Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so let me tell you about the time I almost ruined a client's marketing budget by obsessing over the wrong metrics. I was working with this B2C Shopify store - decent traffic, reasonable conversion rates, but their Facebook ROAS was sitting at 2.5 and they were convinced they needed to "optimize" their way to profitability.
Here's the thing everyone gets wrong about PPC vs SEO metrics: they're measuring completely different games. It's like comparing a sprint to a marathon and wondering why one runner looks exhausted after 100 meters while the other barely broke a sweat.
Most businesses get trapped in this cycle of chasing vanity metrics - CPC, CTR, impression share - while completely missing the bigger picture. They'll celebrate a 0.2% improvement in click-through rates while their organic traffic sits at zero and their brand has no distribution footprint.
After working across dozens of projects, from SaaS acquisition campaigns to ecommerce scaling strategies, I've learned that the real question isn't which metrics to track - it's understanding what each channel actually measures and why that matters for your specific business.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why traditional PPC metrics mislead 90% of businesses into bad decisions
The hidden attribution problem that makes your SEO look worse and PPC look better
My framework for measuring what actually matters in each channel
When to kill PPC campaigns even when the metrics look good
How to build measurement systems that show real business impact
Reality Check
The metrics everyone tracks (and why they're mostly wrong)
Walk into any marketing meeting and you'll hear the same metrics thrown around like gospel. "Our CPC is down 15%!" "CTR improved to 3.2%!" "We're getting 4x ROAS!" Everyone nods approvingly, but nobody asks the fundamental question: do these numbers actually mean anything?
The industry has collectively decided that certain metrics matter, and most businesses follow along without questioning the logic. Here's what every marketing guide will tell you to track:
For PPC campaigns: Cost per click, click-through rates, impression share, quality score, conversion rates, ROAS, and cost per acquisition. The promise is simple - optimize these numbers and success will follow.
For SEO efforts: Keyword rankings, organic traffic, domain authority, backlink count, time on page, bounce rate, and organic conversion rates. Track these religiously and watch your organic growth explode.
The problem? These metrics exist in isolation. They tell you what happened within their specific channel, but they completely ignore how marketing actually works in the real world.
Most attribution models are broken. A customer might see your Facebook ad, research your brand on Google, visit your website directly, sign up for your newsletter, and eventually convert through an email campaign. Which channel gets credit? Usually, it's whichever touchpoint happened last or first, depending on your attribution model.
This creates a false competition between channels. PPC looks amazing because it captures intent at the bottom of the funnel. SEO looks mediocre because it's building awareness and trust - harder to measure but infinitely more valuable long-term. The conventional wisdom misses the forest for the trees, optimizing individual channel metrics while the overall marketing system falls apart.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
So here's where my perspective comes from. I was working with this e-commerce client - over 1,000 products, Facebook Ads running at that 2.5 ROAS I mentioned. On paper, everything looked decent. Not great, but sustainable. The client was convinced they just needed to optimize their ad creative and targeting to get to profitability.
But something felt off. I started digging deeper into their attribution data, and that's when I discovered the problem. Their "direct" traffic was massive - way bigger than it should be for a store their size. People weren't just typing their URL randomly. Something else was driving that traffic.
After three months of investigating, we figured it out. A significant portion of their quality leads were coming from the founder's personal branding on LinkedIn. People would see his content, remember the brand, then Google it later or type the URL directly. Facebook's attribution model was completely missing this connection.
The "2.5 ROAS" was actually much lower when you accounted for the real customer journey. But more importantly, the LinkedIn content was generating higher-quality customers who stayed longer and bought more. We were optimizing the wrong channel entirely.
This wasn't an isolated case. I've seen this pattern repeatedly - businesses chasing PPC metrics while their real growth engine operates in the shadows. The metrics lie because they can't capture the complexity of how people actually buy.
The conventional approach treats marketing channels like they exist in vacuum-sealed containers. PPC metrics assume every click happens in isolation. SEO metrics assume every organic visitor arrived through search. Reality is messier, and the metrics reflect that mess poorly.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's the framework I developed after getting burned by misleading metrics too many times. Instead of tracking channel-specific vanity metrics, I focus on understanding the complete customer journey and measuring what actually drives business outcomes.
Step 1: Map the Real Customer Journey
Stop looking at last-click attribution. Start with your best customers and work backwards. Interview them. How did they actually discover you? Most businesses skip this step and rely on Google Analytics data, which misses 60% of the real story.
