Top 27 Agency Metrics and KPIs To Measure For Success

Let’s say you have an agency client that sells widgets. They want to improve their SEO ranking, so you create a productized service offering that specific goal. You make an organized process to follow to improve efficiency. You outline the steps and deliverables and create a timeline. Next, you get to work on the project, and you start delivering on your promises.

Yet, somewhere along the way, you realize you have no clue what the ranking of the client’s website is at the start of the project. This is an extreme example, but it illustrates the importance of agency metrics. They are critical to tracking progress and delivering measurable results to your clients. You can’t just wing it and hope your SEO efforts will improve your client’s website ranking.

You need to monitor the metrics that matter and report on them to keep your client informed and happy. This is especially true for productized services that rely on organized processes to deliver results. This guide examines agency metrics, the different types, why they matter, and how to improve your agency's productized services. We'll also explore how the best agency management software can help.

What Are Agency Metrics, and Why Are They Important?

Understanding Agency Metrics: What They Are and Why They Matter

Metrics quantify various aspects of an agency's operations and provide valuable insights into its performance. They allow agencies to assess their success in acquiring clients, generating revenue growth, and executing effective marketing campaigns. By analyzing client acquisition rates, conversion rates, and campaign ROI, agencies can gauge their overall performance and make informed decisions about resource allocation.

Leveraging Metrics for Data-Driven Decision Making

Data-driven decision-making is a powerful approach involving metrics to guide strategic choices. By relying on factual insights rather than guesswork, agencies can optimize their marketing campaigns, target the right audience, and allocate resources effectively.

The Power of Data-Driven Decision Making

Data-driven decision-making allows agencies to make informed choices based on concrete evidence. By tracking metrics and analyzing performance data, agencies gain valuable insights into what works and what doesn't. This approach minimizes the risk of making decisions based on assumptions or personal biases.

Agencies can leverage data to optimize their marketing campaigns by identifying which strategies drive the most engagement and conversions. By understanding which channels, messages, or tactics resonate with their target audience, agencies can refine their approach and allocate resources more efficiently.

Identifying Trends and Patterns

Metrics help agencies identify trends and patterns in consumer behavior. By analyzing data such as website traffic, social media engagement, or customer feedback, agencies can uncover valuable insights about their audience's preferences and needs.

This information allows for targeted marketing efforts and personalized campaigns that resonate deeply with consumers. Agencies can adapt their strategies to meet changing market demands by staying ahead of emerging trends and tailoring their messaging accordingly.

By leveraging metrics to identify trends and patterns, agencies can stay proactive and ensure they are always one step ahead of the competition.

Delivering Excellence through Metrics

Metrics play a crucial role in improving an agency's performance and efficiency. By tracking metrics, agencies can identify areas of underperformance and inefficiency and implement necessary improvements. This leads to optimized processes, reduced costs, and better results.

Improving Performance and Efficiency

Metrics act as a spotlight, highlighting areas where an agency may be falling short or experiencing inefficiencies. By analyzing these metrics, agencies can identify bottlenecks or areas that require improvement.

Whether streamlining internal processes, optimizing resource allocation, or enhancing team collaboration, metrics provide valuable insights for making data-driven decisions that lead to improved performance. Tracking metrics allows agencies to measure their progress over time and set realistic goals for improvement. By monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) for agencies, such as client acquisition rates, revenue growth, or campaign ROI, agencies can continuously strive for excellence.

Enhancing Client Satisfaction

Metrics also enable agencies to measure client satisfaction and identify areas for improvement. By tracking metrics related to client feedback, response times, or project success rates, agencies can proactively address client concerns and deliver exceptional service.

Satisfied clients are more likely to become repeat customers and refer the agency to others. By consistently monitoring client satisfaction metrics and taking action based on the insights gained from them, agencies can build strong relationships with their clients and foster long-term partnerships.

Top 27 Agency Metrics and KPIs To Measure For Success

1. Total Revenue

Total revenue is the complete income generated over a specific period. It is added up from all sources, including client fees, retainers, one-time projects, and other income streams. It provides a broad snapshot of your financial health and overall business growth. Owners, executives, and finance teams should regularly monitor total revenue to assess your agency’s financial directory.

Investors also use this metric to gauge long-term potential. It is precious for agencies focused on growth and long-term sustainability. This broad metric does not provide insight into individual clients or campaigns or account for service delivery costs.

