What Are the Top Tools and Metrics a Digital Marketing Strategist Should Know?
Digital marketing is no longer just about publishing content, running advertisements or increasing website traffic. A strong digital marketing strategy depends on understanding what is working, why it is working and whether it is contributing to meaningful business outcomes.
That is why a digital marketing strategist needs more than creative ideas. They need the right tools, analytics and performance metrics to make informed marketing decisions.
From Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console to advertising platforms, CRM systems and SEO tools, marketers have access to a wide range of data. The challenge is knowing which information matters and how to turn it into action.
In this guide, we will explore the essential tools and metrics a digital marketing strategist should understand and how they can be used to measure, analyse and optimise marketing performance
What Does a Digital Marketing Strategist Do?
A digital marketing strategist develops a plan for using online marketing channels to achieve specific business objectives.
Depending on the business, this can include:
- Search engine optimisation (SEO)
- Google Ads
- Meta advertising
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Website optimisation
- Lead generation
- Conversion rate optimisation
- Marketing analytics
- Customer journey and funnel optimisation
The role goes beyond managing individual channels.
A digital marketing strategist needs to understand how different channels work together and how marketing activity ultimately contributes to leads, sales, revenue and customer retention.
That requires both the right tools and the right metrics.
Top Tools Every Digital Marketing Strategist Should Know
1. Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is one of the most important analytics platforms for understanding what people do after they reach a website or app.
A digital marketing strategist can use GA4 to analyse:
- Users and sessions
- Traffic sources
- Landing pages
- Engagement rate
- Events
- Key events and conversions
- User journeys
- Campaign performance
- Device and audience behaviour
GA4 defines an engaged session as one that lasts longer than 10 seconds, contains a key event, or includes at least two page or screen views.
The important point is that traffic alone does not tell the complete story.
For example, 10,000 website visitors may sound impressive. But if only a small percentage takes a meaningful action, the campaign may not be generating enough business value.
A strategist therefore needs to connect traffic → engagement → conversion → revenue.
2. Google Search Console
If SEO is part of your strategy, Google Search Console should be one of your essential tools.
It provides valuable information about how your website performs in Google Search, including:
- Clicks
- Impressions
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Average position
- Search queries
- Top-performing pages
- Countries
- Devices
- Search appearance
Google specifically recommends using Search Console performance data to understand which queries bring users to your site and which pages receive the most visibility and clicks.
One particularly useful strategy is identifying pages that have high impressions but low CTR.
These pages already have search visibility. Improving the title, description, content alignment and search intent may help increase clicks.
Search Console also allows marketers to compare branded and non-branded search performance, helping distinguish existing brand demand from broader organic visibility.
3. Google Ads
For businesses using paid search, Google Ads is essential for understanding how paid search contributes to leads and sales.
A digital marketing strategist should be comfortable analysing:
- Impressions
- Clicks
- CTR
- Cost per click (CPC)
- Conversion rate
- Cost per conversion
- Conversion value
- ROAS
- Search terms
- Campaign performance
- Keyword performance
The key is not simply finding the cheapest clicks.
A campaign generating inexpensive traffic but poor-quality leads can be less valuable than a campaign with a higher CPC that consistently generates profitable customers.
4. Meta Ads Manager
For businesses advertising on Facebook and Instagram, Meta Ads Manager provides the data needed to understand campaign and creative performance.
Important areas include:
- Reach
- Impressions
- Frequency
- CPM
- CTR
- CPC
- Landing page views
- Leads
- Cost per lead
- Purchases
- Conversion value
- ROAS
For modern Meta advertising, a strategist should also compare creative performance, not just audience performance.
Different hooks, formats, offers, videos and messages can produce dramatically different results.
This makes creative testing an important part of paid social strategy.
5. SEO Tools
A digital marketing strategist should understand at least one professional SEO platform.
Popular options include:
- Semrush
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- Screaming Frog
These tools can help with:
- Keyword research
- Competitor research
- Backlink analysis
- Technical SEO
- Keyword rankings
- Content opportunities
- Site audits
- Search visibility
The goal isn’t to collect thousands of keywords.
The goal is to identify valuable search opportunities that match the business, audience and search intent.
6. CRM and Marketing Automation Platforms
A website conversion isn’t always a sale.
For many businesses, the customer journey looks more like:
Ad → Landing Page → Lead → Follow-up → Sales Conversation → Customer
This is where CRM platforms become important.
Tools such as HubSpot and other CRM systems can help businesses track leads, customer interactions, sales stages and revenue.
Attribution reporting can also help connect marketing activities with contacts, deals and revenue.
For a digital marketing strategist, this means moving beyond the question:
“How many leads did marketing generate?”
and asking:
“How many valuable customers did marketing generate?”
7. Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager helps marketers and developers manage tracking tags without manually editing website code every time a tracking requirement changes.
It can be useful for implementing and managing tracking for:
- Analytics
- Advertising platforms
- Form submissions
- Button clicks
- Events
- Conversion tracking
For strategists, understanding how tracking works is increasingly important because poor measurement can lead to poor decisions.
8. Looker Studio
Looker Studio can turn marketing data into visual reports and dashboards.
A strategist can combine data from different sources to create dashboards for:
- SEO
- Google Ads
- Website performance
- Lead generation
- Social media
- Campaign performance
- Revenue
This is particularly useful when reporting to clients or business owners who need a simple view of what is happening.
A good marketing dashboard should answer three questions:
What happened?
Why did it happen?
What should we do next?
The Most Important Metrics a Digital Marketing Strategist Should Know
Having access to data isn’t enough.
The real skill is knowing which metrics matter.
1. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures the percentage of users who complete a desired action.
A simple formula is:
Conversion Rate = Conversions ÷ Total Visitors × 100
Conversions could include:
- Form submissions
- Phone calls
- Purchases
- Bookings
- Enquiries
- Downloads
- Sign-ups
A strategist should always define the conversion before deciding which metrics to optimise.
2. Cost Per Lead (CPL)
For lead-generation campaigns:
CPL = Total Advertising Spend ÷ Number of Leads
CPL helps determine how efficiently a campaign generates leads.
However, a low CPL isn’t automatically a good result.
If Campaign A generates leads at $10 each but most are poor quality, while Campaign B generates qualified leads at $25 each, Campaign B may actually be more profitable.
This is why lead quality should be analysed alongside CPL.
3. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
CAC measures how much it costs to acquire a new customer.
CAC = Total Sales & Marketing Costs ÷ Number of New Customers
CAC is more useful than looking at advertising costs alone because it considers the broader acquisition process.
A business should ideally understand its CAC alongside customer lifetime value.
4. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Customer Lifetime Value estimates the value a customer generates throughout their relationship with a business.
For businesses with repeat purchases or recurring services, LTV can be particularly important.
For example, acquiring a customer for $100 may seem expensive.
But if that customer generates $5,000 in revenue over several years, the acquisition cost may be commercially sustainable.
5. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
ROAS measures revenue generated from advertising relative to advertising spend.
ROAS = Revenue Attributed to Ads ÷ Advertising Spend
For example:
If a business spends $2,000 and generates $8,000 in attributed revenue:
ROAS = 4x
ROAS should not be viewed in isolation.
Profit margins, fulfilment costs, staff costs and other business expenses also matter.
6. Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)
ROMI takes a broader view of marketing profitability.
One commonly used formula is:
ROMI = (Revenue Generated − Marketing Expenses) ÷ Marketing Expenses × 100
Unlike ROAS, which focuses specifically on advertising spend, ROMI can be used to evaluate marketing investment more broadly.
This helps businesses evaluate the financial return of marketing activity rather than focusing only on traffic or engagement.
7. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR measures how often people click after seeing an advertisement or search result.
CTR = Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100
A high CTR can indicate that your message, offer or search result is relevant to the audience.
However, CTR should always be evaluated alongside what happens after the click.
A high CTR with poor conversions can indicate a mismatch between the advertisement and landing page.
8. Cost Per Click (CPC)
CPC measures the average amount paid for each advertising click.
CPC = Advertising Spend ÷ Clicks
It can help marketers understand traffic acquisition costs, but cheaper CPC isn’t necessarily better.
The better question is:
What happens after the click?
9. Engagement Rate
Engagement rate helps marketers understand whether audiences are interacting meaningfully with content.
Depending on the platform, engagement may include:
- Likes
- Comments
- Shares
- Saves
- Clicks
- Video interactions
Engagement is useful for understanding audience response, but it should be evaluated alongside actions such as website visits, leads, conversions and revenue.
10. Organic Clicks and Impressions
For SEO, clicks and impressions are fundamental metrics.
Impressions indicate how often your content appeared in Google Search.
Clicks indicate how often users clicked through to your website.
Google Search Console also provides CTR and average position to help marketers understand search performance.
A strategist should look for trends rather than obsessing over one ranking number.
Which Marketing Metrics Should You Prioritise?
Not every business needs the same KPI dashboard.
A local restaurant might prioritise:
- Calls
- Directions
- Website visits
- Bookings
- Offer redemptions
- Cost per lead
- Customer acquisition cost
An e-commerce business might focus on:
- Revenue
- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- ROAS
- CAC
- LTV
- Repeat purchase rate
A B2B company may prioritise:
- Qualified leads
- MQLs
- SQLs
- Cost per qualified lead
- Sales conversion rate
- CAC
- Pipeline value
- Revenue attribution
The best digital marketing strategist doesn’t simply track more metrics.
