After my recent piece on top-of-funnel, often mis-termed “vanity” metrics, I had a few folks reach out to me asking variations of the same question.

• “We hear you. But how do we actually use these metrics without getting distracted?”
• “How do we know which top-of-funnel numbers are telling us something useful?”
• “How do we connect all this to real business outcomes?”

Those questions are still coming through, so I figured I would write this follow-up post on how to use top-of-funnel metrics the right way. 

Read More: 5 Big Threats To Your Business Success — And None Is External

1. Stop treating top-of-funnel metrics as targets

This is where things usually start to go wrong. 

Metrics like impressions, reach, views, and awareness should rarely be goals on their own. The moment you turn them into targets, people start gaming them, and the numbers lose meaning. 

Instead, treat them like sensors that exist to give you important insights:

• Is demand building or fading?
• Are we getting in front of the right people?
• Is something changing before revenue does?

Because if your awareness doubles but nothing downstream moves, that’s not success, it’s a clue that needs to be followed.

2. Use them to spot momentum, not “success”

Top-of-funnel metrics are best read over time, not in isolation. Just as a bad week doesn’t mean a bad strategy, when it comes to top-of-funnel metrics, a single spike means very little. A consistent trend, however, can mean a lot.

Trends and patterns tell you where to focus and not whether you should celebrate. Keeping a keen eye on them can make a big difference in how you modify your strategy to improve bottom-of-funnel conversion.

Examples of some patterns to look out for include:

• Rising reach paired with improving mid-funnel engagement
• Stable awareness but falling consideration (message problem)
• Growing traffic with flat conversions (intent mismatch)

 3. Tie every top-of-funnel metric to a downstream question

A simple rule that works surprisingly well is that if you can’t answer “so what”, then the metric probably doesn’t matter. You don’t always need perfect attribution, just directional clarity. 

For example:

• Reach – “Is it reaching people who later convert?”
• Engagement – “Does this audience move deeper into the funnel?”
• Traffic → Does this traffic behave differently from other sources?

4. Use the top of the funnel to decide when to scale

I could teach an entire masterclass on this point. This is one of the most practical uses of top-of-funnel metrics, and one that’s often missed.

Top-of-funnel signals help you decide whether the engine is ready, and not just how hard to press the accelerator. If awareness is growing but engagement is weak, scaling spend just magnifies inefficiency.

Before you pour more money into acquisition, top-of-funnel metrics should tell you:

• The message is resonating
• The audience is responding consistently
• The system can handle more volume

5. Watch for early warning signs, not just growth signals

These metrics aren’t only for expansion, they’re for protection.

A drop in awareness today often shows up as a revenue problem tomorrow, in the same way a shift in engagement quality can signal fatigue before conversions drop.

Used properly, top-of-funnel metrics buy you time. They give you a chance to adjust before leadership starts asking uncomfortable questions.

6. Better judgement not more data 

This is the part that matters most.

Top-of-funnel metrics don’t replace outcomes, they support decision-making. Used correctly, they help you ask better questions, move earlier, and scale more confidently.

The mistake isn’t paying attention to them, rather paying attention without context, intent, or discipline.

Conclusion

My first post was about reclaiming the so-called “vanity” metrics from the trash bin, but this one is about putting them back where they belong as tools, not trophies.

Used well, they help you scale with confidence. Conversely, if you ignore them, they can leave you blind at the worst possible moment (and no one wants to explain that slide in a top management or board meeting!).

Remember, if you need help building your growth engine for scale, I’m just one contact away. 

I recently attended a strategy session for one of my clients, a financial services company looking to scale business growth via digital acquisitions. In engagements before now, they had echoed some of the sentiments I hear a lot of when talking to those just starting their growth marketing journey:

• “The bottom line is that X people downloaded the app.”
• “What matters is how many accounts were opened.”
• “Let’s focus on real outcomes.”

I’ll be honest, that’s a reasonable position to hold. Who cares about “vanity metrics” like impressions and clicks? Afterall, revenue is what pays salaries. KPIs like downloads, accounts opened etc are what keep management and the board calm. Actual conversions are easy to point at and say, “This worked”. 

However, a key point I made to them during the strategy session – if you are responsible for growth, rather than just reporting numbers at the end of the month, thinking that way can get you into serious trouble, fast. Why? Because the bottom of the funnel does not exist in isolation. Let’s take a closer look.

Read More: The Data Trap: Why a Bad Week Doesn’t Mean a Bad Strategy
. 

What factors affect the bottom of the funnel?