Formula

Total Revenue = Revenue from Source 1 + Revenue from Source 2 + ... + Revenue from Source n

2. Gross Income

Gross income is the total income minus pass-through costs (bills and expenses). For example, let’s say you have $250k of total income. You have $40k in bills (equipment and licenses) from those projects and $10k in expenses (such as contractor costs). $250k income – $40k bills – $10k expenses = $200k in gross income. Gross income is crucial to understand how much you’re earning.

If you only look at total revenue without considering pass-through costs, you may overestimate your agency’s financial health and profitability. For example, if an agency has $1 million in revenue, but $500,000 goes to contractors and expenses, their gross income is only $500,000. The agency has much less money to cover salaries, rent, and other operating costs than its total revenue implies.

3. Labor Cost

Labor cost is the amount a company spends on each worker per hour. To calculate an employee’s hourly labor cost, use the hourly labor cost = (Annual Salary + Benefits + Other Costs) / Annual Hours Worked. For example, let’s say you have a group of employees with the following costs:

Annual salary

$90,000

Benefits

$7,500 Training and other costs $7,540 Each employee costs your agency $105,040 annually.

Assuming they work 2,080 hours per year (40 hours per week for 52 weeks), their hourly labor cost would be $105,040 / 2,080 hours worked = $50.5 hourly labor cost. This means that every hour the employee works costs your agency $50.5, regardless of whether that time is billable to a client. Labor costs are essential for calculating delivery margin, understanding how much each project costs you internally to deliver, and calculating profit accurately.

4. Revenue Growth

Revenue growth measures the percentage increase in total revenue over a specific period. Positive revenue growth indicates that the agency is expanding and gaining traction in the market. With this metric, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies and identify potential areas for improvement. High revenue growth is a crucial selling point when seeking investment or financial backing. You can also compare your performance against industry averages or competitors.

Formula

Revenue Growth = (Current Period Revenue – Previous Period Revenue) / Previous Period Revenue For example, to measure revenue growth over one year, Current Period Revenue is your total revenue today, while Previous Period Revenue is your total revenue on the same day in the previous year.

5. Client Revenue

Client revenue focuses on the revenue generated from individual clients. You can identify your most valuable clients, assess client-specific profitability, and determine the impact of these specific services on overall revenue. Owners and executives can use this metric to determine resource allocation, inform pricing, identify opportunities for upselling additional services, and develop retention strategies for high-revenue clients.

Client revenue may not be helpful for short-term operational or financial decisions, such as cutting costs or adjusting service pricing. If you have many one-time or short-term clients, metrics like project profitability may be more relevant.

Formula

Client Revenue = Revenue from Client 1 + Revenue from Client 2 + ... + Revenue from Client n

6. Average Revenue per Client (ARPC)

This metric calculates the average income generated by each client so you can understand the value of each relationship and identify opportunities to increase revenue per client. If ARPC is lower than desired, it may be time to raise rates or upsell. Your sales team can also use ARPC to understand the type of clients you attract and set revenue goals for each new one.

You can tailor sales strategies toward acquiring more high-value clients. ARPC might only provide meaningful insights if you serve clients with a narrow range of revenue contributions. In this case, segment clients and calculate ARPC per category (e.g., small business clients vs. Enterprise).

Formula

Average Revenue Per Client = Total Agency Revenue / Number of Clients

7. Delivery Margin

The delivery margin shows you the percentage difference between your profit and gross income. The formula to calculate the delivery margin looks like this:

• Delivery Profit Margin % = ((Gross Revenue – Delivery Costs) / Gross Revenue) x 100

• Gross Income = Total Revenue – Pass-Through Costs Delivery Costs = Internal labor costs (payroll)

Let’s say your agency had $300,000 in gross income for a project after subtracting $75,000 in pass-through expenses from $375,000 in total billings.

To complete that project work, you incurred $180,000 in delivery costs. Using those numbers, here’s how we calculate the delivery profit margin:

• Gross Revenue = $300,000

• Delivery Costs = $180,000

• Delivery Profit Margin % = (($300,000 – $180,000) / $300,000) x 100 = 40%.

In this example, your agency spent 60% ($180,000) of the $300,000 gross revenue on internal delivery costs, leaving 40% ($120,000) as profit.

Of course, tracking your delivery margin is crucial because a business can only exist with a profit. A good delivery margin is 55% to 75%. This range indicates efficient pricing and cost management and helps ensure profitability.

8. New Client Acquisition

New client acquisition measures the number of new clients gained within a specific period. It indicates your ability to acquire new clients and expand your reach. With this agency metric, you can evaluate marketing and sales initiatives and set realistic targets for business development. This metric is crucial if you have expanded into new markets or launched new services. It shows how well your agency is resonating with a new client segment.

