Automation and AI have massively accelerated the pace of reporting and analysis. Now, marketing teams are under growing pressure to show clear impact. With so much data streaming in from different channels, it’s easy to become overwhelmed, or fixate on a few vanity metrics.
Going into the new year, this is the time to take a step back, review what’s been working in your reporting process, and consider testing some signals that might have been overlooked to see what actually reflects the impact of your marketing activities.
When we spoke to marketing leaders throughout Season Three of The Undiscovered Metric, similar themes surfaced again and again. The most useful signals are often found in competitive context, cultural relevance, speed of response, and commercial impact. However, standard reports often overlook these metrics.
So, to help you better understand which signals might be worth shifting focus to, we’ve put together a list of 10 often overlooked metrics from the marketing experts who joined us on our podcast. Read on for the highlights, or watch the full video below.
These metrics push marketers to look beyond their own dashboards and understand how their brand is performing in the broader market. Monitoring them provides a key advantage in a crowded, fast-shifting environment.
Most marketing teams monitor their own performance but pay far less attention to how aggressively their competitors are investing. "Competitive spend is the overlooked metric that I'd say every marketer should be paying more attention to,” says Jonathan Sweeney, Senior Director of Data at Gain Theory.
Competitive spend helps you understand whether you’re operating in a saturated market, whether you’re being outspent during critical moments, and where gaps may exist for cheaper share-of-voice gains.
Instead of reviewing your campaign’s performance in isolation, Share of Voice shows how visible you are relative to competitors. As platforms move toward impression share and zero-click environments, SoV becomes a clearer indicator of whether your brand is actually showing up where it matters.
Simme Volkers, Head of SEO at DPG states, "I think share of voice is a really important key metric," adding that it’s an excellent way to understand competitor activity. "As we are evolving into our zero-click world, you need to know whether the market is growing or whether you are growing as opposed to the market."
As search shifts toward AI-generated answers, visibility is no longer just about rankings or clicks. Share of Voice on AI searches captures how often your brand is referenced or surfaced within AI-driven results, summaries, and recommendations.
This matters because AI search compresses choice. When fewer brands are shown, being present becomes the differentiator. As Madalina Teodorescu explains, strong AI search visibility means that “regardless how people find you, they find you.” For marketers, tracking this signal helps answer the critical question of whether your brand is recognized and recalled in the environments where discovery increasingly happens, even when there’s no click at all.
Traditional brand metrics capture awareness, but the problem is that most brands stop at surface-level awareness. “Everyone’s measuring awareness and consideration, so you’re not finding any differentiation or strategic advantage,” says Amar Vyas, Chief Data and Technology Officer at M+C Saatchi Fluency.
Cultural metrics on the other hand capture whether your brand matters in the conversations shaping your category. “Things like cultural relevance might seem a bit fluffy, but actually, you can quantify it. So there’s lots of signals out there.”
Cultural relevance is assessed through a combination of signals, including share of conversation, the depth of community engagement, levels of earned advocacy, and changes in sentiment over time. Together, these indicators show whether a brand is influencing culture and opinion. “If you can track that stuff in the short term and the longer term, it gives us quite hard KPIs that are tied to commercial outcomes.” These metrics help marketers understand whether their brand is influencing culture or simply funding exposure.
These metrics shift focus away from pipeline volume and toward the quality, velocity, and true business value of your marketing activity.
Time to Insights measures how quickly raw data becomes something a marketer can actually act on. Faster insight loops mean faster optimization, more personalized experiences, and a competitive edge when every brand has access to similar data and technology.
Vincent Spruyt, Global Chief Product Officer at KINESSO (IPG Mediabrands), describes it as "the speed at which your data is converted into actionable knowledge," adding that "what actually matters is how quickly we can leverage that data to personalize and customize your strategy and execution."
"A dashboard might tell you that campaigns didn’t perform on platform A, but it doesn’t tell you why."
Time to action measures how fast teams can adapt campaigns, shift budgets, personalize messaging, or change strategy based on what the data is telling them.
This metric matters because slow decisions are costly. Dashboards can highlight underperformance, but they rarely explain why it’s happening or what to do next, creating friction between insight and execution. As Vincent Spruyt explains, “if all marketers have access to the same data and the same technology, then what actually matters is how quickly we can leverage that data to personalize and customize your strategy and execution.”
Tracking time to action helps marketing teams understand whether their organization is set up to respond to change in real time, or whether insights are getting stuck in reporting cycles instead of driving outcomes.
These metrics help marketers escape the trap of over-optimizing what’s easy to measure and instead focus on the value they truly create.
This metric provides a direct line between marketing activity and revenue. Diana Gonzalez, Senior Product Growth Manager at RevPartners notes, "There’s this almost false sense of achievement with a higher number of MQLs or leads." Instead of celebrating large lead numbers, it helps teams understand whether they’re attracting the right audiences.
Diana argues "MQL to Closed-Won Conversion should be the number one KPI for marketing," especially given that "you can have a much smaller number of leads and MQLs with a much higher qualification and get much further when it comes to performance."
While NPS (Net Promoter Score) reflects sentiment, repeat business and referrals reflect real behavior. These metrics show whether your customers actually trust you enough to advocate for you, which is one of the clearest indicators of product-market fit and long-term brand strength.
Barry LaBov, author, and founder of LABOV marketing agency, prompts marketers to look beyond hypotheticals and ask, "How often are you actually getting repeat business? How often are you really getting referrals?" He concludes, "I think we have to get more granular."
Incremental ROAS answers the most important question in marketing, which is whether a specific marketing activity actually made you money. David von Hilchen, Sales Director DACH & France at StackAdapt notes that incrementality is often overlooked "because it's hard to measure." However, it’s essential for understanding whether your spend is driving real revenue or simply capturing customers who were already going to convert.
