Last year, I sat in a boardroom in Milton with a business owner who was beaming with pride. He flicked a slide onto the screen showing a 400% increase in 'impressions' and a massive spike in Facebook likes. He looked at me like he’d just won the Lotto.
I had to be the jerk in the room. I asked him, "That’s great, Bruce, but did you actually sell more plumbing supplies?"
The silence was deafening. His bank account hadn't moved an inch.
This is the problem with most "beginner's guides" to marketing KPIs. They give you a grocery list of twenty different metrics to track—CPC, CTR, CPM, Reach, Engagement—without telling you that 90% of them are complete garbage for a small-to-medium business. If you aren't Coca-Cola, you don't have the budget to care about 'brand sentiment.' You need to care about cash flow.
At Local Marketing Group, we see this constantly. Agencies hide behind 'vanity metrics' because they are easy to move. It’s easy to get you more likes; it’s hard to get you more profit. If you’re tired of stop chasing likes while your revenue stagnates, this is for you.
The KPI Hierarchy: Signal vs. Noise
Most marketing reports are what I call 'Data Graveyards.' They are places where numbers go to die, buried under colourful charts that don't actually tell you what to do next. To fix this, you have to understand the difference between a leading indicator and a lagging indicator.
- Lagging Indicator: Profit. It tells you what happened in the past. It’s the ultimate truth, but it’s too late to change it once you see it. - Leading Indicator: Qualified leads. This tells you what is going to happen to your profit in a month’s time.
If you spend all your time measuring noise, you’ll never see the train wreck coming until it hits your P&L statement.
Let’s look at the only three metrics that actually matter for a growing Australian SMB.
1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The 'Price of Admission'
I recently spoke with a boutique gym owner in Newstead. She was spending $2,000 a month on Google Ads and getting about 20 new members. She thought she was killing it.
But when we crunched the numbers, her CAC wasn't just the $100 in ad spend per person. It was the ad spend + the agency fee + the time her staff spent on sales calls. Her real CAC was $250. The problem? Most members only stayed for three months, paying $60 a week. After GST and overheads, she was actually losing money on every new customer for the first four months.
The Hard Truth: If you don't know your CAC down to the cent, you aren't marketing; you’re gambling.
How to track it: Total Sales & Marketing Spend / Number of New Customers Acquired. Note: Include your software costs and agency fees. Don't lie to yourself.
2. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): The 'Survival Metric'
This is where Brisbane businesses either thrive or die. LTV is the total amount of money a customer will spend with you before they leave for a competitor.
In the Australian market, where the cost of living is biting and ad costs on Meta and Google are skyrocketing, you cannot afford to be a 'one-hit-wonder.' If you run a cafe in Paddington and a customer comes in once because of an Instagram ad but never returns, your marketing failed. I don't care how pretty the photo was.
If your LTV is less than 3x your CAC, you have a broken business model, not a marketing problem. You’re essentially paying for the privilege of working.
3. Conversion Rate by Channel (The 'BS Detector')
This is my personal favourite because it exposes lazy agencies. An agency might tell you your website traffic is up 50%. Great. But if that traffic is coming from a bot farm in another country or people looking for 'free' stuff when you sell premium services, it's useless.
You need to know which specific channel is driving the money. Is it Google Search? Is it your email list? Is it that local sponsorship you did for the Brisbane Lions?
Side note: This is where most people's data falls apart. If you haven't set up your tracking properly, your GA4 is likely telling you lies. I’ve seen so many accounts where a bad UTM strategy makes it look like all your sales are coming from 'Direct' traffic, when they actually started on social media. It makes you turn off ads that are actually working.
Stop Tracking 'Engagement'—It Doesn't Pay the Rent
I’m going to say something controversial: Stop looking at your social media engagement rates.
Unless you are an influencer selling vitamins, a 'Share' or a 'Like' is a micro-metric that rarely correlates with revenue. I have seen businesses with 500 followers do $2M in annual revenue, and I’ve seen 'viral' brands with 50k followers go bankrupt because they couldn't convert attention into an invoice.
In 2026, the algorithm is smarter than you. It knows who is likely to click and who is likely to buy. If you optimise for engagement, the platform will find you people who like to click 'Like' buttons but never take their credit card out of their wallet.
Practical Steps to Clean Up Your Data Today
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don't try to build a NASA-grade dashboard. Start here:
1. Define a 'Conversion' properly: It’s not a page view. It’s a phone call, a form submission, or a sale. 2. Audit your sources: Look at your last 10 customers. Do you actually know how they found you? If the answer is "word of mouth," ask them deeper questions. They might have heard about you from a friend, but then they Googled you and saw your 5-star reviews. That Google presence is a KPI. 3. Kill the fluff: If a metric doesn't help you make a decision (e.g., "Should I spend more on X or Y?"), stop reporting on it.
The 'So What?' Test
Every time your marketing person or agency sends you a report, look at every number and ask: "So what?"
- "Our reach is up 20%." So what? - "Our cost per click dropped by 10 cents." So what?
If they can't answer that question by linking it back to your bank account or your pipeline of future work, they are blowing smoke.
Marketing in Queensland is getting more competitive. Whether you’re a tradie in Logan or a tech startup in the Valley, you can't afford to waste budget on 'awareness' that doesn't lead to an outcome.
Focus on the few numbers that actually move the needle. Your stress levels—and your accountant—will thank you.
Ready to stop guessing and start growing? At Local Marketing Group, we help Brisbane businesses cut through the data noise and focus on profit. Contact us today to see how we can help you build a marketing strategy that actually works.