However, new client acquisition may not be relevant if your agency serves a niche market focusing on acquiring and retaining a few high-value clients in the long run. In this case, the quality of clients is more important than quantity.

Formula 

New Client Acquisition = Number of new clients gained within a specific period

9. Average Billable Rate

The average billable rate is the hourly rate your agency charges clients for work directly related to their projects. It clearly shows your agency’s average hourly earnings for billable work. To calculate your average billable rate, divide your total revenue by the hours worked. Average Billable Rate = Total Billable Revenue / Total Billable Hours For example, if your agency billed $100,000 for 800 hours of work across all projects in a month, your average billable rate would be $100,000 / 800 hours = $125 per hour.

Knowing your average billable rate is crucial because it directly impacts your agency’s income and bottom line. If your rate is too low, you might not make enough money to cover expenses, pay your team well, and invest in growing your agency.

10. Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

Cost per acquisition calculates the average spending to acquire a new client. It includes the expenses associated with marketing, advertising, sales, and other activities directly related to client acquisition. Monitoring CPA helps you assess the efficiency and profitability of lead generation and client acquisition campaigns across different channels. To maximize returns, you can allocate more resources to channels or campaigns to improve lower CPA and scale back higher-cost efforts.

Formula 

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) = The Total Cost of Client Acquisition / Number of New Clients Acquired. Total acquisition cost includes expenses for paid ads, marketing tools, research, content production, promotional events, sales outreach, and salaries of sales and marketing teams.

11. Overdue Invoices

Overdue invoices are the total amount owed that hasn’t yet been paid. You can’t pay your bills, employees, or other expenses without a steady cash flow. No matter how profitable your projects are or how healthy your pipeline is, you won’t be able to survive long without incoming cash.

12. Conversion Rate

The conversion rate measures the percentage of potential clients who convert into paying customers. It shows the effectiveness of your marketing and sales efforts in persuading prospects to become clients. A low conversion rate may indicate friction points in the sales process so you can optimize existing strategies and maximize the return on investment (ROI) for client acquisition initiatives.

Formula

Conversion Rate = (Number of New Clients / Number of Prospects) * 100 Prospects are leads that have shown interest in your agency’s services, including anyone who has interacted with your business through filling out a form, requesting a demo, or subscribing to your newsletter. Use customer relationship management (CRM) tools to track each prospect’s journey through your sales funnel.

13. Forecasted Revenue

Forecasted revenue is the amount of (recognizable) revenue you expect to earn over the coming months. Recognizable revenue refers to the value of revenue based on the amount of work done, not the total project or engagement value. For example, you’ve signed and kicked off a $200,000 project, invoiced upfront for $25,000, and held a kickoff meeting.

Does that mean you’ve done $25,000 worth of work so far on the project? Of course not. So, your recognizable revenue here isn’t $25,000. Instead, it’s probably more like $250, the billable amount allotted for a kickoff call. Revenue forecasting ensures that your team is on track to hit targets and profit margins while allowing you to change strategies or tactics to improve revenue and profit targets in the future.

14. Client Retention Rate

The client retention rate measures the percentage of clients you successfully retain. It indicates your ability to maintain long-term relationships so you can identify areas for improvement in service delivery and develop strategies to enhance loyalty. Since acquiring new clients costs up to five times more than retaining existing ones, the retention rate is one of the most crucial agency KPIs. Also, increasing client retention rate by 5% can boost profitability by up to 75%. This is a vital metric for sustainable growth and predictable, scalable revenue.

Formula

Client Retention Rate = ((Number of Clients at the End of the Period - Number of New Clients Acquired) / Number of Clients at the Start of the Period) * 100 If you offer one-time services such as web development or branding, tracking retention may not be the best indicator of performance. Referral rates, repeat business, and customer satisfaction may be more appropriate.

15. Churn Rate

The churn rate shows the percentage of clients lost within a specific period. It represents client attrition or turnover and provides insights into client dissatisfaction or disengagement. A high churn rate could signal service quality or pricing issues and lead to unpredictable revenue. Addressing the problems causing clients to leave is essential. Account managers can identify clients at risk of leaving and take proactive measures to retain them.

Formula

Churn Rate = (Number of Clients Lost within a Period / Number of Clients at the Start of the Period) * 100 In 2023, most digital marketing agencies experienced churn rates between 2% and 8%, typical for service providers across industries.

16. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value represents the income you generate from one client throughout your relationship. Monitoring CLV enables you to understand the long-term value of each client and make informed decisions regarding resource allocation and retention efforts. CLV can help you determine if the cost of acquiring and servicing clients is justified by the value they generate for your agency.

