How to Tell If Your Marketing Is Actually Working

Here’s a fun question: is your marketing actually working, or are you just busy posting, emailing, and “doing all the things” without results? Spoiler: being busy isn’t the same as being effective. If you’re not tracking the right signals, you could be burning time and money while convincing yourself you’re crushing it.

So how do you know if your marketing is pulling its weight? Let’s break it down.

1. Start With Clear Goals
If your only goal is “get more visibility,” you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Visibility doesn’t pay bills. Leads, sales, sign-ups, and booked calls do. Before you can measure success, you need to define what success looks like. Otherwise, you’re just spinning on the hamster wheel.

2. Look Beyond Vanity Metrics
Likes, views, and followers feel good, but they don’t equal revenue. Real indicators include:

• Conversion rates (are people taking action?)
  
  

• Customer acquisition cost (how much does it cost to get one new customer?)
  
  

• Lifetime customer value (are they coming back for more?)
  
  

• ROI (is the money you’re putting in actually coming back out?)
  
  

3. Track Engagement, Not Just Reach
It’s not about how many people saw your post — it’s about how many cared enough to interact. Comments, shares, saves, and replies tell you your audience is paying attention. Engagement is the bridge between awareness and action.

4. Monitor Your Funnel
If your marketing is working, people should move through your funnel:

• Awareness → Interest → Consideration → Purchase → Loyalty.
  If they’re getting stuck at one stage, that’s where your strategy needs fixing. Example: lots of website visits but no purchases? Your ads are fine, your landing page is the problem.
  
  

5. Follow the Money
Marketing should make you money. Period. If you can’t tie your efforts back to revenue, you don’t have a strategy — you have a hobby. Follow the data: how many leads turned into sales? What’s the ROI of your campaigns? Which channels are the biggest drivers of profit?

6. Pay Attention to Repeat Business
One-off sales are nice. Loyal customers are better. If your marketing is working, people should come back again and again. Track repeat purchases, retention rates, and referrals. If those numbers are climbing, your marketing isn’t just working — it’s thriving.

7. Ask Your Audience
Here’s a radical idea: ask people how they found you. Add “How did you hear about us?” to your forms. Ask in sales calls. You’ll learn which channels are actually driving results (and sometimes it’s not the ones you expect).

8. Check the Energy
Not everything can be measured in spreadsheets. If your marketing is working, you’ll feel momentum. DMs from excited prospects. Inquiries that mention your content. Customers referencing your emails. Energy is a metric too — don’t ignore it.

Common Red Flags Your Marketing Isn’t Working

• You’re posting consistently but not seeing growth in leads or sales.
  
  

• Your ads get clicks but no conversions.
  
  

• Your email list grows but no one buys.
  
  

• You’re exhausted by content creation but don’t know what it’s achieving.
  
  

The Bottom Line
If you’re not sure your marketing is working, it probably isn’t. But the good news? Clarity is just a few metrics away. Stop chasing vanity numbers and start tracking what actually matters: conversions, revenue, loyalty, and impact. When you know what’s working, you can double down. When you know what’s not, you can fix it.

👉 Ready for marketing that actually works (and proof to back it up)? Work with Ivy House Creative and let’s build you a strategy that pays off in real results, not just busywork.