People don’t just wake up one day and download an app they’ve never heard of. They don’t open accounts with brands they don’t recognise or trust. Every “real” outcome has a backstory. Someone saw you, then they saw you again. Then they started paying attention, and, then they acted eventually (hopefully😅).

See? This means that when you only care about the bottom of the funnel, you’re basically saying, “I don’t care how we got here, just show me the result.” That might work, but trust me, only for a while.

Growth isn’t a moment; it’s a flow

One of the hardest parts of managing growth is that the results lag the work. 

By the time downloads slow down, the real problem usually happened weeks earlier: maybe awareness dropped, maybe targeting drifted, maybe messaging stopped resonating. That’s why “set it and forget it” is a recipe for marketing disaster. You’ve got to constantly check what’s going on with your growth funnel.

Top- and mid-funnel metrics are how you catch those things early. They’re not the goal, but they’re the signals that tell you whether the system is healthy. Ignoring them is like refusing to look at your fuel gauge because you only care about arriving.

Are “vanity metrics” really useless in growth marketing? 

Nope, they are just misunderstood. 

It’s true that impressions on their own don’t mean much. Yes, reach doesn’t pay rent. Engagement definitely won’t show up as revenue in your bank account. However, those numbers answer important questions:

• Are we reaching the right people at all?
• Is our message landing or being ignored?
• Is awareness growing or shrinking?
• Are we warming up demand or letting it go cold?

There’s no magic to it. If the top of your funnel is weak, the bottom will eventually feel it. You can optimise conversion rates all you want, but you can’t convert people who were never there in the first place.

The real issue isn’t vanity, it’s laziness

Not all metrics deserve attention, because some of them are genuinely fluff. The main work is knowing which ones matter — which channels drive conversion, which audiences show real intent over time, and signals consistently show up before growth spikes or drops.

That’s not vanity. That’s doing the job properly. 

This means as a growth marketer, you’ve got to not only know which metrics matter and which don’t, but you have to actually put in the work to make sense of them and leverage them in making smarter decisions.

So yes, colour me vain

If being “vain” means paying attention to awareness, consideration, and intent before they magically turn into revenue, then fine. I’ll own it. You should, too, as a growth marketer.

Because sustainable growth doesn’t come from staring at the bottom of the funnel and hoping for the best. It comes from making sure there’s always something flowing into it, and that you’re paying attention before it runs dry.

If you need support making sense of the different metrics along your entire growth funnel, I’d be happy to help. Just drop me a note, and let’s catch up.

Key Takeaways

• Not every growth problem requires AI; many businesses simply need clearer processes and automation.
• AI works best when your foundation (workflows, data, team readiness) is already solid.
• Knowing what problem you’re trying to solve makes choosing the right solution far easier.

Everywhere you turn, someone is talking about AI. There are so many new tools, new breakthroughs, new promises. AI is all around us, and changing how we work, think and build. 

In my interactions with business owners, however, I observe that in the middle of all that excitement, something important keeps getting missed: AI isn’t automatically the answer to every growth problem. In fact, for many businesses, AI isn’t even the first answer. What they need very urgently is automation.

Read More: 7 Ways You’re Leaving Food on the Table with Your Marketing

Automation: How Well Do You Know What You Need?

The surprising part in all of this is that most leaders already feel the need for automations, they just can’t articulate it. Teams are stretched thin, processes feel heavier than they should, and everyone senses that growth is within reach, but something in the engine always feels like it needs to be tweaked and tuned. 

Before chasing the next AI upgrade, it’s worth pausing to ask a simple but powerful question:
“Are our operations actually stable enough to benefit from AI?” This is a crucial question, because without the right structure, AI doesn’t fix inefficiency. Rather, it amplifies it.

Automation vs. AI: Why the Sequence Matters

Think of automation as the solid flooring of your business, and think of AI as the high-end furniture, the beautiful art, the smart upgrades that make the space come alive.

You need the flooring first. Automation gives you consistency, and AI gives you intelligence. If you don’t have consistency, then that intelligence simply becomes noise.  

5 Signs You Need Automation Before AI

Here are five easy-to-spot signals that your organisation needs to automate the basics before introducing more sophisticated AI layers:

1. Your team is drowning in repetitive, manual tasks

If your best people spend their mornings copying, sending, nudging or reconciling instead of creating value, automation is what will unlock their capacity.

2. Your data lives everywhere—and nowhere

When you have multiple dashboards, scattered spreadsheets, and dashboards no one fully trusts, AI won’t fix the confusion. Automation creates a single point of truth that AI can build on.

