How to Know if Your Ads are Making Money: A Guide to Measuring Marketing Effectiveness for SMBs

If you’re spending money on ads for your business, you’ve probably lost sleep over this question: “Am I throwing money away on marketing that doesn’t work?”

You’re running Google Ads, Facebook ads, maybe some email marketing. Customers are buying, leads are coming in, but you have no idea which efforts deserve the credit. You might be doubling down on marketing that feels busy but isn’t actually making you money, while accidentally neglecting the quiet activities that consistently bring in your best customers.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most small business owners can’t confidently answer whether their ads are profitable because they’re asking the wrong question.

They ask: “What numbers should I be tracking?”

The right question is: “What do I need to know to make better marketing decisions?”

This diagnostic will help you figure out what you actually know about your marketing effectiveness, reveal the critical gaps costing you money, and show you exactly what’s needed to get real answers.

Before You Start: What Makes Marketing Measurable

Most business owners approach marketing measurement backwards. They dive straight into Google Analytics or their ad dashboards asking “What should I track?” without first asking “What do I need to know?”

This backwards approach creates the exact problem you’re experiencing right now: lots of numbers, but no clarity about whether your ads are actually making money.

Here’s the framework that makes measurement work:

First: Know what success looks like – What business outcome are you trying to achieve? More sales? More qualified leads? A bigger audience for future monetisation?

Second: Ask the right questions – What specific things do you need to know to determine if you’re achieving that outcome?

Third: Look for the data that answers those questions – Only now do you check numbers, and only the ones that answer your specific questions.

Fourth: Take action based on what you learn – The entire point of looking at data is to make better decisions about where to spend your marketing budget.

This isn’t just philosophy. This approach is what separates businesses that use data to grow from businesses that drown in analytics dashboards they don’t understand.

Throughout this diagnostic, we’ll follow this process. By the end, you’ll know exactly what questions you can answer about your marketing, which questions you’re still guessing at, and what’s needed to close those gaps.

Step 1: Define What “Making Money” Means for Your Business

Before you can know if your ads are making money, you need to define what “making money” actually means for your specific business. This isn’t semantic nitpicking, different business models require different measurements.

Quick Assessment: What’s Your Primary Business Goal Right Now?

Choose the ONE that best describes your current focus:

Option A: Make More Sales

  • You have products or services available for immediate purchase
  • Your main goal is increasing revenue from existing offerings
  • Success = more purchase transactions, higher order values, or both
  • Examples: E-commerce stores, online course creators, SaaS with self-serve signup, service providers with online booking

Option B: Get More Qualified Leads

  • You have a sales process that requires conversation or consultation before purchase
  • Your main goal is generating prospects for your sales team or personal follow-up
  • Success = more contact form submissions, phone calls, consultation bookings, or demo requests from your ideal customers
  • Examples: B2B services, high-ticket coaching, professional services (legal, accounting, consulting), real estate, complex product sales

Option C: Build Your Audience

  • You’re building reach and awareness for future monetisation
  • Your main goal is growing your subscriber base, followers, or community
  • Success = more email subscribers, social followers, or community members who match your target audience
  • Examples: Content creators, early-stage businesses, thought leaders, media companies

What This Tells You:

Your answer determines what metrics actually matter for measuring if your ads are “making money”:

  • If you chose A (Sales): Your ads make money when revenue from ad-generated sales exceeds ad spend. You need to track: revenue per campaign, customer acquisition cost, and return on ad spend.
  • If you chose B (Leads): Your ads make money when qualified leads convert to customers at a rate that justifies the cost. You need to track: lead quality by source, lead-to-customer conversion rate, and customer acquisition cost including both ad spend and sales effort.
  • If you chose C (Audience): Your ads make money when you build an audience that you can later monetise. You need to track: subscriber acquisition cost, audience engagement rates, and eventual monetisation per subscriber.

