51 key performance indicators and examples

When I was younger, I found myself lost in the expansive northern Minnesota wilderness. I somehow got disoriented a stone's throw from my cabin, and when I found my way back after what was probably five minutes, it felt like I had just experienced 127 Hours (except with all of my limbs intact). A GPS, a map, or even a vague sense of direction would have helped me immensely in that moment.

We can all take a lesson from my youthful misfortune and equip ourselves with our own organizational GPS: key performance indicators (KPIs). These figures can help highlight where you are now and where you need to go to be successful—without gnawing off extremities. 

Here are 51 key performance indicators you can use to hit your goals. (Or scroll to the end for a KPI generator to help you brainstorm right off the bat.)

Table of contents:

• Sales KPIs

• Marketing KPIs

• Customer service KPIs

• Financial KPIs

• Operations KPIs

• What goes into an effective KPI?

• How to choose KPIs

• KPI generator

What are key performance indicators?

Key performance indicators are data points businesses can use to measure progress and meet their goals.

Let's say your business is struggling to grow, and you have a hunch that you aren't developing long-term customer relationships. You could home in on a KPI like repeat customer rate to see how many customers make more than one purchase. By focusing on this KPI, you can set goals to increase it, like establishing a loyalty program or improving your customer experience.

But KPIs aren't exclusive to sales and marketing—financial departments can use them to track revenue, manufacturing teams can use them to ensure projects stay on time and on budget, and failed Boy Scouts can use them to find their way out of the woods (maybe).

What's the difference between KPIs and metrics?

The difference between KPIs and metrics is that while both measure progress, KPIs are tied to business goals and objectives.

Metrics are the raw data points. For example, website traffic is how many visitors your website gets in a specific period, but there's no context beyond that number. There's nothing to signify if those digits are good or bad for your business. That's a metric.

KPIs take those metrics and attach a strategy to them. You can turn website traffic into a KPI by setting a goal like, "Increase website traffic by 10% next quarter to drive a 5% increase in online sales." To achieve this, you might increase your social media presence and invest in targeted ads. Now, website traffic is a KPI because it's directly tied to a specific business objective.

At the risk of sending you into a terminology-induced tailspin, another way to look at it is that all KPIs are metrics, but not all metrics are KPIs.

51 KPI examples

Now, the moment you've been waiting for: here are 51 KPIs you can use in your operations.

Sales KPIs

If your sales are struggling, your organization may be stuck treading water. Successfully graduate from the kiddy pool with a few important KPIs below.

• Sales revenue: This refers to the total income generated from sales of products or services. (Needless to say, more is better.)

• Sales growth: This is the increase in sales revenue over a specific period. You can evaluate this on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis.

• Sales quota attainment: This is the percentage of a sales target, or quota, achieved by an individual salesperson or team. If your salespeople consistently fall short in this area, it may indicate you need to invest in training software. Conversely, if they're consistently hitting their goal, you may want to adjust the quota. (Or you may just have some rockstar salespeople.)

• Average sales price (ASP): This is the average price at which a product or service is sold. If you have only one price point, this will be irrelevant. But if you have several price points—for example, a tiered subscription model—ASP can tell you what your customers are gravitating toward.

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): This refers to the total cost of acquiring new customers. This can include marketing expenses, employee salaries, relevant technology expenditures like CRMs, and the cost of sending an intern to stand outside a potential customer's house with a boombox in the pouring rain.

• Customer lifetime value (CLV): This refers to the total revenue a customer generates for your business throughout the relationship. CAC and CLV are often intertwined, and it's a good rule of thumb to achieve a 3:1 ratio—in other words, if your CAC is $100, make sure your CLV is $300 or more.

• Conversion rate: This metric can be relevant to several departments in your organization and refers to the percentage of users who complete a desired action. Sales teams can use it to measure things like the percentage of leads that convert to customers or the number of leads who attend a webinar. 

• Win rate: This is the percentage of deals won by a salesperson or team. This differs from conversion rate because it measures only closed deals, while conversion rate can include other sales and marketing activities.

• Sales cycle length: This refers to the average time it takes a salesperson or team to close a deal. The metaphorical clock typically starts ticking at the first contact point and ends when the customer pledges a blood oath to your business (or simply purchases your product).

