When it comes to franchise marketing, there’s no room for guesswork. As a franchisor, you know that success starts with a tailored marketing strategy. Whether you’re focused on growing your franchise network, supporting individual locations, or building brand awareness on a national scale, it’s important to make data-driven decisions that support your goals. Monitoring the right franchise marketing metrics can help you see exactly what’s working (and what’s not working) so you can make every dollar count.
The Elysium team knows what it takes to drive franchise growth. In 2025, we’ll monitor these KPIs to measure success and optimize our marketing efforts for clients.
Paid Advertising Metrics
Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) is a game-changer for franchise growth. Whether you’re focused on targeting prospective franchisees, driving in-store traffic, or building national awareness, investing in ads can help you reach the right audience quickly. With PPC, every dollar counts, so it’s critical to track the right metrics.
1. Cost Per Lead (CPL)
What It Is: Cost Per Lead (CPL) measures how much it costs to generate a single lead. To calculate your CPL, divide your total ad spend by the total number of leads generated.
Why It Matters: Most marketers consider lead generation a top priority, but 18% of marketers don’t know how much each lead is costing them. CPL helps ensure you’re spending your marketing budget efficiently. Keeping an eye on this metric can help you assess how cost-effective your efforts are at generating prospective franchisees or local store customers. If your CPL is high, you may need to adjust your ad targeting for a more relevant audience.
Tips for Tracking: Platforms like Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, and FranConnect can help you monitor your CPL. Experiment with precise targeting by user locations, interests, or even job titles to ensure your ads are reaching the people most likely to convert.
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
What It Is: Click-Through Rate (CTR) measures how many people clicked on your ad compared to how many saw it. Target CTRs vary by industry, but a good rule of thumb is to aim for a CTR of at least 2% on paid ads.
Why It Matters: A high CTR is a great sign that your message is resonating with your audience. If your CTR is low, it may be time to tweak your ad copy, visuals, or targeting. Even small tweaks, like using a more action-oriented CTA or swapping out an image, can make a big difference.
Tips for Tracking: PPC platforms report on CTR and can help you track improvements over time. After making changes to your campaign, remember to check back regularly to see how it’s performing.
3. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
What It Is: Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) tells you how much revenue your ads are generating for every dollar you spend.
Why It Matters: ROAS can help you determine if your campaigns are bringing in quality leads that turn into franchisees. For local store marketing, it’s the best way to understand how your ad spend is impacting your bottom line.
Tips for Tracking: Make sure you’ve set up conversion tracking in your ad platforms to attribute revenue accurately. If your ROAS is low, it’s a sign users are clicking on your ad but not converting. Try optimizing the content or design of your landing page to improve performance.
4. Impressions
What It Is: Impressions track how many times your ad is displayed, indicating how visible your campaigns are.
Why It Matters: High impressions are essential for building brand awareness with your target audience. Just watch out for overexposure — if the same people see your ad too often, they may start to tune it out entirely or develop a negative association with your brand.
Tips for Tracking: You can set frequency caps to ensure people aren’t seeing the same ad too many times. If your impressions are high but conversions are still low, revisit your creative or try refining your target audience. Sometimes, a fresh approach is all it takes to reignite interest.
Website and SEO Metrics
Your website should be the heart of your franchise marketing strategy. It’s where potential franchisees and customers go to learn more about your brand. Keep an eye on how your online presence is performing with these essential metrics.
5. Organic Traffic
What It Is: Organic traffic refers to visitors who find your site through search engines like Google or unpaid posts on social media.
Why It Matters: Organic traffic is a powerful driver for both franchise development and local store marketing. More traffic means more opportunities to convert visitors into leads, sales, or franchisees. A strong organic marketing strategy that brings in high-quality traffic can also reduce the amount you need to spend on paid advertising. In fact, companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads than their competitors.
Tips for Tracking: Integrate your site with Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track organic traffic. You can use these tools to discover which search terms are driving users to your site and optimize your content strategy accordingly.
6. Keyword Rankings
What It Is: Keyword rankings show where your website appears in search engine results for specific terms. The higher you rank, the more visible your site will be.
Why It Matters: These rankings are a direct reflection of how well your SEO strategy is working. Make sure you’re creating content to target high-intent keywords related to your marketing goals. For franchise development, keywords like “start a franchise business” can drive significant traffic from people actively looking to invest.
Tips for Tracking: Include a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs in your marketing tech stack to help monitor your target keywords and see how your competitors are ranking. To get the most out of your SEO efforts, focus on long-tail keywords that align with the specific needs of your target audience.
7. Local SEO
What It Is: Local SEO metrics include your rankings for local keywords, online reviews, and your position in the map pack. Franchisors looking to invest in local store marketing need to understand these metrics.
Why It Matters: Local business queries such as “nail salon near me” make up 46% of all Google searches, and 28% of these searches result in a purchase. Improving your local SEO significantly increases the odds that customers will choose your franchise over a competitor.
Tips for Tracking: Make sure every franchise location has a fully optimized Google Business Profile, and update it regularly with accurate business details, photos, and reviews. Franchisees should also be actively seeking customer reviews, which have a major impact on local rankings.
Social Media Metrics
Social media is the perfect place to create meaningful connections with your audience. Whether you’re promoting franchise opportunities or focused on driving sales at the local level, tracking the right metrics will help you refine your strategy and deliver better results.
8. Engagement Rate
What It Is: Engagement rate measures how much your audience interacts with your posts on social media—likes, comments, shares, and saves all count toward this metric.
Why It Matters: A high engagement rate means your content is hitting the mark. For franchisors, this means sparking meaningful interactions with potential franchisees. And for those franchisees, it means brand loyalty and repeat business that proves their investment was worth it.
Tips for Tracking: You can monitor engagement rate directly from most social media platforms. Franchisee testimonials, behind-the-scenes stories, and local store spotlights can all make your content feel more relatable.
9. Reach and Impressions
What It Is: Reach measures how many unique users see your content, while impressions track the total number of times your content is viewed.
Why It Matters: Boosting your reach means amplifying brand visibility across your entire franchise system. Higher reach is a good sign that your audience is growing, and higher impressions help reinforce your brand messaging.
Tips for Tracking: Pay attention to how your content performs. Not every post will be a home run, but those that are can help you adapt your social media marketing strategy moving forward. You can also boost top-performing organic posts to expand their reach further.
10. Follower Growth
What It Is: Follower growth measures how many new followers your brand gains on social media over time.
Why It Matters: It’s more than just a vanity metric! A growing follower base is a good sign that you’re attracting the attention of potential customers and franchisees. To users discovering your brand for the first time, follower growth can also signal that other people trust in your franchise.
Tips for Tracking: Note your follower growth over time, and attract more followers by running contests, promotions, or campaigns that appeal to your target audience.
Partner with a Franchise Marketing Agency
We get it — managing all these metrics can be overwhelming, especially if your franchise has multiple locations or is growing quickly. That’s where partnering with a franchise marketing agency can make all the difference.
Whether you’re interested in franchise development, local store marketing, national campaigns, or all of the above, the Elysium team can help you achieve lasting growth. Contact us to learn how we can help your franchise thrive in 2025 and beyond.