Why This Matters:

Without this clarity, you’ll track vanity metrics that feel good but don’t tell you if your marketing investment is actually working. An e-commerce business celebrating 10,000 ad clicks means nothing if those clicks generated zero revenue. A B2B service celebrating 100 website visitors means nothing if none became qualified leads.

Your business outcome determines which questions you need to answer, which determines which data actually matters.

Write down your answer: My primary business outcome right now is: _______________

Keep this in mind as we move through the rest of the diagnostic. Every question should connect back to this outcome.

Step 2: The 8 Critical Questions About Your Marketing

Now that you know your business outcome, you can identify the specific questions you need to answer to determine if your marketing is making money.

But here’s the key insight: knowing your outcome isn’t enough. If you only tracked the outcome itself, you’d just see total sales or total leads. That tells you whether you hit your target, but it doesn’t tell you what’s working or what to fix.

To truly understand your marketing effectiveness, you need to ask questions about the complete customer journey, not just the end result.

Understanding the Customer Journey: From Discovery to Purchase

Before someone becomes a customer, they go through a predictable journey:

First, they discover you: They see your ad, find you in search, read your social post, or get a referral. They become aware that you exist and might solve their problem.

Then, they evaluate you: They visit your website, read your content, compare you to alternatives, watch your videos, or browse your products. They’re deciding if you’re right for them.

Finally, they take action: They buy your product, fill out your form, call your business, or book a consultation. They convert from prospect to customer.

This journey matters because marketing works differently at each stage:

  • Some marketing is brilliant at getting attention (discovery) but doesn’t close sales
  • Some marketing is excellent at closing sales but only works on people who already know you
  • The best marketing strategy uses different approaches for different stages

The 8 Questions That Follow the Journey

The questions below aren’t random. They’re specifically designed to give you visibility across the entire customer journey, from first discovery through final conversion, plus the efficiency and quality of that journey.

Questions 1-3 help you understand what’s happening at each stage (discovery, evaluation, conversion)

Questions 4-5 help you understand how customers move through the journey

Questions 6-8 help you understand the efficiency and quality of your marketing across the journey

When you can answer all eight, you have complete visibility into not just whether you’re hitting your outcome, but exactly how customers are reaching it and where your marketing helps or hinders that process.

Let’s look at each question.

Questions About Your Marketing Performance

These eight questions map to the complete customer journey:

Discovery Stage: How do customers find you?

Question 1: Which specific marketing campaigns are bringing visitors to my website?

Not just “Facebook” vs “Google”, but specific campaigns like “Spring Sale – Carousel Ad” vs “Summer Launch – Video Ad”.

Why This Question Matters:
This question reveals what’s working at the discovery stage. If you can’t identify specific campaigns, you can’t know which offers, audiences, or creative approaches get attention best. You’ll keep running all your campaigns at the same level instead of investing more in the discovery efforts that actually bring people to you.

Example of Why You Need This Answer: Imagine you spend $500 on a ‘Facebook Video Ad’ for your new product and $500 on a ‘Google Search Ad’ targeting competitor names. The Facebook ad brings 1,000 visitors to your site, while the Google ad brings only 100. This first answer doesn’t tell the whole story, but it provides the foundational data point: it confirms which advertising ‘taps’ are flowing and how strongly. It prevents you from making decisions based on a vague feeling that ‘Facebook is working’ and forces you to look at the performance of specific, individual efforts.


Evaluation Stage: What happens when they’re on your website?

Question 2: What percentage of my website visitors take my desired action (buy, submit a form, call, etc.)?

This is your conversion rate, the fundamental metric that tells you how effectively your website turns interested visitors into customers.

Why This Question Matters:
This question reveals how well your evaluation stage works. This is the single most important measure of your website’s effectiveness. A high volume of visitors means nothing if none of them do what you want them to do. This percentage, your conversion rate, tells you if your website is a helpful ‘salesperson’ that convinces visitors to act, or a confusing ‘brochure’ that people glance at and then discard.

