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The five numbers every growing West Midlands business should actually be tracking

Ask most small business owners how their marketing is performing and you'll get one of two answers. Either a confident "really well" based on a feeling, or a slightly uncomfortable "I'm not entirely sure" based on never having set up anything to measure it properly. Neither is a great position to be in when you're trying to grow. The good news is you don't need a marketing degree or an expensive analytics platform to know if things are working. You just need to keep an eye on five numbers. These five, specifically.

1. Website visitors — and where they're coming from

Your total visitor count tells you something. But the breakdown of where those visitors are coming from tells you far more.

Are people finding you through Google searches? Through social media? By typing your address directly? Each of those sources tells a different story about what's working and what needs attention.

Google Analytics is free, takes about twenty minutes to set up, and gives you this information clearly. If you don't have it running yet, that's the first thing to fix.

2. Conversion rate

Of everyone who visits your website, how many actually do something — fill in a form, make a call, send an email?

That percentage is your conversion rate and it's one of the most important numbers in your business. A modest improvement here can have a significant impact on your enquiry volume without spending anything extra on marketing.

If you're getting decent traffic but very few enquiries, your website is the problem — not your visibility.

3. Cost per lead

If you're running any paid advertising — Google Ads, Facebook, anything — you need to know what each enquiry is actually costing you.

Not just the total ad spend. The cost per lead.

Divide your monthly ad spend by the number of enquiries it generated and you have a number you can actually work with. From there you can decide whether it's worth it, where to adjust, and whether you're getting a fair return.

4. Email open rate

If you're sending any kind of email to customers or prospects — even occasional updates — your open rate tells you whether people are actually reading them.

The industry average sits somewhere around 35-45% for small businesses with an engaged list. If yours is consistently below 20%, something needs to change, whether that's your subject lines, your sending frequency, or who's on your list.

Email remains one of the highest-returning marketing channels available to small businesses. It's worth knowing if yours is working.

5. Returning customers

What percentage of your revenue comes from people who've bought from you before?

This number doesn't live in your marketing dashboard — it lives in your sales data. But it matters enormously. Returning customers cost less to sell to, they spend more on average, and they're far more likely to refer people to you.

If this number is low, your priority shouldn't be more marketing. It should be better follow-up with the customers you already have.

You don't need all of this overnight

Pick one number this week. Set it up, look at it, understand what it's telling you. Then add the next one.

The goal isn't a dashboard full of metrics — it's a clear, honest picture of whether your marketing is actually earning its keep.

Not sure how to find these numbers or what to do with them once you have them? That's a conversation we have with Walsall businesses regularly, and it usually only takes an hour to get clarity.