Your marketing team can refine targeting strategies and concentrate on the most profitable client segments, and your sales team can upsell additional services. CLV is also crucial for assessing whether your current cost structure supports your revenue goals. Monitoring CLV is most effective when you have enough historical data to understand how long clients typically stay and how much they spend. This metric may need to deliver actionable insights for newly established agencies with small client bases.

Formula

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) = Customer Value x Customer Lifespan Customer Value = Average Purchase Value x Average Number of Purchases. Customer Lifespan is often measured in months.

17. Team Utilization %

Team utilization percentage is a backward-looking metric showing the percentage of an employee’s total capacity spent working. It can be calculated using the following formula: Utilization % = [total tracked hours] / [total capacity] Where: Total Tracked Hours = The total number of hours logged/recorded by your team members for billable project work Total Capacity = The total number of available working hours For example, most of your team members may have 40 hours of capacity each week.

In the last week, a team member who logged 32 hours was 80% utilized. However, another team member may have tracked 38 hours, which means they were 95% used. Understanding your team’s utilization percentage gives you a clear picture of team efficiency and productivity. If you can improve your utilization percentage, you can often enhance delivery margin and profitability, so analyzing your utilization is crucial.

18. Utilization Forecast

Utilization forecast shows you how available vs. booked your team is in the future, expressed as a percentage. Utilization forecast can be calculated with the following formula:

• [total booked hours] / [total capacity] = utilization percentage

• Total Booked Hours = the number of hours/tasks your team is already booked or scheduled to work on.

• Total Capacity = The total number of available working hours.

For example, if a team member has 40 available hours each week for their capacity, and in the upcoming week, they have 20 hours already of scheduled work, then you can see that they’re currently 50% utilized. They already have 50% of their time booked and 50% available for work. You can calculate utilization forecasts for individual team members and your team. Tracking your team’s utilization will help you see who can take on more projects, who’s overworked, and how productive your team is.

19. Time Usage by Projects

Time usage by project measures how much time your team has spent working on each project over a given period. Understanding your time usage by project lets you quickly see which clients or projects are neglected or overserviced. In addition, you can see exactly which project phases or tasks are eating up your team’s time, which allows you to scope future projects more accurately. Your team will need to track their time and assign it to the corresponding projects to calculate time usage by projects.

20. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The click-through rate measures the percentage of people who click on a certain campaign's link or call-to-action (CTA) button. It indicates the engagement and interest generated by your lead generation and marketing strategies. A good CTR ranges between 2% and 5%, depending on the industry. With CTR, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your messaging, creative elements, and overall targeting. High CTR indicates user interest and traffic to the next step of your sales funnel.

Formula

Click-Through Rate (CTR) = (Number of Clicks / Number of Impressions) * 100 Impressions refer to the number of times an ad, email, or organic search listing is displayed to users. It is a measure of exposure and does not guarantee that a user has interacted with or fully viewed the content. Clicks can be measured through digital marketing platforms (Google Ads, Facebook Ads) and third-party tools (Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Hubspot).

21. Cost per Conversion (CPC)

[Cost per conversion](https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-to-calculate-cost-per-conversion-formula-units.html#:~:text=A%20cost%20per%20conversion%20(CPC,by%20the%20number%20of%20conversions.) indicates the average cost incurred to achieve a conversion. This metric can help you assess your marketing campaigns’ cost efficiency, identify underperforming campaigns, optimize budget allocation, and improve overall effectiveness. It can also help you assess whether your customer acquisition strategy is financially sustainable. High CPC indicates that your campaigns must be optimized by improving targeting, copy, or user experience. Comparing CPC across platforms will help ensure your marketing dollars are spent where they yield the highest returns.

Formula

Cost Per Conversion (CPC) = Total Campaign Cost / Number of Conversions. The total campaign cost includes advertising, creative production, and management expenses. Indirect costs like marketing software and labor contribute to the campaign's success but are not directly tied to ad spend.

22. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Return on ad spend measures the revenue generated for each dollar spent on advertising. Monitoring ROAS will help you understand the campaign's financial performance, identify the most profitable channels and strategies, and optimize advertising efforts.

Formula

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) = (Ad Campaign Revenue / Ad Campaign Cost) * 100

23. Value of Deals Expected to Win

The value of deals expected to win is exactly what it sounds like. This shows you the amount of deals you expect to win and the total revenue. This metric helps you predict whether you’re on track, off track, or even exceeding your sales targets. Let’s say your agency has a total pipeline value of $500,000 for the upcoming quarter.