• Sales rep productivity: This measures a salesperson's efficiency. You can determine sales rep productivity by measuring the total revenue generated per hour worked. It can also be a culmination of other stats like sales length, win rate, and sales quota attainment—or even evaluating qualitative skills like lead management.

Marketing KPIs

Marketing and sales go hand in hand; what's good for one department may very well be good for the other. That said, here are some similar—yet slightly more marketing-focused—KPIs you can use to measure your performance.

• Brand awareness: If I asked you for a mouthwash brand, you would probably say Listerine or Scope. If I asked you what sports company has a swoosh logo, you'd immediately answer Nike. Brand awareness is how familiar consumers are with a brand, and it's key to standing out in the marketplace. You can turn this into a KPI by focusing on something specific within brand awareness. For example, if your competition has a social media presence, you could measure brand awareness through Instagram followers compared to the top players in your industry.

• Website traffic: This is how many visitors your brand gets in a given period. You can use this as an eCommerce KPI to evaluate your online store, or use it as a secondary metric to monitor marketing efforts from paid social to pay-per-click (PPC).

• Bounce rate: This refers to how many consumers leave your website after only viewing one page. This is a useful metric to evaluate landing page effectiveness, whether it's your homepage or the page visitors go to after clicking an ad.

• Traffic sources: Modern businesses often have a website and multiple social media pages and engage in ad campaigns across platforms. Traffic source metrics help you narrow down where your visitors are coming from and identify which channels are worth focusing on. Home in on a measurable KPI here by choosing a specific traffic source—for example, traffic derived from Facebook or Google.

• Return on ad spend (ROAS): This is the amount of sales revenue generated compared to the cost of an ad campaign. ROAS varies from industry to industry, but a good goal is a 4:1 ratio, like generating $4 for every $1 spent on advertising.

• Customer retention rate: As Ryan told Michael in The Office shortly after over-microwaving his cheese pita, it's much more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain existing customers. Customer retention rate can help you identify how effectively you keep your customers over time.

• Click-through rate (CTR): This refers to the percentage of consumers who click on an ad, email, or link after seeing it. CTR gives you insight into the effectiveness of your messaging.

• Conversion rate: This is the percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. It can help you determine how effective your UX and copywriting are—and if you need to pillage your IT and creative departments in favor of more capable employees (although that's not recommended).

• Churn rate: Churn rate measures how many customers stop using your product or service over a specific period, providing valuable insight into your customer retention efforts and how effectively your business is meeting their needs.

• Market share: This is the percentage of a market controlled by a specific company or product. It can help identify a company's position in the market and exactly how many railroads and utility companies they own (in Monopoly terms).

Customer service KPIs

While many businesses live by the mantra, "The customer is always right," any manager coming off a double shift at the local Chili's is likely to disagree. No matter your approach to customer service, here are some metrics you can use to delight them at every turn. 

• Customer satisfaction (CSAT): It's a simple concept: happy customers are more likely to stick around long term, while unhappy customers are prone to jump ship at the first available opportunity. Customer satisfaction keeps a pulse on how your users are feeling, and you can measure it through custom surveys or feedback forms. Start by whipping up some questions like, "On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with your purchase?"

• First contact resolution (FCR): No one likes going round and round with a customer service representative until the issue gets resolved. FCR does its best to combat that by measuring the number of customer service interactions resolved at the first contact point. Less time on the phone means more time using your product.

• Average response time: This is a common help desk metric that measures the average time it takes for a customer support agent to respond to a customer's request. In text-based communication like live chat or email, it's how long it takes for a support rep to type and hit "Enter"—which, unfortunately, could be longer than you think, especially if they stray from the customer service script. When companies solve customer inquiries faster, they boost customer retention and satisfaction.

• Average handle time: While average response time refers to how long it takes for that first response, average handle time measures how long it takes to solve the entire issue. You could respond to your customers in record speed, but if you're sluggish getting to the finish line, it will negatively impact your overall customer experience.

• Return rate: This metric pinpoints how often customers return your product. If you're getting a high number of returns, there's probably something wrong with your product or how you're setting customer expectations.

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS typically revolves around one question: on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product to other people? While the exact phrasing—and number of questions—can differ, companies use NPS to evaluate customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.