Example of Why You Need This Answer: From Question 1, your Google ad brought only 100 visitors, but 10 of them bought your product. That’s an excellent 10% conversion rate. Your Facebook ad brought 1,000 visitors, but only 5 bought something; a dismal 0.5% conversion rate. Suddenly, the ‘worse’ performing ad from Question 1 is revealed to be dramatically more effective at generating actual sales. Without this answer, you would mistakenly keep pouring money into the popular but unprofitable Facebook campaign, chasing traffic instead of revenue.


Conversion Stage: Which marketing delivers the outcome?

Question 3: How does performance compare across my different marketing channels?

Can you see if email marketing generates better results than Instagram ads, or if Google search outperforms Facebook?

Why This Question Matters:
This question reveals which marketing channels actually drive your business outcome. Different channels work at different stages (Facebook might excel at discovery whilst email excels at conversion), but ultimately you need to know which ones deliver customers, not just awareness. If you can’t compare channels, you can’t reallocate budget to your best-performing marketing.

Example of Why You Need This Answer: You spend $3,000/month on Facebook and $2,000/month on Google Ads. Facebook brings 200 conversions at $15 each. Google brings 150 conversions at $13 each. But Google converters have 40% higher lifetime value. Without cross-channel comparison, you’d think Facebook is winning. With it, you shift budget to Google because it delivers better customers.


Understanding the Journey: How do customers move through the stages?

Question 4: Are visitors interacting with multiple marketing touchpoints before converting?

For example: clicked a Facebook ad, came back later via Google search, read your email, then purchased?

Why This Question Matters:
Real customer journeys aren’t linear. Someone might discover you through Facebook (discovery), do nothing, then weeks later search for you on Google (evaluation continues), sign up for your email (deeper evaluation), then finally purchase after receiving your email sequence (conversion). If you only see the last touchpoint, you’ll give all credit to email and none to Facebook or Google, even though all three were necessary. This leads to cutting marketing that’s actually working.

Example of Why You Need This Answer: Your Google branded search ads show a 15% conversion rate and $8 cost per acquisition, amazing! But 70% of those searchers first discovered you through a Facebook ad they saw a week earlier. If you cut the Facebook budget to invest more in “high-performing” branded search, your overall sales would collapse because you’d have no awareness driving people to search for your brand.


Question 5: Where are potential customers dropping off or abandoning their purchase process?

Can you identify specific pages or steps where people leave without converting?

Why This Question Matters:
This question reveals where your evaluation stage breaks down. Visitors might love your ads (discovery works) and engage with your content (evaluation starts well) but abandon at checkout. If you can’t see where people leave, you’re guessing at what needs improvement. You might redesign your homepage when the real problem is a confusing checkout or slow-loading pricing page.

Example of Why You Need This Answer: Your checkout page loads slowly on mobile, causing 60% of mobile users to abandon right before purchase. You don’t know this, so you keep spending money driving mobile traffic and wondering why your mobile conversion rate is terrible. Once you identify the drop-off point, you fix the loading issue and mobile conversions double.


Efficiency: How much does the journey cost?

Question 6: How much does it cost me to acquire a customer from each marketing channel?

This is your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) or Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), total marketing spend divided by customers acquired.

Why This Question Matters:
This question tells you if your marketing is profitable. A channel might bring lots of traffic (discovery works) and even decent conversion (evaluation works), but if it costs $200 to acquire a customer who only spends $100, the complete journey through that channel is unprofitable. Without knowing acquisition cost, you can’t determine which channels are worth scaling.

Example of Why You Need This Answer: Your Instagram ads have a $1.50 cost-per-click (seems great!) but generate a $180 CAC because only 0.5% of clickers convert. Your email marketing has no per-click cost but generates a $25 CAC because subscribers convert at 12%. Without CAC tracking, you’d invest more in the “cheap” Instagram clicks instead of the profitable email strategy.


Quality: Who completes the journey successfully?

Question 7: Which marketing sources bring customers who spend more or become repeat buyers?

Some channels might bring cheaper customers who spend less. Others might cost more to acquire but generate higher lifetime value.