You’ve categorized your deals based on their likelihood of closing: $200,000 in deals with a 75% or higher chance of closing, $150,000 in deals with a 50-74% chance of closing, $100,000 in deals with a 25-49% chance of closing $50,000 in deals with a less than 25% chance of closing.

In this case, the value of deals expected to win would be $350,000 ($200,000 + $150,000), as based on your historical data and current pipeline status, these deals are 50% or more likely to close. This metric lets you forecast whether you will hit, exceed, or fall short of revenue goals. It enables you to adjust resource allocation proactively—whether ramping up sales or delivery capacity—to align with your projected revenue picture and maintain profitability.

24. Value of Closed Deals

The value of closed deals is the total value (or revenue) of closed deals over a given time frame, such as a month, quarter, or year. This is the next stage in your pipeline after “expected to win.” Similarly, it gives you a great look at whether you’re under-target, over-target, or on-target and what you might need to do to adjust and ensure profitability and on-time project delivery. Let’s say your agency has closed the following deals in Q2:

Project A

$75,000

Project B

$50,000

Project C

$30,000

Project D

$20,000

The total value of closed deals for Q2 would be $175,000 ($75,000 + $50,000 + $30,000 + $20,000). If your Q2 revenue target were $150,000, this would indicate that you’re over-targeted by $25,000. On the other hand, if your target was $200,000, you’d be under-target by $25,000 and may need to adjust your sales strategies or pipeline management.

25. Employee Productivity

Employee productivity measures the output or work each employee completes within a specific period. It enables you to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of individual employees and teams so you can identify (and reward) high-performing employees, price services correctly, and optimize workflows. High productivity ultimately leads to more billable hours, faster turnaround times, and increased revenue.

Low productivity reduces your ability to generate income and maximize ROI. Monitoring productivity can highlight which tasks are taking too long and where your processes need to be streamlined. You can also use this metric to recognize and potentially promote highly productive employees and acknowledge their valuable contributions to your agency.

Formula

Employee Productivity = Output or Work Completed / Time or Effort Invested To measure output or work completed, define how employee deliverables are counted. Content writers can add up the number of articles written, while PPC specialists can track the number of launched campaigns and optimized ads. Task tracking tools like ClickUp and Asana can help you log all completed tasks.

26. Employee Satisfaction

Employee satisfaction measures employees' contentment and fulfillment in their roles and the overall work environment. It reflects their engagement, motivation, and commitment to the agency. This agency metric will help owners and managers understand employee needs, identify areas for improvement in leadership or workplace culture, and foster a positive and productive work environment.

Employee satisfaction can be measured through Surveys; Anonymous surveys encourage honesty and candid feedback. Conduct them regularly to track changes over time and address ongoing issues. Use a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions for more detailed feedback.

One-on-one meetings

Employees can express their concerns and seek support from their managers. Ask about their role, workload, and general well-being.

Dedicated feedback channels

Open feedback channels allow employees to express their concerns and share their thoughts without fear of reprisal. You can create dedicated Slack or Microsoft Teams channels and encourage employees to use them.

27. Employee Retention Rate

Employee retention rate measures the percentage of employees who stay with the agency over a specific period. It reflects your agency's ability to attract and retain top talent. It helps managers assess the effectiveness of talent management strategies, identify factors contributing to turnover, and implement initiatives to enhance retention and loyalty. Clients prefer consistency in the way team members handle their projects. Frequent employee turnover can erode client trust, as they may need more clarity about the continuity of strategies or the expertise of new hires.

Long-term employees understand the client’s needs and each project's intricacies, ensuring consistent and high-quality output. High employee retention reduces recruitment, hiring, and training costs, allowing you to allocate more resources toward revenue-generating activities. It enhances your reputation, increasing client referrals and new business opportunities.

Formula

Employee Retention Rate = ((Total Number of Employees - Number of Employees Who Left) / Total Number of Employees) * 100.

Related Reading

• Avoid Common Challenges That Agencies Face
• Best Agency Management Software
• Agency Operations
• What Is A Productized Service
• Agency Collaboration
• Agency Clients
• Agency Metrics
• What Is an Agency Management System
• How To Productize A Service
• Productized Service Examples
• Marketing Agency Client Management
• Agency Client Relationship

7 Best Agency Metrics Measuring Tools

1. Orchestra: An All-in-One Growth Toolkit

Orchestra helps you launch your productized service effortlessly with its all-in-one growth toolkit. Designed for creatives ready to scale, Orchestra provides a branded, white-labeled client portal, task management, and real-time analytics, with no coding needed—just your Stripe account.