3. Your workflows depend on “the one person who knows how it’s done”

If your operations crumble when someone is off-duty, automation helps you institutionalise process knowledge instead of relying on memory.

4. Small tasks require big coordination

If something as simple as approvals, follow-ups, or updates requires meetings or long Slack threads, automation helps streamline the entire chain.

5. You can’t scale without hiring more people

This is one of the clearest signs. If growth equals more headcount, you likely need automated systems, not necessarily an expensive AI pivot.

So, Where Does AI Fit In?

Once your processes are clean, your systems talk to each other, and your team isn’t stretched, then AI becomes a powerful accelerator. Businesses that sequence Automation and AI correctly don’t just grow, but do so efficiently, with clarity and momentum.

AI is incredible, and Automation is essential. However, when you understand what your business needs right now, you unlock growth without guesswork or impulse decisions. If you’re exploring how to strike the right balance between both or you’re unsure which one your business is truly ready for, I’m always happy to offer perspective. Be sure to contact me, and let’s discuss this more.

Key Takeaways

• Real progress often shows up quietly through efficiency, quality, or customer behaviour shifts.
• Tracking these subtle signals helps teams stay motivated, even when it seems like revenue is lagging.
• Celebrating small but meaningful wins builds the confidence needed to scale growth.

If you ask most business leaders how they measure growth, you’re very likely to hear the same two answers on repeat: revenue and customer numbers. In fairness, that’s not far-fetched, because those two metrics are important. They tell you whether the business is commercially sound and whether your market still cares about what you’re offering.

However, there’s actually a whole layer of growth that hides beneath the two more obvious numbers. And when businesses don’t recognise these quieter indicators, they miss out on valuable insight to help them scale even faster, and, equally important, they miss out on motivation.

Read More: ‘Set It and Forget It’ Might Be the Worst Thing for Your Marketing

Non-Revenue Signs of Business Growth

Sometimes a business is making genuine progress, but because it’s not showing up yet in revenue or volume, everyone assumes “nothing is happening.” Let’s talk about signs of growth that may not get splashy dashboards or loud applause, but still deserve attention. 

1. Better Customer Quality 

Not every customer contributes the same value. If your recent customers are more engaged, more active, or buying higher-value products, that can be a key sign of growth. This can show up in different ways, such as higher retention, more frequent usage, lower complaints from new customers etc. All of which signal that your acquisition strategy is becoming sharper and your product is resonating with your ideal customers.

2. More Efficient Internal Processes 

Growth isn’t only about selling more, but also wasting less. In most of the global companies I’ve worked at, early signs of growth often appeared as faster internal turnaround times, fewer back-and-forths between teams, clearer handovers, and even reduced leakage in the customer journey. These might look like small operational improvements, but trust me, they compound. Efficiency creates both capacity and savings, which are two critical elements that fuel sustainable growth long before revenue peaks.

3. Improved Team Alignment 

Alignment is often the bridge between strategy and execution. When your teams begin to speak the same language about goals, priorities, and what success actually looks like, then you know that you’re growing.

Some of the things you’ll notice include fewer contradictory campaigns, less “who owns what?” confusion, and better-quality conversations around what truly moves the needle. Once you have this in place, you can be sure the growth results are likely to follow really quickly. 

4. More Constructive Customer Feedback 

When customer feedback evolves from vague complaints (“It’s not working”) to specific actionable commentary (“This feature would help me do X”), it means customers see value and expect more from you. And while it can be hard to swallow, tougher feedback can be a sign of trust. It shows the customers believe that you’re able to improve, and they care enough to give you feedback, because they plan to stay.  

Why Do These Indicators Matter?

Growth is rarely linear. It tends to show up as progress that is felt, even before it can be measured. Recognising these non-revenue signs gives you clarity, which helps to stay patient. It also gives you the confidence to stay committed to the growth strategy you are implementing, rather than rush off in a different direction because of a week with bad results. 

And celebrating these wins motivates your team to continue doing the work that eventually drives the big numbers everyone wants to see.

In Summary

Revenue and customer numbers are important, but they’re lagging indicators. If you want a more honest view of how your business is evolving, start paying attention to the subtle shifts in quality, alignment, efficiency and feedback. They’re often the earliest clues that you’re building something resilient.

I work with leadership teams to sharpen strategy, strengthen operations, and create marketing engines that deliver real value. 

If your business needs support in identifying the right growth indicators or building the systems to actually improve them, feel free to connect with me and let’s explore ways to work together. 