Why This Question Matters:
Not all customers who complete the journey are equally valuable. A channel might efficiently move people from discovery to conversion, but if those customers never return, you’re constantly acquiring new customers at full cost. Another channel might have higher acquisition cost but bring customers who buy repeatedly, making the complete lifetime economics far better.

Example of Why You Need This Answer: Facebook ads generate a $40 CAC with $85 average order value. Google Ads generate a $55 CAC with $140 average order value, and those customers have 3x higher repeat purchase rate. If you only looked at CAC, you’d shift budget to Facebook. When you factor in customer quality and lifetime value, Google delivers customers whose complete journey (including repeat purchases) is far more profitable.


Trends: Is the journey improving or degrading?

Question 8: Is my marketing getting more or less efficient over time?

Are your conversion rates improving or declining? Is your cost per acquisition going up or down? Is the quality of traffic changing?

Why This Question Matters:
Marketing effectiveness changes over time. Audiences get saturated, competitors copy your approach, platforms change algorithms, seasonal patterns emerge. Without tracking trends across the complete journey, you won’t notice gradual degradation until it’s a crisis. Your conversion rate might drop from 5% to 3% over six months, a 40% decline in how well evaluation stage works, but it’s invisible if you only look at current numbers.

Example of Why You Need This Answer: Your Facebook ad performance slowly degrades as iOS privacy changes reduce targeting effectiveness. January: 4.5% conversion rate. April: 3.2% conversion rate. You don’t notice because you’re not tracking trends. By June, you’re paying 50% more per customer and don’t know why. With trend tracking, you’d have spotted the declining conversion rate in February and adjusted your strategy before wasting months of budget on degrading performance.


Understanding What These Questions Tell You:

These eight questions aren’t arbitrary. They give you complete visibility into the customer journey:

  • Questions 1-3 tell you WHAT is happening (which campaigns bring discovery, what conversion rate shows evaluation effectiveness, which channels drive the outcome)
  • Questions 4-5 tell you HOW customers move through the journey (multi-touch paths, where they abandon)
  • Questions 6-7 tell you the ECONOMICS of the journey (what it costs, what value it creates)
  • Question 8 tells you if the journey is getting BETTER or WORSE

If you can answer all eight questions, you have visibility into the complete customer journey from discovery through conversion. You’ll know not just whether you’re hitting your business outcome, but exactly how customers are reaching it, what’s working at each stage, and where to focus your improvement efforts.

If you can’t answer them, you’re flying blind at one or more stages of the journey.

In the next step, we’ll try to answer these questions using whatever data you currently have access to. This is where you’ll discover what’s missing.

Step 3: Try to Answer Your Questions (This Is Where Gaps Appear)

Now comes the revealing part. You know the questions you need to answer. Let’s try to answer them using whatever marketing data you currently have access to.

For each question, you’ll attempt to find the answer. If you can’t find it, or if the data seems incomplete or unreliable, that reveals a gap in your measurement foundation.

Important: Don’t spend hours digging for answers. If you can’t find the answer within 2-3 minutes of looking, that’s your answer, you don’t have visibility into this question.

How to Approach This Step

For each of the 8 questions, you’ll:

  1. Try to find the answer in your ad platforms or analytics
  2. Mark whether you got a clear, confident answer
  3. Note what prevented you from answering (this reveals what’s missing)

Let’s begin.

Question 1: Which specific marketing campaigns are bringing visitors to my website?

Where to Look:

Google Analytics (GA4):

  • Navigate to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
  • The report initially shows broad channel groupings. To see specific campaigns with context:
    • Click the dropdown arrow above the first column of the data table and select Session source/medium.
    • Click to + symbol next to the dropdown you just used and select Traffic source > Session campaign.

Try to Answer: Can you see your specific campaign names (like “Spring Sale Email” or “Facebook Carousel Ad – New Product”)?

