For Marketing Operations Professionals
Created by: Sara McNamara
In a world inundated with emails and where people are chronically online, digital advertising is more important than ever. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Meta, Google, TikTok…you probably have a decent chunk of ads running in at least one of these platforms.
Paid media used to be a bit of spray and pray, but now it’s data-focused. From first view to closed deal, Marketing Operations must ensure every ad campaign is:
These are the terms you’ll see all over the place when it comes to paid media — make sure you understand them!
| Metric | Definition |
|---|---|
| CPM (Cost Per Mille) | The cost to serve 1,000 ad impressions. Measures how efficiently your ad is reaching an audience. |
| CTR (Click-Through Rate) | The percentage of ad impressions that result in a click. Indicates how compelling your ad is to the audience. |
| CVR (Conversion Rate) | The percentage of clicks that result in a conversion (form fill, signup, etc.). Reflects landing page and offer effectiveness. |
| CPL (Cost Per Lead) | The average amount spent to generate a single lead. Helps assess paid media efficiency at the top of the funnel. |
| Cost/MQL | The cost to acquire a marketing-qualified lead. Tracks how well your ads attract qualified prospects. |
| Cost/SQL | The cost to generate a sales-qualified lead. Helps tie ad spend to deeper-funnel outcomes. |
| Cost/Opp | The cost to generate a qualified sales opportunity. Key for evaluating efficiency of pipeline creation. |
| Pipeline $ | The total dollar value of opportunities attributed to a campaign. Shows potential revenue impact from paid efforts. |
| ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) | The amount of revenue generated for every dollar spent on ads. Core metric for evaluating financial return. |
| CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) | The average cost to acquire a new customer. Helps evaluate profitability when paired with LTV. |
| Deal Velocity | The average time it takes for a lead to move from MQL to Closed Won. Indicates how quickly pipeline progresses after initial interest. Can also be measured between every stage. |
There are some key advertising channels most orgs use nowadays, and here are some pro tips for each, right off the bat. Note: I focused less on the tech pieces and more on the overall strategy, as these platforms change pretty quickly….so use these tips directionally, but definitely sign up for release notes/keep up with each provider specifically.