• Customer effort score (CES): This KPI measures the effort it takes for a customer to find or receive what they need from a company. This could be how easy it was for them to return an order, speak to a customer service representative, or start using the product. Just like NPS, CES is typically a one-question survey.

• Repeat customer rate (RCR): This refers to the percentage of customers who make at least two purchases (i.e., more than one) in a given period. Needless to say, if your customers are coming back for more, you're doing something right.

• Customer complaint rate: This metric measures how often customers submit complaints or voice their dissatisfaction with your products or services. Fewer complaints can mean you're on the right track, but make sure the lack of complaints is due to satisfaction, not apathy.

• Customer engagement: The more customers engage with your business, the (likely) happier they are. You can measure customer engagement by examining usage rates (if you own an app or SaaS product) or reviewing survey responses—specifically, how many you're getting.

• Employee satisfaction rate: Increasing satisfaction isn't reserved for customers—you should also keep an eye on your employees. Employee satisfaction rate measures how satisfied employees are with their jobs and your company. The happier they are, the more likely they will provide “service with a smile” to every one of your customers. You can measure it through surveys similar to CSAT or NPS  geared toward your staff.

Financial KPIs

While the sales KPIs above measure the flow of money, these financial metrics go deeper into what matters most on your balance sheet. Use them to stay in the green.

• Revenue: This is the total amount of money a company generates from its business activities. Revenue is one of the most important metrics to look out for, and you can calculate it by simply adding up all of your revenue-generating activities. It's often called "top line" because it's the first item on an income statement.

• Profit margin: You can have all the revenue in the world, but if expenses are outpacing your sales, you won't make any money. Profit margin measures how much money you're really taking home after deducting all costs involved with producing the product or service.

• Return on investment (ROI): This metric evaluates the efficiency of an investment by comparing profits and costs. You can use this metric for nearly anything, from measuring the effectiveness of a marketing campaign to evaluating whether that new CRM software made a difference.

• Budgets: You should always have a ballpark estimate of how much things will cost. Track your budget and turn this metric into a KPI by getting specific—for example, tracking payroll or ad campaign budget. A solid budget will keep your spending in line and help improve your profit margin.

• Cost variance: Are you staying within your budget? If you aren't, cost variance will let you know. This metric compares your actual spending vs. what you budgeted for.

• Current ratio: For businesses that take out loans or finance some aspect of their operations, current ratio highlights how likely they are to pay their short-term obligations.

• Inventory turnover: No business wants to spend money making products only for a portion of them to gather dust in the corner. Inventory turnover measures how quickly a company sells and replaces its inventory, giving you information about how many products you should create at a time.

• Accounts receivable turnover: Unfortunately, many people can attest to loaning a friend $20 and never getting it back. Accounts receivable turnover measures how quickly a company can collect payments from customers or loans from clients, helping you decide who you should be giving credit to and determine best practices for getting paid.

• Cash flow: This refers to the amount of money moving in and out of a business over time. A positive cash flow (more money coming in than going out) shows a healthy financial position. You can measure it by getting specific—for example, tracking operating cash flow or your cash flow margin.

• Market capitalization: For companies that issue shares, market capitalization shows the market value of a company's outstanding shares of stock. This is valuable for determining the size of a publicly traded company, rather than simply looking at total sales or assets.

Operations KPIs

While sales and marketing teams persuade customers and financial teams pore over the numbers, someone needs to ensure your team meets product deadlines and quality standards. Here are a few KPIs you can use to empower your project management team.

• Project completion rate: Nothing tricky here—project completion rate measures the percentage of completed projects. You can use it to measure the success of PR campaigns, developing new product features, or updating employee resources.

• Project on-time delivery rate: This is the percentage of projects delivered on or before their scheduled deadlines. Use this metric to determine how effectively your team uses their time.

• Project within budget rate: This refers to the percentage of projects completed within their allocated budgets. Like delivery rate, this can help you evaluate team efficiency.

• Customer satisfaction with project outcomes: You can complete a project on time and within budget, but that's no guarantee it'll resonate with your customers. Customer satisfaction with project outcomes measures how happy customers are with final project results, and you can evaluate this through surveys or feedback forms like CSAT or CES.

• Project scope adherence: This KPI measures how effectively a project stays within its pre-defined scope. You can combine figures like project within budget rate, project on-time completion rate, and project completion rate to get one all-encompassing view.