Whether you’re a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra streamlines your workflow. It lets you collaborate with clients seamlessly while maintaining a private workspace with your team. Add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup and deliver a branded experience. Elevate your service with a platform built to grow alongside you; try Orchestra for free to develop your productized service today.

2. Google Analytics: The Classic Marketing Analytics Tool

Google Analytics (GA) is a free web analytics platform that provides insight into your website’s traffic, audience, and conversions. GA emphasizes measurement, so it’s great for agencies that want to track their progress over time. GA is also straightforward to set up and use, which is probably why it’s one of the most popular marketing analytics tools. Over 35 million websites worldwide use GA. I recommend setting it up immediately if you’re not using Google Analytics.

Pros

• Completely free with no time limit

• Tracks website traffic and conversions

• Easy to set up and use

• Data can be shared with clients for transparency

Cons

• It can be overwhelming due to the amount of data available

• Focuses primarily on website analytics

3. Looker Studio: Data Visualization Made Easy

Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) is a free data visualization tool that allows you to create beautiful, informative charts and graphs from your data—regardless of the source. It’s great for agencies that want to visualize their data in an easily digestible format quickly. It’s also very flexible.

You can combine multiple data sources to GDS into a single report. And like GA, Looker Studio is relatively easy to use, so you’ll be able to get up and running quickly. As a bonus, Looker Studio reports can be embedded directly into SPP client portals. This allows agencies to share their data with clients and team members securely and interactively. All you need to do is add a sidebar link for “Reports.”

Pros

• Completely free

• Easy to visualize and report on data

• Connects to multiple data sources for comprehensive reporting

• Reports can be embedded into client dashboards

Cons

• It doesn’t track data by itself, so you’ll need another tool to collect your analytics

• It can be complex to set up if you’re connecting to multiple data sources

4. Heap: Understand Client Journeys

Heap is a paid analytics platform (“digital insights platform”) that is excellent for agencies that want to get a clear picture of their clients’ journeys. What sets Heap apart from other tools is its “Session Replay” feature—essentially instant replay for essential events in your funnel.

Whenever you set up a tracking event in Heap, the system automatically starts recording data about that event. So, if you want to see what a user did just before or after they converted to your website, you can replay their entire journey up to that point.

Pros

• Automatically captures user data for all events

• Session replay helps visualize client journeys

• Powerful analytics and reporting features

• Data can be shared with clients

Cons

• There is no free plan; pricing can be high for small agencies

• It can be overwhelming to use at first

5. Mailchimp: Email Marketing with Analytics

Mailchimp is a popular email marketing service that offers a free plan for small businesses. This plan includes features like email automation, tracking, and reporting. For agencies, Mailchimp is best known as an email automation tool. However, its reporting and analytics features are also beneficial for measuring the success of your email marketing campaigns.

You can track things like open rate, click-through rate (CTR), unsubscribe rate, and more—all from a central dashboard. If you’re looking for a tool to help you automate your email marketing, Mailchimp is a great option. Mailchimp also integrates with SPP directly. You can easily add clients to an email list based on their purchased services and send automated emails.

Pros

• Free plan available

• Excellent for email automation and reporting

• Reports visualize email performance metrics

• Integrates with SPP for seamless use

Cons

• Pricing can get high as your list grows

• Not a dedicated analytics tool

6. Hotjar: Visualize User Behavior

Hotjar is a paid insights platform that’s very similar to Heap. Hotjar even offers a “Recordings” feature similar to Heap’s “Session Replay.” You can use it to look into client journeys on your website by seeing precisely what visitors see.

Heatmaps are another powerful Hotjar feature. They give you a visual representation of where users click on your website. They’re another fantastic way to visualize visitor behavior, which you won’t be surprised to learn. It is Hotjar’s bread and butter.

Pros

• Visualize user behavior with session recordings and heatmaps

• Understand how visitors interact with your website

• Can help improve website conversion rates

Cons

• It can be expensive for larger websites

• Some features can be complex to set up

7. Klipfolio: Business Intelligence for Agencies

Marketing analytics isn’t just about analyzing data—it’s also about visualizing data to communicate effectively with whoever needs to see it (e.g., team members, clients, etc.). This is where Klipfolio comes in. It’s a paid “business intelligence and data visualization” tool that helps agencies turn their raw data into beautiful, easy-to-understand dashboards.

Klipfolio also has a lot of great integrations with popular marketing tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Heap, and more. So, if you’re already using one of those tools to collect your data, you can easily pull it into Klipfolio to visualize it.

