With the new year upon us, many of us are thinking about new year’s resolutions. Exercise more. Organize the house. Manage finances better. All noble pursuits we dive into with enthusiasm…for about the first two weeks of January. By the end of the month, we’re back to old habits. Don’t let your marketing suffer the same fate as your exercise routine two weeks into January. Set SMART goals relevant to your growth strategy and choose the right KPIs to keep you on track from day 1 to day 365 of 2026.

Start With Strategy

If you’re not already thinking about your business strategically, the start of a new year is a great time to begin. You won’t get a clear picture of the effectiveness of your marketing strategy without analyzing KPIs. You can’t choose the right KPIs unless you’ve set goals that you can measure. And you can’t set the right goals unless they stem from our business strategy. To get started developing your strategic roadmap, see this article.

Setting Goals

New year’s resolutions are made to be broken because they tend not to be SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound). “I want to exercise more” is not specific or measurable (how much is “more”?) It might be achievable if we’re starting from zero; exercising even once is “more” than not at all. It’s not relevant because we haven’t identified why we’re exercising, and it’s not time-bound because we haven’t indicated any sort of time frame.

Once you’ve set your goals, check on your progress at regular intervals, monthly or quarterly. Adjust your expectations for seasonal fluctuations and make changes to your plans as necessary. It’s important that you don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy.

Choosing KPIs

You’ve set SMART goals for revenue growth. How do you know if you’re on the right path to achieving those goals? Metrics. Key performance indicators are the most important metrics you’ll use to determine success or failure.

KPIs are all about selecting the right data points and analyzing them in the right way. The right data points are the ones that relate directly to your goals. Some of these are shared between marketing and sales, which is why close collaboration between these two departments is important.

KPIs to Track

Here are a few examples of marketing KPIs that might be relevant to your goals in the new year. Not all of them will apply to you. The important thing is to interpret all metrics in context with each other and with your strategy. One number going up or down is meaningless on its own; what matters is how you make sense of the data.

Website Traffic: Chances are your website traffic was down year over year in 2025, due to Google's AI Overviews and changes to its search algorithms. Traffic should also be compared to search ranking. If everybody’s traffic is down, then your search ranking probably isn’t falling. But if your traffic is down and your ranking is falling as well, identify what has changed and rethink the ways you bring visitors to your website.

Website Conversions: This will be particularly important for B2B businesses as preference for online self-service continues to grow. To increase website conversions, optimize your website for fast checkout and make it easy for customers to get all of the information they need to make a decision, from educational blog posts to product catalogs to contact information for sales staff.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Customer lifetime value is the total revenue you expect a customer to generate over the course of your relationship. If you can determine this, you can compare it to your customer acquisition cost to determine your marketing ROI.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): CAC encompasses everything you spend to acquire a new customer: how much you pay each member of the marketing and sales teams, how much it costs to create content, how much you spend on ads. The ideal CAC to CLV ratio depends on your industry.

Email Click-through Rate: Email is still the most reliable way to get eyes on your products. Its importance has only grown as organic traffic from search engines and social media slows. But it’s not enough that leads are reading your emails; they need to be taking action and following the links in your emails.

Track Progress With a CRM

Since the data for these KPIs come from different departments by way of different analytical platforms, you’ll need a place to bring them together for analysis and action. Customer relationship management software (CRM) collects all of your data in one central location, accessible to everyone who needs to see it. In addition to the raw numbers, you’ll also have access to customer feedback, survey results, customer service interactions, and any other communications sales and marketing should be sharing to create a full picture of marketing effectiveness.

A Vision to Guide You Through 2026

It’s tempting to wing it given the uncertainty and instability in the world today, but facing this economy without a plan is likely to end in frustration and confusion. Your best guide through uncertain times is a clear vision. When you pair marketing strategy aligned with your growth goals with the technology that enables your marketing strategy, you gain the kind of proactive vision you need to blaze a safe trail through the coming year.