• Resource utilization efficiency: This refers to how effectively your team uses resources. For example, you might use this to measure budget allocation, or you could measure how efficiently employees complete tasks compared to their working hours.

• Cycle time: While some may take this as how long your spin class was last Saturday, cycle time measures how long it takes to complete a specific project or phase. You can use this metric to evaluate how long it takes to manufacture your product or add a new product feature.

• Throughput: If you physically manufacture your product, throughput tells you how much you can produce while operating at peak performance.

• Risk management effectiveness: Risk is everywhere you turn in an organization. Is your equipment prone to failure? Is your company and customer data protected from cybercriminals? Are you prepared for the inevitable Yellowstone supervolcano eruption? Risk management effectiveness measures how well these potential risks are identified, assessed, and mitigated.

• Project documentation quality: You can't run business operations on a wing and a prayer. Project documentation quality measures how thorough your documentation process is and can be identified through internal reviews, audits, or customer feedback.

What goes into an effective KPI

Effective KPIs are those you can reliably measure, track, and use to evaluate performance. But it's not enough to say you're starting to track CSAT, for example—you need to assign a framework to your KPIs. Many organizations follow the SMART method, which means KPIs should be:

• Specific: Answer the what, why, and how of what you want to achieve. Don't just say you want to increase CSAT; detail exactly how you'll do it.

• Measurable: "Increase" in itself isn't good enough. Both 1% and 25% are technically increases—but one is clearly more impactful. Make sure your KPIs are measurable so you can track progress effectively.

• Achievable: As someone who struggles to run three miles without stopping, claiming that I want to complete a triathlon in three months is a goal not even my own mother could support. Make sure your KPIs follow the same pattern—a 5% increase in CSAT is likely achievable short term; a 50% increase is not.

• Relevant: Don't waste your time focusing on the wrong things. If all your customers are giving you glowing reviews, CSAT isn't the best thing to focus on—prioritize the KPIs that actually need work.

• Time-bound: Goals aren't good enough without an end date. Set KPI deadlines so you can track your efforts.

Going back to our CSAT example, an effective KPI goal that follows the SMART framework could be: increase CSAT from 70% to 80% by the end of Q2 by implementing a new training program for support agents and adding a feedback system after support interactions.

How to choose (and use) the right KPIs

You need to focus on the right things when selecting your KPIs. To do that, follow a few key tips:

• Identify your goals: Start by clarifying what you want to achieve. Do you want to improve sales? Boost customer service? Take logistical control of the entire Northern Seaboard? Whether your goals are small or world domination-level, make sure they align with the broader vision of your organization.

• Choose the right metrics: You need to choose the right KPIs that align with your goals. Make sure the metrics you home in on fit your vision.

• Align with key stakeholders: Unless you're a one-person operation, you need to communicate with other key stakeholders in your organization to get team-wide buy-in. For example, an initial goal of increasing sales would probably involve the sales, marketing, and customer service departments. Ensure everyone is aligned with your vision and committed to the KPI.

• Set your action plan: Now it's time for the meat and potatoes of your KPI. Taking our CSAT example from above, how exactly do you plan on implementing a new training program and feedback system? Who is going to create these systems? How will they be distributed and implemented? The more detail you include in your plan, the more likely you'll succeed.

• Monitor progress: Regularly track your KPIs to ensure you stay on target. You don't want to over-analyze, but if your goal is to improve a metric by the next quarter, it may be wise to check in halfway through that timeline to monitor progress. Doing so can help you see if your efforts are working or if you need to change course.

Generate KPIs automatically

Try this KPI generator to get some ideas for KPIs that might make sense for your business. Remember not to share any sensitive information.

Hit your KPIs with automation

After identifying the metrics you want to measure and creating a plan, you need to use the right tools to ensure you actually hit your goals. With Zapier, you can connect your favorite apps to automate all things KPI—and create automated systems to help you achieve your goals.

If you're a spreadsheeter, you could even build a KPI dashboard in Excel to monitor your progress—so long as it's not toward the forest again.

Related reading:

• How to craft a winning CRM strategy in 8 steps

• Key SaaS metrics your company should track (plus a cheat sheet)

• The YouTube metrics you should focus on

• AARRR: Generate more revenue using pirate metric