Benchmarketing: Using Strategic KPIs to Connect Marketing with Your Bottom Line
By Kirk Donlan

One of the most difficult aspects of being a marketer is that you’re always striving to demonstrate how the work you do is valuable, and how it can positively impact your organization’s bottom line. Your leadership (many of whom do not come from a marketing-specific background) possess a general notion about marketing’s value — they know your company needs marketing. But they might be too quick in glossing over, if not dismissing, marketing’s integral role in driving growth.
It isn’t necessarily their fault. Much like you, they’ve been trained to report on the operational KPIs that, while helpful, aren’t doing justice to the full spectrum of meaningful work that marketing does (and can do) for the organization. Leadership might peruse a recent report and see an uptick in email click-through rates or home page visits, but they don’t know how that directly equates to more satisfied customers, or more coin in the company’s coffers.
To assert your marketing department’s value, change the way you gauge your success. Instead of strictly benchmarking with channel-specific, operational KPIs, move toward strategic KPIs that clearly establish how marketing impacts the overall business. This can be achieved through benchmarketing.
Connecting Your Efforts to Results
Results that demonstrate how customers are interacting with your channels are useful. They can provide some indication of customer engagement and the efficacy of specific marketing endeavors. That’s why operational and channel-specific KPIs such as open rates and click-through rates should not be completely dismissed.
The problem is: they are mostly representative of the process part of your work — the day-to-day activities — which aren’t as insightful about big-picture strategy or long-term results. Also, they’re inadequate in revealing opportunities. Instead, consider using KPIs that tie in to revenue growth and customer growth.
Benchmarketing is inherently focused on these kinds of KPIs, and goes beyond the traditional benchmarking reports that you might generally rely on, the ones that only measure and track the aforementioned operational metrics. By virtue of using strategic KPIs, you’ll be cued to think about marketing strategies and tactics that can be linked to your company’s bottom line.

Bottom-Line Metrics
Two ways that marketing can impact an organization’s business is by driving revenue growth and customer growth. Benchmarking your marketing performance against KPIs that measure this growth will reinforce marketing’s value to your organization. Moreover, this process will allow you to devise strategic marketing objectives where their success can be measured in accordance to these metrics.
Here are some KPIs related to growth and customer lifecycle that you should consider using for benchmarking:
Customer Growth
- Share of Leads — Out of your entire database, what’s your share of leads?
- Share of First-Time Buyers — What’s your share of customers who’ve only made one purchase in the last 90 days? Or recently made a purchase after being inactive?
- Share of Active Buyers — What’s your share of customers who’ve made more than one purchase?
Revenue Growth
- Average Order Value — What’s the average each customer is spending per purchase?
- Average Annual Customer Spend — What’s the average amount that each active customer is spending annually?
- Monthly Orders Per Customer — What’s the average amount of orders a customer will place per month?
Customer Lifecycle
- Leads to First-Time Buyers — At what rate have your contacts converted from being a lead to becoming a first-time buyer?
- Defected Customers Won Back — What portion of your churned customers have been converted back to first-time buyers?
- Retained Active Customers — What portion of active buyers have you been able to retain?
Benchmarking with these metrics will reveal if your marketing efforts have been successful in increasing your share of customers and revenue from customers. This method of benchmarking will also allow you to think and plan more strategically.
For example, simply looking at an open rate on an email sent to defected customers isn’t comprehensive enough. Was it just a cleverly worded subject line that enticed the customer to open? Did that email even push the needle in encouraging the customer to completing a purchase?
However, looking at the share of defected customers who converted back to first-time buyers during the past month could certainly tell you whether your recent win-back marketing campaign was effective. And if it was, you’ll be assured that the strategy behind that campaign was sound. You’ll also be able to show leadership the positive impact marketing made to revenue growth over the past month. After that, grab a few donuts from the break room and enjoy your well-earned marketing victory.
The Benefit of Benchmarketing
By virtue of using strategic KPIs, you’ll be cued to think about marketing strategies and tactics that can be linked to your company’s bottom line. Benchmarketing is inherently more focused on benchmarking with strategic KPIs. This goes beyond the benchmarking reports that you may have traditionally relied on, the ones that only measure and track operational metrics.
If you aren’t currently benchmarking with these KPIs, now is the time to begin. To get you started, you can use this free tool and see how you stack up against others in your industry.