Sarah Mansfield, former VP of Global Media at Unilever and now founder of Barcarolle consultancy, reinforces the value of incremental ROAS, adding "You need to be able to know what that ad truly did drive in terms of revenue returns for you. Would a consumer already have bought that product without you buying that impression?"
Modern buying journeys are non-linear, and last-touch attribution hides the real value of upper- and mid-funnel activity. Multi-touch ROI provides a more complete picture of which channels influence deals, and which ones actually close them.
Laura Erdem, Sales Manager at Dreamdata, suggests looking at "how many deals in a multi-touch world have we actually closed with these specific channels, and putting the cost on top of that, it gets so much easier to understand." This level of insight helps answer questions like, "should we do three more webinars or one face-to-face event?"
Most marketing reports tell you what happened. Fewer help you understand why, or what to do next. The metrics outlined here are useful because they force that conversation about competition, relevance, responsiveness, and value. Some are complex to measure, but with the right data foundations and the rapid evolution of marketing technology and AI, they are increasingly within reach, and increasingly important for showing what’s actually working.
About Madalina Teodorescu
Madalina Teodorescu is Head of Marketing at HYDROGRID, bringing more than 15 years of experience across B2B SaaS, e-commerce, and creative industries. She has built and scaled demand generation, brand, and growth programs for startups and scale-ups, including a four-year tenure at Adverity, where she led global campaigns during the company’s journey from early startup to unicorn. At HYDROGRID, she now leads marketing strategy and operations for a niche but growing sector, helping hydropower operators run their plants more efficiently with smart technology.
About David Von Hilchen
David von Hilchen is Director of Sales DACH & France at StackAdapt, leading the DSP’s expansion in Europe with 15+ years in media and 13+ years in AdTech sales, previously at Pinterest and Unruly, and a recognized voice on data-driven scaling strategies.
About Diana Gonzalez
Diana Gonzalez is Senior Product Growth Manager at RevPartners, where she focuses on data-driven go-to-market strategy across sales and marketing. She brings over a decade of experience in RevOps, go-to-market strategy, and marketing automation. A certified Pavilion member, she has been recognized for designing sales enablement programs that have driven measurable gains in productivity, retention, and revenue. At Riverside, she led cross-functional strategy across business development, sales, and customer success. Diana holds an MBA from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana and a degree in International Business from Universidad de Medellín.
About Sarah Mansfield
Sarah Mansfield is an industry-leading media consultant and founder of Barcarolle Ltd, with over two decades of expertise across media, retail, and digital marketing. At Unilever, she served as VP of Global Media, leading media operations, programmatic platforms, and a €5 billion budget, before launching her consultancy after 12 impactful years. A recognized thought leader, Sarah holds key roles at ISBA, MMA EMEA, and I‑Com. Her work has earned accolades such as Drum’s Digital Trading Leader Award and a Cosmopolitan Female Icon honor.
About Barry Labov
Barry Labov is a two-time Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, celebrated author, and the founder of LABOV, a marketing agency trusted by brands like Harley-Davidson, Audi, and The Macallan. His book, The Power of Differentiation, explores how companies can escape the commodity trap by uncovering and amplifying what makes them truly unique. He’s also the host of the Difference Makers podcast, where he speaks with leaders across industries about how differentiation drives lasting business success.
About Amar Vyas
Amar Vyas is Chief Data & Technology Officer and co-founder at M+C Saatchi Fluency, M+C Saatchi's award-winning data and technology consultancy. With over 15 years’ experience leading digital, data, and technology transformations for global brands including VW, Amazon, and the UK Government, he’s a recognised thought leader in building scalable, data-driven marketing solutions.
About Vincent Spruyt
Vincent Spruyt is the Global Chief Product Officer at KINESSO, where he leads the development of integrated media platforms across IPG Mediabrands. With more than 15 years of experience in AI and product innovation, Vincent has built machine learning systems for industries ranging from automotive to advertising. He was named one of Business Insider’s Top 100 People in AI in 2023 and was previously honored as MIT Innovator Under 35. Before joining IPG, he co-founded two tech startups and held leadership roles at Sentiance and Reprise Digital, where he pioneered generative AI tools long before they became mainstream. Vincent holds a PhD in Computer Vision and Machine Learning.
About Jonathan Sweeney
Jonathan Sweeney is Senior Director of Data at Gain Theory, WPP’s global marketing foresight consultancy. With over a decade of experience in marketing analytics and attribution, he leads the development of data products that help brands measure the true impact of their digital media. Prior to joining Gain Theory, Jonathan held senior roles at Starcom MediaVest Group and served on the I-COM Attribution Council for five years, where he helped shape global best practices in unified analytics.
About Laura Erdem
Laura Erdem is Sales Director, North America at Dreamdata, where she helps B2B revenue teams master attribution, activation, and alignment. With over 15 years of experience spanning SaaS and enterprise tech, including senior roles at Red Hat and DXC Technology, she brings a rare blend of operational depth and marketing instinct to sales leadership. Laura is widely known for turning LinkedIn into a high-performing inbound channel, doubling her following annually and building a personal brand that drives revenue. She’s also a trusted advisor to several fast-growing B2B startups and a vocal advocate for modern, data-driven go-to-market strategy.
About Simme Volkers
Simme Volkers is Head of SEO at DPG Media, where he has worked since 2020, leading search engine optimisation across the organization. He has over 20 years of experience in SEO and search marketing, with a background spanning in-house, agency, and freelance roles. Before joining DPG Media, Simme worked for more than eight years as an SEO consultant at Digit Services and previously held senior SEO and search specialist roles at agencies including Netsociety, LBi Netherlands, and Traffic Builders, working across SEO, SEA, and large-scale content and site optimization projects.