Measurement and analytics
The website KPIs to put in front of management every month
Ilyes Massoudi7 min readThe short answer
A monthly digital presence report a non-technical manager can read needs eight KPIs, not eighty: enquiries by source, cost per enquiry from ads, organic search clicks in your countries, calls and direction requests from the Google profile, new reviews and their average, the number of customer questions where an AI assistant names you, conversion rate on the top pages, and what was executed this month. Every number compared with the previous month and with the same month last year. Marketing return on investment is calculated from the first two, and everything else is explanation, not result.
The problem with the reports you receive
A twenty-page agency report: impressions, click-through rate, reach, new followers, engagement, keyword positions. Every number rising, and enquiries unchanged. Management asks the only question that matters: did this bring customers? And nobody answers.
The right report starts with enquiries and ends with them; the rest is explanation.
The eight KPIs
| # | KPI | Source | Why management cares |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enquiries by source (WhatsApp, calls, forms) | GA4 with key events | This is the output. Everything after it explains it |
| 2 | Cost per enquiry from ads | Ad spend ÷ ad enquiries | Decides the budget |
| 3 | Organic search clicks by country | Search Console with the country filter | The cheapest channel long term |
| 4 | Calls and direction requests from the Google profile | Business Profile, Performance | Half of local enquiries start here |
| 5 | New reviews, their average, and reply rate | Google Maps | Leads enquiries by weeks |
| 6 | Customer questions where an AI assistant names you | A monthly test of ten questions | A growing channel nobody measures |
| 7 | Conversion rate on the top three pages | GA4, Landing page | Separates an acquisition problem from a conversion problem |
| 8 | What was executed this month | A three-line list | Ties the numbers to the work |
Each KPI in three columns: this month, last month, the same month last year.
What stays out of the report
- Impressions and click-through rate. Explanation for number 3, not a separate KPI.
- Keyword positions. They change daily and vary by device and city. Look at clicks.
- Followers and likes. If they do not appear in number 1 as a source, they are not a result.
- Total visits. A large number with no meaning without a split by source.
- SEO scores from tools. A score out of 100 buys nothing.
KPI six: how to measure it yourself
Write ten questions your customer actually asks, in Arabic and English: best CCTV installer in Riyadh, a trusted dental clinic in Doha. Ask them in ChatGPT and Gemini at the start of every month and record: did it name you? Who did it name instead? The number is how many of the ten you appeared in. Simple, and most of your competitors do not measure it.
Return on investment in a form the finance manager accepts
channel value = enquiries from channel × close rate × average contract value
return = (channel value − channel cost) ÷ channel costFor organic search the cost is what you paid for content and technical work that month. For ads it is the spend plus campaign management. For reviews and the Google profile it is close to zero, which is why they always come out top on return.
The one-page report template
- One line: enquiries this month against last month and against last year.
- The eight-row table.
- Three lines: what was executed, what changed because of it, what will be executed next month.
- One line: what needs a management decision (budget, developer, content).
Anyone who can fill this page understands their digital presence. Anyone who cannot has a measurement problem before a marketing one, and its fix is in the conversion tracking article.
Where this sits in the audit
The audit sets the baseline for these KPIs: where you stand today in search in both languages, in AI answers, on the conversion path, and against three competitors. The report is written for a non-technical manager and a developer at once, with a twelve-month roadmap you then measure with these same numbers.