How do I know if my marketing is actually working?

In two sentences

Most small business owners track vanity metrics like followers and likes instead of the one number that matters: revenue from new customers. Start by asking every customer how they found you, check how many leads you are losing to missed calls and unchased quotes, and fix one gap before spending another penny on ads.

The deep dive

When a business owner says “my marketing is not working,” two things almost always stand out. First, all their effort is aimed at cold traffic (strangers with no connection to the business), which is the hardest and most expensive source of new customers. Second, the approach is scattergun: “I will try a few Facebook ads” with no strategy, no targeting, and no way of knowing whether it worked.

Before spending anything on marketing, answer five questions:

• How did your current customers actually find you? Ask them. Log the answers.
• How many happy customers have left a review or sent you a referral?
• Could you incentivise happy customers to recommend you?
• Are you missing leads from missed calls, slow follow-ups, or unchased quotes?
• Are website visitors leaving without making contact?

None of these require analytics software and none cost anything. They focus on converting people who are already interested, not finding new strangers.

Think of it like a football match. Commentators love talking about possession, shots on target, and expected goals. But the only real measure is the scoreline. If your team loses with 90% possession, those stats are meaningless noise. For a small business, revenue is the scoreline. Everything else is commentary.

A life insurance adviser was constantly missing calls during client meetings. He once missed five potential new clients in a single meeting. When he called back, four had already found someone else. A simple missed call text-back system with an AI agent produced 12 new appointments in six weeks. He did not need more marketing. He needed to stop losing the leads his marketing was already producing.

The first step is not an overhaul. Find one thing that is not working as well as it should be, and fix it. Ten unchased quotes in your inbox? Chase them. Leads arriving overnight? Set up an automated response. Happy customers who have never been asked for a review? Send them a message today.

Read the full blog post: How Do I Know If My Marketing Is Actually Working?