Your Result:

  • YES, I can see specific campaign names – I can distinguish between different campaigns I’m running
  • PARTIALLY – I see generic sources like “facebook / cpc” or “google / organic” but not my specific campaign names
  • NO, I cannot see this – I don’t have analytics, can’t log in, or only see very basic information

If You Answered PARTIALLY or NO:

What’s Missing: Campaign tracking via UTM parameters. Without these special tags on your marketing links, your analytics can’t distinguish between your different campaigns. Everything from Facebook looks like “Facebook traffic” instead of showing which specific Facebook campaign worked.

What This Gap Costs You: You’re making budget decisions at the channel level (more Facebook, less Google) when you should be making them at the campaign level (more Spring Sale campaigns, less Awareness campaigns). You’re likely wasting 20-30% of your budget on underperforming campaigns within channels that look “okay” overall.

Question 2: What percentage of my website visitors take my desired action?

Where to Look:

If you have Google Analytics (GA4):

  • Go to Reports > Engagement > Conversions
  • Look for conversion events related to your goal (purchases, form submissions, etc.)
  • Try to calculate: (Conversions ÷ Total Users) × 100

Try to Answer: What is your conversion rate?

Your Result:

  • YES, I know my conversion rate – I can see total visitors and total conversions, and calculate the percentage
  • PARTIALLY – I see some numbers but they don’t match reality, or I’m not sure what’s being counted as a conversion
  • NO, I cannot calculate this – I don’t have analytics, or I can’t find conversion data

If You Answered PARTIALLY or NO:

What’s Missing: Conversion tracking isn’t set up or isn’t working correctly. Your analytics should automatically track when someone completes your goal action (buys, submits a form, calls, etc.).

What This Gap Costs You: Without knowing your conversion rate, every website change is a guess. You can’t tell if your new homepage design helped or hurt. You can’t identify if traffic quality is declining. You’re optimising blindly.

Question 3: How does performance compare across my different marketing channels?

Where to Look:

If you have Google Analytics (GA4):

  • Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition
  • Look at the table showing different traffic sources
  • Try to add a column or filter for conversions by source

Try to Answer: Can you compare conversion rate or revenue across Facebook, Google, Email, and other channels?

Your Result:

  • YES, I can compare channels – I see traffic, conversions, and can calculate performance by source
  • PARTIALLY – I can see traffic by channel but not conversions, or the numbers seem off
  • NO, I cannot compare – I either don’t have this data, or I have to check each platform separately (Facebook Ads Manager, Google Ads, email platform) and can’t see them together

If You Answered PARTIALLY or NO:

What’s Missing: Either conversion tracking (so you can’t see results by channel) or unified reporting (so you have to check multiple dashboards separately and can’t easily compare).

What This Gap Costs You: You’re making budget allocation decisions without knowing which channels actually perform best. You might be investing heavily in a channel with great engagement metrics but poor conversion, while under-investing in a quiet channel that consistently delivers customers.

Question 4: Are visitors interacting with multiple marketing touchpoints before converting?

Where to Look:

If you have Google Analytics (GA4):

  • Go to Reports > Advertising > Conversion Paths (if available)
  • Or go to Explore > Path Exploration
  • Look for examples of users coming from multiple sources

Try to Answer: Can you see when someone clicked your Facebook ad, then came back later via Google, then converted?

Your Result:

  • YES, I can see multi-touch journeys – My analytics shows when customers interact with multiple marketing efforts before converting
  • NO, I only see the last touchpoint – I only know what they did immediately before converting, not the full journey
  • I DON’T KNOW – I’m not sure if this data exists or where to find it

If You Answered NO or I DON’T KNOW:

What’s Missing: Multi-touch attribution or customer journey tracking. Basic analytics setups only show you the last thing someone did before converting, not the complete journey.

What This Gap Costs You: You’re giving all the credit to “closing” touchpoints (like retargeting ads or branded search) and none to “awareness” touchpoints (like social media or content marketing) that started the journey. This leads to cutting budgets on channels that are actually working.

Question 5: Where are potential customers dropping off or abandoning their purchase process?

