Measure by intention, not by ego metrics — and unlock calmer decisions, faster growth, and more profitable scaling.

Most marketing teams are obsessed with one question - “How are we doing?”

It sounds reasonable. But it’s also the fastest way to stall your growth. Because “doing” what exactly?

When an entire company rallies around a single KPI — usually ROAS — you create one behavior :  optimize the bottom of the funnel forever.

And that’s how growth quietly dies.

One Scoreboard Creates One Behavior

Every scoreboard creates a behavior.

If your main scoreboard is ROAS, your team will naturally:

• Prioritize retargeting
• Cut prospecting
• Starve top-of-funnel
• Protect short-term efficiency at the cost of long-term scale
  
  

Bottom-of-funnel always looks better in a short window. So it wins every internal debate. And over time, you stop bringing in new buyers.

The Fix: Measure by Intention

Instead of one KPI for everything, you need different scoreboards for different jobs.

Every campaign has an intention.  And intention should determine the metric.

The 3 Scoreboards You Should Be Using

1. Cold Traffic / Prospecting

Goal: Start new customer journeys
North Star KPI: First-click attribution revenue / ROAS

This shows what actually initiates revenue — not what steals credit at the end.

2. New Customer Acquisition

Goal: Acquire new buyers profitably
North Star KPI: New Customer Acquisition Cost (nCAC)

You isolate new vs repeat customers so you can see:

• What it really costs to grow
• Not just recycle existing demand
  
  

3. LTV Expansion

Goal: Find channels that compound over time
North Star KPI: Revenue over extended cohorts

This unlocks channels that:

• Look terrible short-term
• But are wildly profitable long-term
  
  

The exact channels most teams accidentally kill.

Why This Changes Everything

When you measure by intention:

• Meetings turn into decisions, not debates
• Budgeting becomes calm, not emotional
• Teams stop fighting over metrics
• Scaling feels rational instead of stressful
  
  

Because you’re no longer asking “Is this good or bad?” You’re asking “Is this doing its job?”

That single shift changes everything.

If this resonates, we break down exactly how to build these three views inside Wicked Reports — including real examples — in our free training.

👉 You can explore it here: wickedreports.com/training

No sales pitch. Just the system we use with our highest-growth customers.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why is using only ROAS a problem for marketing teams?

Using only ROAS as a primary KPI causes teams to over-optimize the bottom of the funnel. Because retargeting and branded traffic naturally produce higher ROAS, budgets get pulled away from prospecting and new customer acquisition. Over time, this reduces top-of-funnel volume, limits growth, and creates misleading performance signals.

What does “measure by intention” mean in marketing?

Measure by intention means assigning KPIs based on the actual job of each campaign. Instead of judging all campaigns by the same metric, each campaign is evaluated by what it is meant to achieve — such as starting new customer journeys, acquiring new customers, or expanding lifetime value.

What KPIs should be used for different marketing stages?

Different stages require different KPIs:

• Cold traffic / prospecting: First-click attribution revenue or ROAS
• New customer acquisition: New customer acquisition cost (nCAC)
• Bottom-of-funnel / retargeting: Multi-touch or click-based ROAS
• LTV expansion: Revenue measured over extended cohorts

This approach prevents false failures and reveals long-term profitable channels