How to Measure the Success of Your Digital Marketing Efforts

Are you running a monthly digital marketing strategy with your website? Wondering if what you’re doing is working? Let’s break it down simply so you can see if your marketing efforts and budget are paying off.

Step 1: Measuring Your Current Strategy

Before you can measure success, you need clarity. What were you trying to accomplish when you started your campaign? Start by revisiting your original goals. Were you trying to increase phone calls? Generate more qualified leads? Improve brand awareness? Drive online sales? Next, identify every active marketing effort currently in play. This will get you a good look at your overall strategy.

Action Checklist:

• Clearly define your primary goal (calls, form submissions, sales, traffic, awareness, etc.)
• List all active marketing efforts and strategies: Onpage optimization, Google Ads, social media, email marketing, etc.
• Determine what you were originally hoping to accomplish with each strategy
• Confirm that tracking is properly set up for each goal

This step creates your baseline. Later, we’ll measure performance and ROI against what you outlined here.

2. Analyzing Results from That Strategy

Now that you know what you’re trying to do, it’s time to measure whether it’s actually happening. This is where real data matters – the nerdy numbers! Start by looking at measurable performance indicators that directly tie back to your goals. For example:

• If your goal is leads, you should be tracking: phone calls, form submissions, quote requests, and appointment bookings
• If your goal is traffic or awareness, look at: website traffic, traffic sources (organic, paid, social, direct), page engagement and time on site, and social media engagement (likes, comments, shares, clicks)

Google Analytics can show you where visitors are coming from and what they’re doing once they land on your site. Your ad platforms can show conversion data. Your CRM or call tracking software can confirm whether inquiries are increasing.

Action Checklist:

• Review total website traffic month over month
• Check conversion volume (calls, forms, sales)
• Compare performance by channel (SEO vs. Paid Ads vs. Social)
• Review engagement metrics (time on site, pages viewed, social interaction)
• Identify trends: Are numbers improving, flat, or declining?
• Determine whether traffic quality is improving, not just quantity

Keep in mind, you’ll need to give your campaigns a bit of time to settle in. We recommend waiting 4-6 weeks before you start to really dive in to the numbers.

Calculating Cost

Based on the first two sections above, you can now determine whether your efforts and investment are worth it. Digital marketing takes time, money, or both. The real question is whether what you’re putting in is producing a return that makes sense. Start by calculating your full monthly investment.

This includes:

• Ad spend (Google, Meta, LinkedIn, etc.)
• Agency or freelancer fees
• Internal staff time spent managing campaigns
• Software subscriptions (email tools, CRMs, analytics platforms)

Then compare that total cost to the number of leads or sales generated.

Action Checklist:

• Gather your total number of leads or sales generated
• Calculate cost per lead or sale (Total Spend ÷ Total Leads/Sales)
• Compare your average sale value to your marketing cost
• Determine overall ROI

For example:
If you spend $3,000 per month and generate 30 leads, your cost per lead is $100. If 10 of those leads become customers with an average sale of $2,000, your revenue is $20,000. That’s a strong return. If you’re spending heavily and not seeing meaningful revenue growth, it’s time to reassess strategy, targeting, messaging, or channel mix.

If this process feels unclear or you’re not confident in your numbers, you’re not alone. Many businesses are running campaigns without fully understanding performance or ROI. Others continue to sink money into strategies that aren’t really working for them. Let’s take a closer look at your numbers and fine-tune it together.