Book a demo

Unlock the full potential of your agency

With over three decades of experience in the field, a customer base across 20 different countries and capabilities in six different languages, we can tailor your solution to meet the needs of your team and your clients.

Download our brochure

January 27, 2025 • News

Gain More Visibility into Your Agency with These Essential KPI’s

Agency life is fast-paced. It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day activities and lose sight of the bigger picture. Just because your team is busy, clients are happy and everything is going well, doesn’t necessarily mean your agency is performing as good as it can.  

Do you truly know how your agency is performing? Would you like more visibility about what is actually going on in your agency?

That's where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come in. Tracking the right KPIs provides invaluable insights into your agency's performance, helping you identify areas for improvement, make data-driven decisions, and ultimately, achieve sustainable longevity. 

The question is now, what KPI’s should you be tracking? 

Based on the agency fundamentals, the pivotal areas that make up a successful, thriving agency. Here are the essential KPI’s that you should be tracking, to gain a comprehensive view of your agency.  

Client Performance: 

Your clients are the life blood to your business; without them your agency wouldn’t exist. Keeping your clients happy are vital to long term success, here are the client focused KPIs you should be tracking:

  • Client Retention Rate: Measure the percentage of clients retained over a specific period.
  • Client Satisfaction: Track client satisfaction through surveys, feedback forms, and net promoter score (NPS).
  • Client Churn Rate: Monitor the rate at which clients stop doing business with your agency.
  • Client Referral Rate: Track the number of new clients referred by existing clients.

Project Performance: 

Your clients come to you because of your reputation for high quality work and for exceeding client expectations. Projects need to run smooth, be delivered on time and come in as quoted. Here are the project KPI’s:

  • Project Profitability: Track the profitability of individual projects to identify areas for improvement.
  • Project Completion Rate: Monitor the percentage of projects completed on time and within budget.
  • Project Overrun Rate: Monitor the frequency and severity of project overruns.
  • Estimated Vs Actual: Compares the initial estimated project cost and duration to the final actual time and the cost invoiced.

Resource & Capacity: 

Your talent are the ones who deliver the work to your clients, they are your greatest asset. They need the right resources and capacity in order to complete your client’s projects. It’s important to keep a close eye on your resources and your team’s capacity.

  • Resource & Capacity Availability: Availability of resources & capacity for all project/client work
  • Resource Allocation Accuracy: Accuracy of resource assignments to projects and resources not being properly utilised 
  • Resource Overallocation Rate: Frequency of overbooking resources or staff
  • Staff Turnover Rate: Rate at which employees leave the agency

Time Management: 

Time is money and within an agency, every second counts, how much time has been dedicated to client work or which client is draining your team’s time. How much time has been used for non-client work? Here are two KPIs you can use to see where time is spent and how you can claw back time.

  • Billable Utilisation Rate: Percentage of time spent on billable client work
  • Non-Billable Utilisation Rate: Percentage of time spent on non-billable activities

Financial Performance: 

Your agency needs cash to pay your team and to pay your bills. This comes from your clients and the work you deliver, if something interrupts this then it can have serious consequences to your agency. Here are the financial KPIs you should track. 

  • Revenue Growth: Track monthly, quarterly, and yearly revenue growth to assess overall business performance.
  • Profit Margin: Monitor gross and net profit margins to understand profitability and identify areas for cost optimisation.
  • Client Acquisition Cost (CAC): Calculate the cost of acquiring new clients to ensure it aligns with customer lifetime value.
  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Determine the long-term value of each client to the agency.
  • Accounts Receivable Days (ARD): Track the average time it takes to collect payments from clients.

Marketing & Sales: 

How do you attract clients? How do you know that the work you produce or what your agency has to offer is effective? Here are some basic marketing and sales KPI’s you really should be following:

  • Website Traffic: Monitor website traffic and engagement metrics.
  • Social Media Engagement: Track social media engagement and follower growth.
  • Lead Generation: Track the number of leads generated through various marketing channels.
  • Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs): Track the number of leads that meet specific criteria and are considered potential customers.
  • Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs): Track the number of leads that are qualified to move to the sales process.
  • Lead Conversion Rate: Track the percentage of leads that convert into paying clients.
  • Proposal Win Rate: Track the percentage of proposals that result in winning new business.

This is a very extensive list but if you report on these KPIs then you will have more than enough clarity about how your agency is truly performing. You may feel that this is quite a manual, time consuming process, pulling together all of the relevant data which is scattered across your agency and held within different departments. 

Add a Dash of Paprika to your Agency

Paprika is an all-in-one agency management software which equips your agency with the right tools to build a high performing business. By combining and reporting on the core elements your agency needs like projects, resources, time and finances into one informative dashboard.   

Paprika can accumulate this real-time data into one centralised hub, making it easier to report on your agency’s overall performance. In essence, tracking KPIs is not just about collecting data; it's about using that data to make informed decisions, improve performance, and drive sustainable growth for the agency.

Get in touch to find out how Paprika can streamline your agency’s efforts.