Related Reading

• Advertising Agency Project Management Software
• Ad Agency Project Management Software
• Productized Services
• Creative Agency Project Management Software
• Agency Resource Management
• Agency Client Management Software
• SEO Agency Management Software
• Digital Marketing Agency Management Software
• Marketing Tools For Agencies
• Marketing Agency Process
• Productization Framework

10 Tips To Enhance Your Agency Metrics

1. Release Your Agency's Potential With Orchestra

Orchestra is a powerful tool for improving agency performance. This software lets you launch productized services quickly and efficiently, giving your team an organized space to work and collaborate. With Orchestra, you can create a customized, branded, and white-labeled portal to deliver your productized services to clients.

The platform includes essential features like task management, real-time analytics, and customizable integrations to help you organize and streamline operations. With Orchestra, you can build a productized service that meets your needs and scales as you grow. Start your free trial today!

2. Use Only Essential Software to Improve Agency Efficiency

Too many tools can complicate your processes, causing redundancies that slow your team down. For example, if your digital marketing agency uses multiple platforms for client communication, project management, and reporting, team members will save time switching between tools instead of completing tasks.

Furthermore, they'll be less productive and more stressed if they constantly need to learn to operate different software. Instead, focus on the essential types of software to improve agency performance, such as:

CRM Software

It helps you keep track of customer information and analyze customer behavior.

Marketing Automation Software

Streamlines marketing processes and eliminates manual tasks.

Project Management Software

It helps teams coordinate their efforts, assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress.

Accounting Software

Allows you to automate financial processes like invoices and payments.

3. Automate Mundane Tasks to Improve Efficiency

Over 40% of workers spend at least 25% of their work week on repetitive activities that software can easily automate. This excessive amount of manual work wastes valuable time and energy that could be used to focus on more critical tasks like client interactions, content creation, and strategy. To improve efficiency, look for ways to automate mundane tasks like data entry, emails, reminders, customer support inquiries, reporting, invoicing, and scheduling. For example, you could use automation to:

• Send notifications when deadlines are approaching or when a project is late.

• Deliver automated emails when a customer takes an action or after they make a purchase.

• Track time for employees and contractors and create accurate timesheets.

• Schedule social media posts in advance to save time throughout the week.

• Pull data into reports with just a few clicks instead of manually entering numbers into spreadsheets.

These processes are all possible without automation, but you’d spend much more time and energy on them.

4. Create Templates to Streamline Your Agency Processes

Templates make it easy for your team to quickly finish tasks without starting from scratch each time. There are five main things you can templatize to save time and energy:

1. Processes

Templatize your processes so team members can refer to them whenever they need help. These include discovery and customer onboarding call documents, workflows, project plans, and briefs.

2. Documents

Create templates for regularly used documents, like contracts and NDA forms. You should also have branded invoices, proposals, and standardized client reports that can be developed, customized, and sent quickly.

3. Emails 

Standardize emails so they’re easy to send without wasting too much time. For example, you could have templates for customer onboarding emails, follow-up emails, and thank-you emails.

4. Content 

Content is a significant part of many agencies’ services. Content templates make writing a blog post, case study, or video script much faster and easier.

5. Projects

Even if your digital marketing agency takes a customized approach to each of its clients (which most do), having clear project roadmaps that offer generalized timelines, deliverables, and processes will help ensure that the same steps are repeated for each project.

When you have branded plug-and-play templates and standardized processes for these five things, you'll speed up the sales cycle, onboard clients and employees faster, provide a better service, improve your client relationships, and reduce your time on each project.

5. Build a Reliable Network of Freelancers

If you want to reduce your company's overhead and maximize your output, an arsenal of vetted freelancers is often a better decision than hiring in-house marketers and designers. Outsourcing specialists in web design, content creation, video production, and search engine optimization (SEO) can be a great way to quickly scale up your operations without hiring full-time employees. Benefits of a freelance workforce include:

Reduced Costs

Freelancers are hired per project or hourly, so you don't have to worry about benefits, insurance, or other costs of hiring full-time employees.

Flexibility

You can scale up and down as needed depending on your project demands. This allows you to quickly ramp up for big projects without committing to full-time employees.

Highly Skilled Professionals

You can handpick freelancers with the exact skills you need for each project, ensuring that every job is done right the first time.

Diverse Talent Pool

Pulling from a global talent pool improves your chances of finding the perfect freelancer for each project.

Many Employees Prefer It

According to Forbes, 36% of the US workforce works freelance. Globally, 46.4% of all workers are freelancers. As more people prioritize working on their schedules, companies that hire freelancers will have more satisfied and productive employees.