For that e-commerce client, we surveyed 100 recent customers. The results were eye-opening: 40% mentioned seeing the founder's LinkedIn content first, 30% found them through Google searches after hearing about them elsewhere, and only 20% converted directly from Facebook ads. The attribution model showed the exact opposite.
Step 2: Identify Your Real Distribution Channels
Look beyond the obvious. That "direct" traffic isn't magic - it's usually driven by brand awareness from other channels. Dark social, word-of-mouth, offline conversations, personal networks. These don't show up in your analytics but often drive your best customers.
I implemented UTM parameters for everything, set up proper cross-device tracking, and most importantly, added simple "How did you hear about us?" surveys at key conversion points. The data completely changed how we allocated marketing budget.
Step 3: Focus on Business Metrics, Not Channel Metrics
Here's what actually matters: Customer Lifetime Value by acquisition source, time to payback by channel, retention rates by traffic source, and total addressable market expansion. These metrics tell you which channels build sustainable businesses.
For the Shopify client, we discovered that LinkedIn-influenced customers had 3x higher LTV and 50% better retention rates. The Facebook ads brought in bargain hunters who churned quickly. This insight completely changed our strategy.
Step 4: Build Cross-Channel Attribution Models
Create custom attribution models that reflect your real customer journey. Use tools like Triple Whale or Northbeam for e-commerce, or build custom tracking in your CRM for B2B. The goal is understanding how channels work together, not just individual performance.
We implemented a weighted attribution model that gave partial credit to every touchpoint in the customer journey. Suddenly, LinkedIn content creation became our highest ROI activity, while Facebook ads shifted to a supporting role for retargeting warm audiences.
Attribution Mapping
Track every touchpoint in the customer journey, not just the last click before conversion
LTV by Source
Measure customer lifetime value by original acquisition channel to understand true channel quality
Retention Analysis
Compare retention rates across traffic sources to identify which channels bring lasting customers
Revenue Attribution
Build custom attribution models that reflect your actual sales process and customer behavior
The results were dramatic once we started measuring what actually mattered. That e-commerce client saw their true marketing ROI increase by 40% - not because we optimized click-through rates or quality scores, but because we reallocated budget to channels that drove real business value.
The LinkedIn content strategy became our primary acquisition channel. We reduced Facebook ad spend by 60% and reinvested in content creation and organic distribution. Within six months, monthly recurring customers increased by 80%, and more importantly, customer quality improved significantly.
Average order value increased from €45 to €67. Customer retention at 12 months jumped from 23% to 41%. The compound effect of focusing on the right metrics transformed the entire business trajectory. We weren't just getting more customers - we were getting better customers who stayed longer and bought more.
The attribution insights also revealed opportunities we'd missed. We discovered that customers who engaged with both LinkedIn content AND saw retargeting ads had conversion rates 5x higher than single-touchpoint customers. This led to sophisticated cross-channel campaigns that wouldn't exist without proper measurement.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from completely restructuring how I measure marketing performance:
Channel metrics lie, business metrics don't. You can optimize CPC to zero and still lose money if you're acquiring the wrong customers. Focus on metrics that correlate with actual business outcomes.
Attribution is broken everywhere. Every platform wants to take credit for your success. Build your own measurement systems that reflect how your customers actually behave, not how platforms want them to behave.
Brand awareness drives "direct" traffic. That mysterious direct traffic spike isn't mysterious - it's usually the result of brand building activities that don't get proper credit in your analytics.
Customer quality varies dramatically by source. A customer from organic search behaves completely differently from a customer from Facebook ads. Measure retention, LTV, and engagement by acquisition source.
Most businesses optimize too early. Before you optimize click-through rates, make sure you understand which clicks actually matter for your business. Many optimization efforts make bad channels slightly less bad instead of doubling down on what works.
Multi-touch attribution is hard but essential. The customer journey is complex. Single-touch attribution models miss most of the story and lead to terrible budget allocation decisions.
Correlation doesn't equal causation in marketing. Just because a metric improved doesn't mean that improvement drove business results. Always connect channel metrics to business outcomes before making strategic decisions.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups, focus on:
Trial-to-paid conversion rates by acquisition source
Customer acquisition cost including full customer journey
Revenue per customer by original marketing touchpoint
Churn rates within first 90 days by traffic source
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores, track:
Customer lifetime value by first interaction channel
Repeat purchase rates within 12 months by source
Average order value trends by acquisition method
Cross-device conversion paths and multi-touch attribution