Where to Look:

If you have Google Analytics (GA4):

  • Go to Reports > Engagement > Pages and Screens
  • Look for key pages in your conversion process
  • Try to see exit rates or user flow

Or check if you have session recordings:

  • Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, or similar tools
  • Watch actual recordings of users navigating your site

Try to Answer: Can you identify specific pages where visitors commonly abandon before converting?

Your Result:

  • YES, I can identify drop-off points – I can see where in the process people commonly leave
  • PARTIALLY – I have some idea but it’s not clear or the data seems incomplete
  • NO, I cannot see this – I don’t have visibility into user behaviour on my website

If You Answered PARTIALLY or NO:

What’s Missing: User behaviour analytics or funnel tracking. You need tools that show you how people move through your website and where they get stuck or leave.

What This Gap Costs You: You’re trying to improve conversion rate by guessing what’s broken. You might redesign your homepage when the real issue is a slow-loading checkout page, or a confusing pricing structure. You’re fixing the wrong things.

Question 6: How much does it cost me to acquire a customer from each marketing channel?

Where to Look:

This requires combining data from multiple places:

For Paid Advertising:

  • Facebook Ads Manager: Look at “Cost per Purchase” or “Cost per Lead”
  • Google Ads: Look at “Cost / Conv” (cost per conversion)

For All Channels Combined:

  • You need: Total marketing spend per channel ÷ Number of customers acquired from that channel

Try to Answer: What is your customer acquisition cost (CAC) for each major marketing channel?

Your Result:

  • YES, I know my CAC by channel – I can see or calculate how much I spend to get a customer from each source
  • PARTIALLY – My ad platforms show some cost data, but I’m not sure if it’s accurate or complete
  • NO, I cannot calculate this – I don’t have the data to figure out acquisition cost per channel

If You Answered PARTIALLY or NO:

What’s Missing: Conversion value tracking and proper attribution. Your ad platforms might show you spent $5,000, but if they can’t track which spending led to actual customers, you can’t calculate true acquisition cost.

What This Gap Costs You: You can’t determine if your marketing is profitable. You might be paying $150 to acquire customers who only spend $100. Or you might be avoiding a channel that seems expensive but actually has the best ROI.

Question 7: Which marketing sources bring customers who spend more or become repeat buyers?

Where to Look:

If you have Google Analytics (GA4) with e-commerce tracking:

  • Go to Reports > Monetisation > Overview
  • Try to see average order value by traffic source
  • Look for customer lifetime value data by source

Or check your e-commerce platform:

  • Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.
  • Look at customer reports
  • Try to segment by how they first found you

Try to Answer: Do customers from Facebook spend more or less than customers from Google? Do email-acquired customers return more often?

Your Result:

  • YES, I can see customer value by source – I know which channels bring higher-value or repeat customers
  • PARTIALLY – I see some revenue data but can’t connect it back to marketing source
  • NO, I cannot see this – I have no way to compare customer quality by channel

If You Answered PARTIALLY or NO:

What’s Missing: Customer value tracking connected to acquisition source. You need analytics that tracks not just the first purchase but also repeat purchases, and connects that back to how they originally found you.

What This Gap Costs You: You’re optimising for acquisition cost alone, potentially driving down customer quality. You might be investing in channels that bring cheap customers who never return, while neglecting channels that bring loyal, high-value customers.

Question 8: Is my marketing getting more or less efficient over time?

Where to Look:

Any of your analytics or ad platforms:

  • Look at conversion rate this month vs last month vs same month last year
  • Look at cost per acquisition over time
  • Look at revenue per visitor trends

Try to Answer: Are your key metrics improving or declining over the past 3-6 months?

Your Result:

  • YES, I track trends – I regularly check how metrics change week-over-week and month-over-month
  • PARTIALLY – I look at current numbers but don’t systematically compare to previous periods
  • NO, I only see current data – I don’t have historical data or don’t know how to compare periods

If You Answered PARTIALLY or NO:

What’s Missing: Systematic reporting and trend analysis. Even if you have good current data, you need to be looking at it over time to spot gradual improvements or declines.

