Marketing Originated Customer Percentage allows you to tell your boss — This is how much the business grew because of marketing.

One morning, I woke up to realize that a startup founder sent me a series of texts.

We are getting a lot more new customers! Our marketing is working! We must replicate what we are doing now.

While I was happy for him, I was also a bit cautious before I joined the celebration. What if he was mistaking correlation for causation?

What if, he was getting to the wrong conclusion? And if that’s the case, he’d end up amplifying the wrong campaign.

It turned out that was partially the case. His marketing campaign hit a market trend that generated customer interest for a couple of months. After that, replicating that campaign and methods didn’t work.

Yes, his marketing team could rightly jump on the powerful wave of a trend. But that didn’t mean they unlocked a formula that’d help them replicate similar success.

The trend was the cause of the company’s sudden growth.

Marketing Originated Customer Percentage Can Help You With Replicable Success

Let’s start with what this metric is.

Imagine you’ve attracted 1,000 new customers in a month. After analysis, you realize that 100 of them came from your marketing activities. That’s your marketing originate customer.

Marketing originated customer percentage is the customers who came through the marketing channel (was a marketing lead) divided by your total number of new customers in that month.

This ratio emphasizes how your business is being generated by the marketing team.

Marketing Originated Customer Percentage: Why is this Metric so Important for Your Business?

Firstly, this metric allows you to have clear insight into what percentage of your customers you have gained through online marketing. It helps you identify winning campaigns, channels, and methods. Eventually, this knowledge piles up and helps you lower your customer acquisition costs.

Secondly, this metric also shows you what portion of your customer you are getting from other sources. If word of mouth is a big source, you should maintain your product and service quality. If your location is your customer magnet, you must keep that in mind while expanding to different areas. If it’s the season (umbrella store in rainy season), you must manage your supply chain accordingly.

Thirdly, this metric also forces you to be more analytic. Digital ads are easy to measure. But what if you have offline ads or a brick & mortar presence? You’ll need to be creative about identifying the source of the customer. It can be done through coupon codes, registration surveys, or any other methods. By measuring each step, even in offline journeys, you’ll understand your customers and your business better.

How This Metric Can Help That Startup

You must be wondering how this metric helps that startup. The customers they acquired came through the marketing channels. So they will be part of the percentage.

Yes, they will be.

However, if they have been tracking this metric for months, they would have a historic trend. When they’d see a spike, they’d know it can be because of a campaign, but external forces may also impact it.

The historic trend will keep them on track for sustainable growth instead of chasing fads.

That is why tracking this metric is so important.