Hiring the right freelancers can be tricky, though. Rates and skill sets vary wildly, even for similar search queries. Be sure to vet them carefully and look for red flags before you bring them on board. Here are a few red flags to be aware of:

• Suspiciously low rates

• Offering multiple services (e.g., full-service SEO, copywriting, link building, web design) that aren't necessarily interrelated.

• Unwillingness to sign an agreement or contract

• No portfolio, references, or reviews

6. Optimize Your Client Onboarding Process

If your clients are missing valuable information, a few things can happen:

• A lack of understanding of your services leads to a wrong first impression and can damage clients' relationships

• Incomplete or missing documents needed for the project

• Delays in getting approvals and sign-offs

To avoid these issues, you need an effective onboarding process that clearly outlines your expectations and establishes clear communication channels between your agency and your clients. Start by examining your current onboarding process from start to finish. What can you do to streamline it? Are there any steps that need to be revised? How long does each step take, and is it the optimal amount of time?

Evaluate every aspect of your client onboarding process, including the initial contact, pre-engagement questionnaires and surveys, the onboarding call, and post-onboarding feedback. Once you identify areas that could be improved, create a client brief with step-by-step instructions for each process stage. This will help ensure your clients receive all the information they need quickly and accurately—without surprises or miscommunications. You should also create a client intake form that details everything you need from the client before starting a project. This could include their business model, target audience, and desired outcomes.

7. Centralize Your Client Communication

Who likes getting on Zoom meetings every day? We sure don't. It can be easy to rely on daily check-ins with clients and team members, but this can quickly become overwhelming. Limiting your communications is one of the quickest ways to get extra time in your schedule.

Instead of daily meetings, communicate with clients and team members through a centralized agency management system (e.g., Asana, Monday). This system can centralize all project communication, tasks, and documents. You can also use it to provide real-time updates. This helps keep everyone on the same page without constant calls or meetings.

8. Monitor Time Automatically to Improve Agency Performance

Time tracking can be an HR nightmare if you have over a few contractors or employees. If you want a clear picture of how much money is flowing in and out of your agency because of payroll and measuring it against performance metrics, you need a system that tracks time automatically.

There are plenty of tools out there, like Hubstaff, Time Doctor, and Toggl, that make it easy for you to track employee hours in real time. Using these tools, your employees can log their own time, and the platform will generate automatic reports that show you exactly where your money is going and how productive it's making you. These tools also help ensure that tasks are completed on time and give you valuable insights into the performance of individual team members.

9. Track Your Agency's Productivity Using Important Agency Metrics

On the client side, you probably use KPIs to gauge their campaign performance. But as an agency owner, you must also track your team’s performance. There are a few essential KPIs to monitor if you want a clear picture of your agency's productivity:

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Several things go into the cost of acquiring a customer. This metric measures the cost of attracting, converting, and retaining customers. High CAC is customary in some industries but can indicate an inefficient sales funnel.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

CLV is an estimate of the total revenue that one customer will generate throughout their relationship with your company. It is a relative metric, but if it seems low, consider how you can improve customer retention and loyalty.

Employee Satisfaction

Employee satisfaction can tell you a lot about your team's productivity in the long run. It can also give valuable insight into the effectiveness of your systems.

Project Completion Time

Each project is relative, but comparing the amount of time each project takes to your estimated time can help you plan for efficiency in the future.

By monitoring and tracking all of these metrics, you can quickly see what needs improvement and make adjustments to increase your agency’s efficiency.

10. Regularly Review Workflows and Optimize Processes

Like most things, agency efficiency is an iterative process that requires frequent review and improvement. Look at your workflows every couple of months to ensure everything is running smoothly. Ask for employee and client feedback to identify any bottlenecks or areas that need improvement. The goal should be to optimize processes and ensure everyone is working towards the same goals. To encourage honest feedback, you can do one or more of the following:

• Create surveys using survey tools like SurveyMonkey and personally send them to your team members and clients.

• I am sending an automatic email at the end of every project asking for feedback.

• Emailing new clients after onboarding is complete.

• Holding regular brainstorming and idea-sharing sessions with your team.

• Hosting webinars that focus on the latest industry trends and how they can help your agency be more efficient.

Try Orchestra for Free to Grow Your Productized Service Today

Orchestra supplies the tools to kickstart your productized service right away. The software’s intuitive interface makes it easy to launch your service and start improving your agency metrics immediately. With Orchestra, you can build a branded client portal, manage tasks, and track performance—all without knowing a lick of code. Just connect your Stripe account, and you’ll be ready to go.

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