Blog Post

One of the most common issues I see with KPI tracking? Teams are measuring things—but they’re not measuring the right things. The KPIs are technically correct… but strategically off.

That’s what happens when you set KPIs in isolation. They look great on a dashboard but fail to reflect what the business is actually trying to achieve.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through how I align KPIs with business goals—from initial goal-setting to strategy mapping and execution. Because tracking random metrics isn’t insight. It’s just busywork with charts.

• The difference between “interesting data” and “strategic KPIs”
  
• My process for aligning marketing KPIs with business objectives
  
• How to map KPIs across different funnel stages
  
• Examples of aligned vs misaligned KPIs
  
• Mistakes to avoid when connecting performance to goals

Your business goals are your destination. Your KPIs are your GPS.

If they’re not aligned, you might look like you’re moving—but you’re heading in the wrong direction. I’ve seen this play out too many times:

• A campaign drives 1,000 leads… that don’t convert
  
• A team hits their email open rate goal… but sales stay flat
  
• A dashboard shows “growth”… but no one knows what kind
  

Good KPIs reflect progress on real business goals. Anything else is noise.

Not every goal is KPI-ready. You want goals that are:

• Clear
  
• Measurable
  
• Prioritized
  
• Agreed on by leadership and execution teams
  

Some common business goals:

• Increase revenue by 15% this year
  
• Improve customer retention by 10%
  
• Launch a new product line successfully
  
• Grow market share in a specific region
  

From here, you can reverse-engineer KPIs that track whether your marketing strategy is supporting those outcomes.

Here’s how I structure this for clients:

Start with one clear goal. For example:

“Grow annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 20% in 2025.”

In the above example, levers might be:

• Increase trial signups
  
• Improve onboarding conversion
  
• Reduce customer churn
  
• Boost upsell revenue
  

Marketing won’t own all of these, but it will influence several.

Now set KPIs that show movement on the levers:

• Trial-to-paid conversion rate
  
• Engagement with onboarding emails
  
• Nurture campaign-driven upsell revenue
  
• Churn rate from marketing-qualified leads
  

Each KPI now connects to something that matters to the business—not just to the campaign.

To truly align with business goals, you need to map KPIs across the full customer journey—not just the top.

Here’s how I break it down:

Funnel Stage	Business Goal	Example KPI
Awareness	Brand growth	Increase branded search volume by 15% in 90 days
Consideration	Educate leads	30% increase in eBook downloads by target persona
Conversion	Close deals	20% lift in SQL-to-customer conversion rate
Retention	Reduce churn	Decrease churn rate for new users to <8%
Expansion	Drive upsells	15% of existing customers engaged with upgrade offers

Each KPI supports movement toward a goal. That’s alignment.

Let’s make this real.

Goal: Grow ARR by 20%
Aligned KPI: Increase trial-to-paid conversion rate to 25%
Misaligned KPI: Grow webinar attendance by 40%
(Unless that webinar directly drives conversions, it’s a distraction.)

Goal: Increase repeat purchases
Aligned KPI: 15% increase in second-order purchase rate within 30 days
Misaligned KPI: Increase Instagram likes
(Great for awareness—but useless if it doesn’t lead to retention.)

Goal: Reduce churn among high-value clients
Aligned KPI: Increase engagement with onboarding emails from 40% to 60%
Misaligned KPI: Improve email open rates across newsletter list
(Not all opens are equal—targeted retention content matters more.)

Aligning once isn’t enough. You need to check and update regularly.

Here’s how I help teams stay in sync:

• Quarterly KPI reviews: Revisit business goals and ensure KPIs still fit
  
• Team KPI mapping: Ensure marketing, sales, and customer success KPIs ladder up to shared goals
  
• Use one source of truth: Whether it’s a dashboard, a doc, or your CRM—everyone should see the same data
  

If one team’s celebrating and the other’s panicking, your KPIs aren’t aligned.

Pretty dashboards ≠ performance.
Fix: Start from the goal. Work backward.

What matters to sales might not matter to marketing.
Fix: Customize KPIs by team, but tie them to the same strategic goal.

If no one knows what to do when the number changes, why track it?
Fix: Assign ownership and define actions tied to each KPI.

For more traps to avoid, see this guide on KPI tracking mistakes.

KPIs aren’t just performance metrics—they’re strategy indicators.

When they’re aligned with your business goals, they become powerful tools for:

• Focus
  
• Clarity
  
• Growth
  
• Accountability
  

If your current KPIs don’t make your goals easier to reach—or clearer to measure—it’s time to reassess.

Start with one big goal. Identify the levers that influence it. Set 3–5 KPIs that reflect those levers. Then build your reporting and campaigns around them.

Because alignment isn’t just a buzzword. It’s how strategy turns into results.