Module 4: Measure What Matters
Five numbers tell you everything: traffic, activation, conversion, CAC, LTV. Real benchmarks, a simple lead-scoring system, and the dashboard that keeps you honest.
The 5 Startup Metrics
Five numbers tell you everything about your marketing. Not fifty — five. Traffic: are people finding you at all? Activation: do visitors actually try the thing (sign up, start a trial, use the core feature)? Conversion rate: what percentage move from visitor to lead to customer? CAC (customer acquisition cost): total sales and marketing spend divided by new customers — what each customer costs you. LTV (lifetime value): average revenue per customer multiplied by how long they stay — what each customer is worth.
The only ratio that matters early is LTV to CAC. If a customer is worth $900 over their lifetime and costs $200 to acquire, your ratio is 4.5 — healthy. The rule of thumb: keep LTV:CAC at 3 or better. Below 3, you're growing yourself broke; above 5, you're probably under-investing in growth. Every other metric is a diagnostic that explains why the ratio is what it is.
Ignore the vanity metrics: follower counts, raw page views with no action, total signups with no activation. They feel good and mean nothing. A thousand followers and zero trials is a worse business than fifty visitors and ten trials. Measure what you'd bet money on — because with CAC and LTV, you literally are.
The funnel with typical conversion benchmarks
Build brief
What's your current CAC? If you don't know it exactly, write your best estimate — and what you'd need to start tracking to know it for real.
Saved
Conversion Benchmarks
Benchmarks turn your numbers from trivia into decisions. These are typical ranges — compare against your own trend first, industry second, and treat every number below as "roughly," not gospel:
Landing pages: 2–5% visitor-to-lead is typical; 5%+ is strong. Below 2%, fix the page before buying traffic — you're pouring water into a leaky bucket. Email capture forms: 1–3% of visitors is normal. Email performance: 20–30% open rates, 2–5% click rates — below that, your subject lines or list quality need work. Waitlist to customer: 20–40% for a warm, nurtured list. Trial to paid: 15–25% for self-serve products is a solid range. Personalized CTAs — calls to action tailored to what you know about the visitor — convert roughly twice as well as one-size-fits-all buttons.
Here's how to use them: find your biggest gap versus the benchmark, fix exactly that, and re-measure. Landing page at 1.1%? Rewrite the headline and simplify the form before you touch anything else. Email opens at 12%? Fix subject lines and list hygiene before writing more emails. One bottleneck at a time — the funnel is only as strong as its weakest stage, and you can only fix one thing well at once.
Benchmarks
Typical conversion ranges
Build brief
Design your lead score: list 5 buying signals (mix explicit and implicit) with points for each, and set your sales-ready threshold.
Saved
Lead Scoring
Not all leads deserve the same urgency. Lead scoring ranks every lead so your limited time goes to the hottest ones first — and it's simpler than it sounds: assign points for buying signals, and anyone above your threshold gets fast, personal follow-up.
Build the 100-point version: pricing page visit = 25 points. Email opened = 5, link clicked = 10. Demo requested = 40. Right job title = 15. Visited three times in a week = 15. Set your sales-ready threshold at 50 — anyone at 50+ gets a personal call or email within the hour. The data on speed is unambiguous: leads contacted within minutes convert dramatically better than leads contacted tomorrow. Speed is a feature.
Everyone below 50 isn't dead — they're nurture leads. They go into your email sequence (Module 5) until their score climbs. And score decay matters: subtract points when someone goes quiet for 60 days, so your "hot" list stays honest. A scoring system you never prune becomes a participation trophy — comforting and useless.
Build brief
Which of the 5 metrics is your biggest leak right now? Write the one number you'd fix first, and the specific change you'd test.
Saved
Two leads come in. Ana downloaded a free ebook. Ben visited your pricing page twice, opened five emails, and started a trial. You have time for one personal follow-up today. Who gets it?
Unit economics calculator
Plug in your real numbers — the ratio at the bottom tells you if the business works.
CAC — cost per customer:0
LTV — lifetime value:0
LTV:CAC ratio (3+ is healthy):0
Payback period (months):0
Your turn: Build your metrics dashboard: the 5 numbers, their current values (best estimates are fine), and your targets 90 days from now.
Saved.
Your next 24 hours
Set up your analytics baseline today: confirm you're tracking traffic, signups, and the source of each signup. If you're tracking nothing, install the basics — future you says thanks.
Steal this template
THE 100-POINT LEAD SCORE
Explicit (what they tell you):
☐ Right job title: +15
☐ Company size fit: +10
☐ Budget confirmed: +20
Implicit (what they do):
☐ Pricing page visit: +25
☐ Email link clicked: +10
☐ 3+ visits in a week: +15
☐ Trial started: +30
Sales-ready threshold: 50 → personal follow-up within the hour.
Decay: −20 after 60 days quiet.
Module cheat sheet
- The 5 metrics: traffic, activation, conversion rate, CAC, LTV.
- LTV:CAC of 3+ is healthy; below 3 you're growing broke.
- Landing pages: 2–5% typical, 5%+ strong. Personalized CTAs convert ~2x generic.
- Lead scoring: explicit signals (told you) + implicit signals (behavior) = priority.
- 50+ points = sales-ready: follow up within the hour. Speed is a feature.
- Fix one bottleneck at a time — the funnel is only as strong as its weakest stage.