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Marketing is not just about the “Buy” button. Content, PR, and community rarely bring immediate sales, but they boost the most valuable aspects: reputation, recognition, and audience loyalty. It’s like training for a marathon: you haven’t reached the finish line yet, but you’re already getting in shape.
According to the Digital Marketing Institute, content marketing can generate three times more leads at 62% lower costs than traditional advertising. PR raises brand awareness to the point where you are recognized without a logo, and HigherLogic shows that active communities increase customer engagement by 21%.
And all of this sounds great until the founder asks the direct question: “Where are the numbers?”
To avoid answering “it’s a long-term investment” with a dreamy look out the window, you need KPIs, specific metrics that prove that marketing without direct sales works, and works well.
Content and PR are a long game. The “flood the market and sell” formula doesn’t work here, but they create an environment where sales become a natural consequence. To prove the effectiveness of these areas, measure not only “visits and purchases” but also intermediate indicators that show how the brand is growing in the eyes of the audience.
What it measures: How many people come from organic search and what positions your pages occupy for keywords.
Why it matters: If articles, guides, and landing pages are in the top 10 on Google, it means they are working on recognition and trust, even without direct advertising.
Example: After launching a blog with 10 SEO-optimized articles, a SaaS company received +48% organic traffic in 3 months and reduced the cost of a lead from $120 to $80 because customers came on their own.
How to calculate: Google Analytics 4 + Google Search Console or Ahrefs/Semrush.
What it measures: The number of impressions in search, social media, news sites, and brand mentions in the media.
Why it matters: Even if a person didn’t click, they remembered the name. This works as a “soft warm-up” for the next time they see your offer, triggering the familiar brand effect.
Example: An iGaming PR campaign that resulted in only 5 major publications increased the number of branded queries on Google by 32% within a month.
How to measure: Mention, Brand24, Meltwater, or even free Google Alerts.
What it measures: How much your content makes people interact with it.
Why it matters: A high ER means that the message has entered the emotional field of the audience, and even without a sale, you increase loyalty.
Example: A case study of a fashion brand where a series of behind-the-scenes posts showed an ER 2.3 times higher than average, leading to a +15% increase in sales in the next collection without additional advertising.
How to calculate: On social media through built-in analytics (Meta Insights, LinkedIn Analytics), on blogs through tools such as Hotjar or Plausible.
What it measures: How much time a person spends on a page and what percentage of content they view.
Why it matters: If a visitor spends 2–3 minutes on a page and reads 80% of the material, they are genuinely interested. If it’s 20 seconds and 10%, the content is not engaging or does not meet expectations.
Example: A marketplace that rewrote its product category descriptions in a “useful guide” format increased the average time on page from 45 seconds to 2 minutes and conversion to purchase by 12%.
How to calculate: Google Analytics 4, Hotjar, Crazy Egg.
What it measures: The share of mentions of your brand in the niche relative to competitors.
Why it matters: It’s like “who shouts louder in the market.” If SOV grows, you occupy a larger part of the media space, and this directly affects recognition.
Example: In the crypto niche, a brand that increased its SOV from 8% to 14% in six months through active publications and collaborations increased organic traffic by 60% without additional advertising budget.
How to calculate: Brandwatch, Meltwater, Sprout Social, or even the simpler Mention with competitive monitoring.
LeadPanda tip: these five KPIs work best in combination. For example, if SOV and the number of media mentions are growing, but ER is falling, it means that you are becoming more visible, but your content is not engaging. If Organic Traffic, ER, and Time on Page are all growing together, you’re not just “shining,” you’re really holding people’s attention and warming up your audience.
A community is not just a chat room for memes and “good morning” greetings. It is your free support department, an incubator for brand advocates, and a platform where the audience generates content itself. But to prove the value of the community to the founder or marketing director, you need numbers, not just “the atmosphere is cool.”
What it measures: The number of active participants and their level of interaction (posts, comments, reactions, participation in events).
Why it matters: A large database without activity is a dead number in CRM. Loyalty is born in dialogue, not in a contact list.
Example: A SaaS company increased its active user share from 12% to 28% simply by launching weekly AMA sessions with the product manager. This increased retention by 15%.
How to calculate: Built-in platform analytics (Facebook Groups Insights, Slack Analytics, Discord Insights) or specialized tools such as Orbit and CommonRoom.
What it measures: How many visits to the site or landing pages come from the community.
Why it matters: This is direct evidence that the community works as a warming channel — participants don’t just read, they move on to the brand’s internal channels.
Example: A brand in the iGaming niche increased blog traffic by 37% by integrating article previews and exclusive promotions into the community’s Telegram chat.
How to measure: UTM tags + Google Analytics 4 / Plausible / Matomo.
What it measures: The number of new members over a period and the percentage of those who remained active after 3–6 months.
Why it matters: Influx without retention is like a bucket with a hole: resources are spent on attraction, but the effect is zero.
Example: An EdTech company increased retention from 42% to 68% by adding gamification and badges for community activity.
How to calculate: Built-in platform statistics + your own CRM or marketing automation (HubSpot, ActiveCampaign).
Leadpanda tip: be sure to look at the connection between these KPIs and sales. For example, if community activity is growing but referral traffic is falling, it means that participants are “stuck” inside but not moving into the funnel. This is a signal to add more targeted triggers and content that motivates them to move forward.
These metrics are like a brand “temperature” check. They don’t count clicks or leads, but they answer the question: do people like us enough to talk about us, recommend us, and come back? If content, PR, and community are tools, then these KPIs show how well they work together.
What it measures: Customers’ willingness to recommend you to others. Usually through a simple question: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” (scale from 0 to 10).
Why it matters: High NPS = you have not just customers, but brand advocates. Low = either the product is lacking, or the brand experience is lacking.
Example: A SaaS platform raised its NPS from 42 to 67 by launching a personalized onboarding campaign and a “customer success” chat in Slack. This led to a +20% upsell without additional advertising costs.
How to calculate: SurveyMonkey, Typeform, HubSpot Surveys, Delighted.
What it measures: The tone of brand mentions — positive, negative, neutral.
Why it matters: You can be loud, but if most of the mentions are negative, you’re just adding fuel to the fire. Monitoring sentiment helps you spot a crisis in time and correct the course.
Example: A fintech company noticed a sharp drop in positive sentiment by 18% after changing its rates. Thanks to this, it quickly introduced a bonus program and returned the indicator to its previous level in two weeks.
How to calculate: Brandwatch, Sprout Social, Meltwater, Mention, Google Alerts (for basic monitoring).
Leadpanda tip: keep these two metrics together with Share of Voice. If your share of voice is growing and the tone is consistently positive, you are not only visible, but also loved. This is the best foundation for any subsequent campaign (even a sales campaign) to get off to a flying start.
Marketing that does not sell directly is often underestimated. Content, PR, community, image activities — all of this works slowly but cumulatively. And if you don’t count them, there will always be someone in the company who will say, “Why are we spending our budget on this?”
It’s like having a map and a compass: you can see where you’re going and quickly adjust your course if something goes wrong.
Leadpanda tip: select 5–7 key KPIs from this list, link them to your business goals, and track them monthly. This way, you can not only show that marketing without direct sales works, but also prove that it brings real business value.
After all, in marketing, the main thing is not what you do, but how you prove that it works.