Start With the Metrics That Matter Most

Anchor your presentation around a few metrics that clearly demonstrate performance and efficiency.

For most organizations, that means focusing on:

• Spend – How much was invested in advertising
• Purchases – How many transactions came from campaigns
• Revenue – The total revenue driven by ads
• KPVs (Key Page Views) – Visits to high-intent pages like event listings or ticket pages attributed to campaigns
• ROI (Return on Investment) – How efficiently ad spend generated revenue
• CPA (Cost per Acquisition) – The cost required to drive each purchase/key page view

These metrics give leadership a clear understanding of what the investment produced.

Focus on Rates, Not Just Totals

Raw numbers can be misleading on their own.

For example, showing that a campaign drove 3,000 purchases sounds impressive—but without context, it’s difficult to evaluate performance.

That’s where rates become particularly useful.

Rates help boards understand how efficiently campaigns are performing, regardless of scale.

Some of the most helpful rates to consider:

• ROI
• Purchase Conversion Rate
• KPV Conversion Rate
• CTR (Click-Through Rate)
  

Rates allow you to compare performance across seasons, campaigns, and organizations—even when budgets or campaign sizes differ.

Remember: it’s important to present rates in a comparative context. Without a sense of how your purchase rate compares to a purchase rate for another season or another venue, for example, the number itself might mean even less to a board member than a large number of purchases.

Benchmark Against Yourself First

It can be tempting to compare your results to industry benchmarks immediately. But the most meaningful benchmark is often your own historical performance.

Start by looking at:

• Season-over-season performance
• Year-over-year comparison
• Campaign improvements over time

Once you understand your own baseline, then you can compare results with similar organizations in your vertical.

When benchmarking externally, remember to consider factors like:

• Operating budget differences
• Advertising budget scale
• Geographic market differences
• Campaign objectives (subscriptions, single tickets, awareness, etc.)
  

These variables can dramatically affect results.

Creative Matters More Than Ever

One insight that boards may not expect is just how important the ad creative is to campaign performance.

Meta recently reported that 56% of outcomes in the ad auction are dependent on creative performance.

In other words, the content itself is often the biggest factor in whether a campaign triumphs.

This doesn’t necessarily mean larger budgets or complex productions for content creation. In fact, many organizations are seeing strong results with lo-fi content.

Examples include:

• Screenshot or screen recording of a group chat discussing plans to see a new show or exhibit
• Calendar invites to the show
• Notes app to-do lists including booking tickets, making a dinner reservation, etc
• Google maps screenshot of the venue
• Voice Memos of how excited you are to see the show
• Handwritten notes on the fridge like a reminder to book tickets

Highly polished ad creative still play a role. But a mix of high-production and lo-fi content often performs best, as it grants Meta more creative variety to match with different audiences.

Lo-fi content may even help organizations launch campaigns earlier, even before final production photography or video assets are ready.

For boards accustomed to seeing billboards and TV ads that are highly produced and ultra-professional, it may be helpful to reiterate these points, as well as reminding them that the most successful marketing strategies online often employ content that feels native to the platform.

Some specific KPIs that you can use to measure ad impact include engagement rate, click-through rate, cost per acquisition, post shares, and post reactions/likes. For videos, consider video views, video view rate, and video thru-plays. Remember, ads now lead the charge on campaign success, which means that you can largely understand their value by examining how well the campaign performed based on the particular campaign goals (e.g. purchases, KPVs, etc.). 

Keep the Story High-Level

When presenting to your board, remember who the audience is.

Board members care deeply about the organization, but they typically aren’t immersed in marketing terminology. Avoid getting too deep into platform mechanics; instead, focus on what the data tells us about audience behavior and campaign effectiveness.

Ask yourself:

• What worked well this season?
• What did we learn about our audiences?
• What challenges did our campaigns face?
• How did our campaigns support the organization’s revenue goals?

Choosing a few meaningful metrics and framing them around outcomes will always be more effective than presenting every single datapoint.

Key Metrics by Organization Type

Different arts organizations naturally prioritize different metrics. While many indicators overlap, the way you interpret them may vary depending on whether your organization focuses on performances or exhibitions.

Performing Arts Organizations

Performing arts organizations often benefit from season-over-season or year-over-year comparisons, especially when programming cycles repeat annually.

Exhibit-Based Organizations (Museums & Cultural Institutions)

Museums may see lower direct online purchase attribution, since many visitors still buy tickets in-person.

It’s also worth reminding board members that consumer behavior varies. While online ticketing has grown, especially since timed entry became more common after COVID, many museum visitors still purchase tickets on-site.

For that reason, engagement and intent metrics can be more imperative than purchases when evaluating marketing impact.

The Bottom Line

Data is essential for understanding campaign performance, but the way we translate that data is key.

By focusing on a few meaningful metrics, emphasizing rates over raw totals, and framing results around outcomes, marketers can give boards a clear view of how advertising supports organizational success.

And remember: you know your organization best. The most valuable KPIs will always be the ones that align with your mission, audience behavior, and revenue goals.

Turning Data Into Smarter Strategy

Clear reporting isn’t just about presenting results. It’s about using those insights to guide smarter decisions. At Capacity, our Digital Advertising team helps arts and cultural organizations translate platform data into actionable strategy, ensuring campaigns are optimized for both performance and clarity.

If you’re looking to better understand what your marketing data is telling you and how to use it to drive stronger results, our team is here to help.