Do you want to learn what exactly your competitors are tracking and why? All the numbers and the stats (which you can use to make those all-important decisions)?
Then download the Product Marketing Metrics eBook (for free) and harness the power of data to improve your marketing.
Don’t get left behind – start tracking the right metrics for success.
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