They identify the metrics that connect marketing activity to the company’s actual objectives.
Vanity Metrics vs Business Metrics
One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is confusing activity with results.
For example:
Vanity metric: 50,000 Instagram views.
Business metric: 500 qualified website visits that generated 25 enquiries.
Both numbers provide information, but the second tells you much more about potential business impact.
This doesn’t mean engagement metrics are useless.
Reach, views, followers and engagement can be useful leading indicators.
But they shouldn’t replace metrics such as:
- Leads
- Qualified leads
- Sales
- Revenue
- CAC
- ROAS
- Customer retention
How AI Is Changing What Digital Marketing Strategists Need to Measure
Search is changing.
People increasingly discover information through AI-powered search experiences, conversational interfaces and recommendation systems alongside traditional search engines.
This means marketers should think beyond a single keyword ranking.
A strong content strategy should aim to create content that is:
- Useful
- Accurate
- Clearly structured
- Original
- Easy to understand
- Relevant to search intent
- Supported by credible information
- Written for people first
AI visibility should therefore be considered alongside traditional SEO.
Instead of asking only:
“What position does this keyword rank at?”
a strategist should ask:
“Does our content clearly answer the questions our target customers are asking?”
That shift is important for businesses trying to build long-term visibility across both search engines and AI-driven discovery.
A Simple Digital Marketing Strategist KPI Framework
At Two Tones Co, a practical way to think about digital marketing performance is to divide metrics into five levels:
1. Visibility
Measure:
- Impressions
- Reach
- Search visibility
- Rankings
- Brand searches
2. Traffic
Measure:
- Website sessions
- Organic clicks
- Paid clicks
- Referral traffic
- Landing page visits
3. Engagement
Measure:
- Engagement rate
- Time/engaged sessions
- Video engagement
- Content interactions
- Pages per session
4. Conversion
Measure:
- Leads
- Calls
- Bookings
- Purchases
- Conversion rate
- Cost per lead
5. Revenue
Measure:
- Sales
- Revenue
- CAC
- LTV
- ROAS
- ROMI
- Customer retention
This creates a much clearer picture than looking at individual platform dashboards in isolation.
The Digital Marketing Strategist’s Toolkit
If you’re building a practical marketing technology stack, start with:
| Area | Tools |
| Website Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
| SEO | Google Search Console, Semrush, Ahrefs |
| Paid Search | Google Ads |
| Social Advertising | Meta Ads Manager |
| Tracking | Google Tag Manager |
| CRM | HubSpot or another CRM |
| Reporting | Looker Studio |
| Content & Creative | Canva, Adobe tools |
| Planning | Notion, Asana or ClickUp |
| Automation | Zapier and marketing automation platforms |
The exact tools can change from business to business.
The important thing is understanding how the data from these tools connects.
Final Thoughts
Being a successful digital marketing strategist isn’t about knowing every marketing platform available. It’s about knowing which tools and metrics matter for a particular business and turning the resulting data into useful decisions.
A strong measurement framework connects marketing activity with meaningful outcomes such as qualified leads, customers, revenue and retention. Tools provide the data, while strategy determines what that data means and what should happen next.
Businesses don’t need to track every available metric. They need a practical system that connects the right tools, KPIs and business objectives.
At Two Tones Co, we help businesses develop digital marketing strategies that connect channels, data and measurable business outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a digital marketing strategist?
A digital marketing strategist plans and coordinates online marketing activities to help a business achieve goals such as brand awareness, leads, sales and revenue growth.
What tools should a digital marketing strategist know?
A digital marketing strategist should understand tools such as Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, SEO platforms, CRM systems, Google Tag Manager and reporting platforms such as Looker Studio.
What are the most important digital marketing KPIs?
Important metrics include conversion rate, cost per lead, customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, ROAS, ROMI, CTR, engagement rate, organic clicks, impressions and revenue.
Is website traffic an important digital marketing metric?
Yes, but traffic should not be viewed alone. A strategist should also analyse engagement, conversions, lead quality, customer acquisition cost and revenue to determine whether website traffic is creating business value.
How can a digital marketing strategist improve marketing performance?
A strategist can improve performance by analysing data, identifying bottlenecks, testing creative and messaging, improving conversion paths, reallocating budgets toward effective channels and continuously measuring results.
What is the difference between a marketing strategist and a digital marketer?
A digital marketer may manage specific activities such as SEO, advertising or social media. A digital marketing strategist takes a broader view, connecting multiple channels, customer journeys, KPIs and business objectives into one coordinated strategy.
Why are marketing metrics important?
Marketing metrics help businesses understand what is working, what isn’t and where resources should be invested. The most useful metrics connect marketing activity to meaningful outcomes such as qualified leads, customers and revenue.