What This Gap Costs You: You won’t notice slow degradation until it’s a crisis. Your conversion rate might drop 30% over six months, but because it happens gradually, you don’t notice. By the time you realise something’s wrong, you’ve wasted months of budget and lost momentum.

Count Your Answers

How many questions could you answer with clear, confident data?

Write down your score: _____ out of 8 questions answered

What Your Score Means:

  • 7-8 questions answered: You have strong measurement foundation (rare without professional setup)
  • 5-6 questions answered: You have decent visibility but critical gaps remain
  • 3-4 questions answered: You have partial data but major blind spots
  • 0-2 questions answered: You’re essentially flying blind (unfortunately common)

More importantly than your score is understanding WHAT prevented you from answering each question. Those are your specific gaps.

In the next section, we’ll interpret what your gaps mean and what you need to do about them.

Your Diagnostic Results: What You Need

Based on your score, here’s what you need to do:

If You Answered 0-4 Questions: You Need Measurement Foundation

What’s Missing:

You likely encountered these problems:

  • No Google Analytics, or can’t log in, or it’s not set up properly
  • Marketing links don’t have campaign tracking (no UTM parameters)
  • No conversion tracking, can’t see purchases or leads
  • Can’t compare channels because data is scattered across different platforms

What This Means:

You cannot reliably answer “Are my ads making money?” You’re making marketing decisions with 40-60% of the information missing, potentially wasting 30-50% of your marketing budget.

What You Need:

A complete measurement foundation:

  • Google Analytics 4 properly configured
  • Campaign tracking (UTM parameters) on all marketing links
  • Conversion tracking for your goal actions
  • Platform integration (Facebook Pixel, Google Ads conversion tracking)

Your Options:

Build it yourself or have it done professionally. Read How to Build Your Marketing Measurement Foundation if you want understand what’s involved and have a go at it.

If You Answered 5-6 Questions: You Need to Complete Your Foundation

What’s Missing:

You likely found:

  • Can see traffic but not specific campaigns
  • Conversions tracked but numbers don’t match reality
  • Can’t see customer journeys or which sources bring better customers
  • Not systematically tracking trends

What This Means:

You have partial visibility but are still missing insights that could improve marketing efficiency by 20-30%. Some of your data may be misleading you.

What You Need:

Fill the specific gaps you identified. Address broken or incomplete tracking before adding new capabilities. Consider a measurement audit if you’re unsure what needs fixing.

If You Answered 7-8 Questions: You’re Ready for Strategic Measurement

What This Means:

You have solid measurement foundation. You can answer most important questions about marketing effectiveness.

Your Opportunity:

Move from reporting (“what happened”) to strategic measurement (“what should I do next”). Turn your good data into systematic competitive advantage with action playbooks, leading indicators, and systematic optimisation frameworks.

Learn about The Actionable Measurement Framework when you’re ready to scale.

What Makes This Different

This diagnostic worked because you:

  1. Defined your business outcome first
  2. Identified specific questions you need to answer
  3. Tried to find data to answer those questions
  4. Discovered gaps naturally through that process

The process is: Outcome → Questions → Data → Action

Not: Tool → Data → Confusion

This is what separates businesses that use analytics effectively from those who have analytics installed but still make decisions by gut feel.

Your Next Steps

If you need measurement foundation: Read How to Build Your Marketing Measurement Foundation

If you want it done professionally: Learn about our Measurement Foundation Service

If you have foundation and want strategic measurement: Explore the Actionable Measurement Framework

The Bottom Line:

You now know which questions you can answer and which ones you’re guessing at. Every question you couldn’t answer represents a decision you’re making based on incomplete information, potentially costing you money.

The businesses that dominate their markets aren’t necessarily the ones with bigger budgets. They’re the ones who know what works and do more of it systematically.

That knowledge comes from having the right questions and the data to answer them.

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