Key Takeaways

• Increasing marketing budgets isn’t always the answer; increasing customer value is.
• Focus on retention, engagement, and shared value to deepen relationships with existing customers.
• Sustainable growth comes from aligning teams, simplifying customer experiences, and measuring what truly matters.

Over the past nine months, I’ve been supporting a financial services client on an ambitious mission to exponentially scale digital customer acquisition. I’m not talking some modest 20% or even 2x growth, but some really exponential growth! That level of ambition is exciting, but it also highlights a truth many growth teams face, which is that the budget rarely matches the aspiration.

Read More: Know When to Hold On, When to Let Go: Lessons in Digital Growth from Kenny Rogers and a Bank That Wanted Customers

Every Progress Counts

In this case, progress came, but not very easily, as there were numerous blockers along the entire onboarding journey. Within the first few months of tackling those issues, we successfully cut cost per acquisition by over 50% by sharpening segmentation and targeting, improving messaging, and deploying an overall more effective channel mix. We also plugged multiple leaks in the onboarding process and built a full-funnel visibility framework that now allows the team to track performance from impression to conversion. 

This is the approach I always encourage, and what sits at the heart of my “more value marketing” value proposition – you may not have all the marketing and growth resources you would like, but how can you make what you do have work better and go farther?

The Customer Value Conversation

Back to the story. Even though we had seen strong signs of progress and results, the discomfort around scaling growth spend to achieve more results remained. Even though it was clear that these results were now being driven at a significantly lower cost. 

It became clear very quickly, however, that the issue wasn’t the inefficiency (or reduction thereof), but that their digital customers had historically been low value. For years, growth had been defined by volume and the number of new customers acquired, rather than the value those customers generated.

This is actually quite a common challenge. When acquisition is the main metric of success, businesses often end up attracting the wrong type of customers. These customers tend to be the ones who may convert quickly but contribute little over time.

Making The Shift: Quality Over Quantity

Because I had seen this happen quite a bit over the course of my career and consulting work, one of the things I made clear from the outset was that this engagement had to be about more than just acquiring new customers. It had to extend to increasing customer value and retention. Because ultimately, the price you can afford to pay for growth depends on the value you can extract from each customer relationship. 

If your business faces similar tensions where you want to achieve high growth targets, but have to contend with lean budgets and rising acquisition costs, the solution isn’t to cut your growth marketing spend. It’s to increase customer value. Here’s how to do just that.

7 Practical Ways To Increase Customer Value

1. Know Your Real Customers

Not everyone who clicks your ad or fills a form is a valuable customer. Look at your existing base and ask, who brings the most revenue? Who stays the longest? Build your future acquisition strategy around these insights. It’s key to segment your customers not just by demographics but by value, and use metrics like lifetime value (LTV) and retention rate, not just sign-up volume.

2. Make the First Experience Simple

Onboarding is typically where customer intent meets friction. Even a few unnecessary steps can drop conversion and damage brand trust. Review your onboarding flow end-to-end, remove barriers, automate repetitive steps, and personalize early interactions. The first impression must feel seamless and not transactional, and this applies whether your business is digital or offline.

3. Don’t Just Acquire Customers, Engage Them

Acquisition may be what fills the funnel, but retention is what fuels the business. It’s been demonstrated that investing in loyal customers is a smart business move, as such customers tend to be consistently more profitable than newly acquired ones. It’s, therefore, important to design your operations and business model for sustained customer engagement. Offer post-purchase support, rewards, and meaningful content. The goal is to make your customers stay because they see value, which makes it tougher for the competition to win them.

4. Lead With Value, Not Discounts

Discount-heavy acquisition strategies tend to attract low-commitment customers who are just in for what they can immediately get. Rather, shift the conversation from “cheap” to “valuable” by offering insights, convenience, or exclusivity that aligns with customer aspirations. Customers who connect emotionally with your value proposition are far more durable than those chasing the next promo.

5. Measure What Actually Makes A Difference

Many teams are drowning in dashboards, but there’s barely any insight coming from them. Metrics like clicks and impressions might create comfort, but you need a whole lot more to get clarity. Prioritize metrics that highlight performance and results, such as lifetime value, churn rate, retention cost, and customer satisfaction. Then close the loop by feeding these insights back into acquisition and product decisions. 

6. Get Everyone On The Same Page

One of the biggest threats to your business is a team that works in silos. When product, marketing, and operations run separate playbooks, growth becomes way harder to achieve. To fix this, introduce shared objectives, such as OKRs, that connect departmental goals to customer value outcomes. In order to achieve business success, growth must feel like a coordinated effort, and not a competition for resources.

7. Listen to Your Customers

Data tells you what happened, but customer feedback tells you why. This makes it vital to make feedback loops an integral part of your growth process. Use surveys, reviews, and social insights to understand emerging needs. Acting on this intelligence not only improves satisfaction but also increases share of wallet.

Conclusion

If your acquisition feels expensive, your customer value is likely too low. The worst part is that increasing budgets without improving value won’t make it better; it only accelerates inefficiency. The goal should be to create meaningful relationships with customers, as sustainable growth happens when each customer relationship becomes more meaningful, more profitable, and more enduring.

Before you cut your marketing spend or chase the next campaign trend, step back and ask – How much value are we actually creating per customer?

If your organization is looking to increase customer value or optimize acquisition efficiency, I’d be happy to help. Reach out, and let’s explore how we can collaborate to build a growth system that truly impacts the bottom line.

Key Takeaways

• Start with business goals, not tool features.
• Audit your current stack before adding anything new.
• Negotiate and test before you commit.
  

Earlier this year, I started working with a financial services client looking to significantly scale their digital acquisition. They rather proudly shared their marketing setup. They had tools for email marketing, tools for CRM, tools for social scheduling, tools for analytics…you name it, they had it. On paper, it looked impressive. But when I dug deeper as part of my project kick-off audit, I noticed there seemed to be quite a bit of overlap on many fronts. They were paying for multiple tools that did similar things, while still struggling with gaps in customer insights.

Read More: If He Fails, The World Will End.

This issue isn’t unique to just this company, though. I’ve seen it again and again. Businesses get caught up in “stack envy”, where tools are added to the martech stack not because they work together with what already exists or solve actual problems, but because they sound good in a pitch deck. If you find yourself toeing this line, here’s how to avoid falling into the

How to Choose the Right Marketing Technology Tools

1. Start with Your Goals, Not the Tool

Your goals should dictate the marketing tools you get, not the other way around. Buying tools because they’re trendy is like buying gym equipment before deciding if you actually want to do cardio or strength training. Before you even look at software demos, ask:

• What are we really trying to achieve?
• Do we want to acquire more leads, improve conversion, retain customers, or all of the above?
   

2. Map What You Already Have

Here’s where most businesses miss it. They don’t properly analyse their current tools to identify whether there is a real need. To avoid this mistake, a few things can help:

• List every tool your team uses.
• Write down what function it serves.
• Check for overlaps (e.g., two CRMs being used by different departments).
• Identify gaps (e.g., no tool for customer feedback or social listening).
  

This exercise can lead to quite a few surprises. Sometimes, the tool you need is already there, you just aren’t using it to full capacity.

3. Ask the Right Questions Before You Buy

When evaluating new marketing tools, don’t just focus on features. Ask these crucial questions to avoid shiny-object syndrome:

• Will this work well with what we already use (integration)?
• Will it still serve us when we double in size (scalability)?
• Will my team actually use it, or will it collect dust (adoption)?
• How responsive is the vendor when things go wrong (support)?
   

 4. Test Before You Commit

Most vendors offer trials or pilot programs. In fact, if it’s not offered by default, ask for it. Give the tool to the people who’ll actually use it daily, not just management. If it slows them down or breaks the existing systems, then it’s not the right fit. No matter how great the sales pitch sounded, never commit to a tool that breaks more than it fixes. 

5. Negotiation Is Part of the Process

Too many companies forget this, yet software pricing should not be accepted at face value. In fact, vendors expect negotiation, especially when you’re buying multiple seats or longer contracts. You’d be surprised how often vendors agree when you simply ask. Some negotiation areas include:

• Discounts for annual billing.
• Flexibility to scale up or down.
• Added support or onboarding services. 

6. Think Long-Term

Your marketing tech stack isn’t just for today, it’s for the business you’re evolving into. Choose tools that can grow with you, so you’re not constantly ripping and replacing.

Conclusion

The right marketing tech stack doesn’t come from having the “most tools.” It comes from having the right mix of tools that actually work together to meet your goals. In many cases, these tools don’t come cheap, so it’s crucial to drive efficiency by ensuring there are no overlaps that end up wasting money or opportunities. Ultimately, the tech stack should serve your marketing strategy and not the other way around. 

Need a reminder for when you need to add a tool to your marketing technology stack? Be sure to save the handy checklist below.