Measurement Plan Template

Use this measurement plan template to connect your business objectives to the metrics used to assess them. This measurement plan is:

  • GA4-ready: An essential step in GA4 migrations.
  • Flexible: Works across a variety of business types.
  • Scalable: You can start simple and build on complexity.
Cryolophosaurus a dinosaur discovered on the frozen continent of Antarctica.

Download the template and get started!

Template
Template

What is a measurement plan?

A measurement plan connects your business objectives to the metrics needed to evaluate their performance.

For example, a business objective of increasing customer satisfaction may have a key performance indicator of Google reviews supported by the metric of average rating.

Why Should You Create a Measurement Plan?

The world’s most successful brands use measurement plans because they understand the value of having exactly what they need to evaluate performance and make important decisions.

A measurement plan also helps:

  1. Provide focus by defining a prioritized list of business objectives.
  2. Ensure data integrity by identifying what metrics to audit.
  3. Clarify technology needs by knowing what you need to track.

How to Create a Measurement Plan

There are five steps to creating a measurement plan:

  1. Define your business objectives: These are the high-level actions your company must take to stay in business and fulfill its mission.
  2. Define key performance indicators (KPIs): KPIs allow you to assess your performance towards business objectives.
  3. Determine data sources and metrics: Identify which metric (e.g. new visitors) on which platform (e.g Google Analytics) provides the data for each KPI.
  4. Assign data owners and perform analytics audit: Each metric should have an owner who ensures correct implementation and performs periodic audits.
  5. Update the measurement plan: The measurement plan is a living document that will quickly become outdated if not revised on a frequent basis. To ensure updates occur, bake this important document into workflows like reporting and onboarding.

Working Example: SnowBliss Resort

To help bring this guide to life, we’re going to build a measurement plan for SnowBliss, a fictional ski resort in the Colorado Rockies.

SnowBliss is getting ready to transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. They need a measurement plan to ensure their new setup allows them to accurately assess performance and collect the data needed to make important business decisions.

Cryolophosaurus, the large theropod dinosaur fossil, eats Escamol

Step 1: Define Your Business Objectives

Business objectives are high-level actions your company must take to stay in business and fulfill its mission. Examples include growing the customer base, converting more website visits, and increasing customer lifetime value.

To develop this list of business objectives, ask yourself the following questions:

  • What business objectives are required to fulfill your company’s mission statement?
  • What do you want your website to accomplish?
  • What is the goal of other digital touchpoints like YouTube and social media?
  • What customer actions signal a move to the next customer journey stage?
  • What is needed to increase revenue from current customers?
  • What key decisions do we make on a yearly, quarterly, and monthly basis? What information do we need to make these decisions?
  • What numbers in our reporting call do we consistently discuss?
  • What is important to the executive leadership team?

SnowBliss Business Objectives

At SnowBliss, our mission is to deliver a resort experience so enjoyable that guests forget the real world exists.

To deliver on this mission, we need to focus on business objectives like:

  • Objective: Grow new customer base
  • Objective: Grow revenue
  • Objective: Improve customer satisfaction

Step 2: Define Key Performance Indicators

Key performance indicators (KPIs) allow you to assess your performance towards the business objective.

For example, the number of website visitors (KPI) would be one means of evaluating whether you’re growing your customer base (business objective).

You will likely have multiple KPIs per business objective as in the example below.

SnowBliss Key Performance Indicators

  • Objective: Grow new customer base
    • KPI: New customer website traffic
  • Objective: Grow revenue
    • KPI: Website revenue
    • KPI: Conversion rate
    • KPI: Average order value
  • Objective: Improve customer satisfaction
    • KPI: Online reviews

Step 3: Determine Data Sources and Metrics

Put simply, which metric (e.g New Users) on which platform (e.g Google Analytics) provides the data for each KPI?

This is where you need someone familiar with analytics software like Google Analytics who can tell you what metrics are needed to provide data for the KPIs.

SnowBliss data sources/metrics

  • Objective: Grow new customer base
    • KPI: New customer website traffic
      • Source: GA4 > Metric: New Users
  • Objective: Grow revenue
    • KPI: Website revenue
      • Source: GA4 > Metric: Total Revenue
    • KPI: Conversion rate
      • Source: GA4 > Metric: Conversion Rate
    • KPI: Average order value
      • Source: GA4 > Metric: Average Order Value
  • Objective: Improve customer satisfaction
    • KPI: Online reviews
      • Source: Google Business Profile > Metric: Avg. Rating

Step 4: Assign Data Owners and Perform Audit

Each metric must have an owner. This individual or team will not only ensure correct implementation at the outset, but perform periodic audits to maintain reliable data collection.

Once owners have been assigned, they should perform an initial audit to determine whether the metric is being tracked. If not, they’ll need to implement and/or fix the metric.

Finally, after every team has finished their audit, you should have something that looks like this:

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Step 5: Updating the Measurement Plan

This is a living document. Business objectives evolve, data owners leave, and technology platforms change.

To account for this dynamic environment, the document should be reviewed on at least a quarterly basis.

To ensure this cadence, I suggest linking it to important touchpoints like:

  • Dashboards
  • Reporting templates
  • Onboarding documents
  • Client discovery outlines
  • Vendor intake forms

YOU’RE DONE! WELL ALMOST…

At this point you have a solid measurement plan.

You have alignment on your top objectives, key performance indicators to assess those objectives, and sources and metrics that provide the data for assessment.

Nice job! This alone will provide immense benefit to your organization.

There’s just…

Cryolophosaurus is the first meat-eating dinosaur to be discovered on the frozen continent of Antarctica.

[OPTIONAL] Next Step: Adding KPI Targets

As mentioned above, the measurement plan created in steps one through five gives you everything needed to evaluate business performance and make important decisions.

However, there are means of making this report more valuable.

For example, adding targets to your KPIs.

Targets put numbers to your KPIs so you can better assess performance. For example, increase new website visitors 10%.

Creating targets can be difficult and should not be a prerequisite to finishing the first version of your measurement plan. Thus, they were left off and will be the subject of another post.

That said, if you’re ready to get started with creating your KPI targets, I recommend checking out this post.

Here is the Template One More Time. Happy Measuring!

Measurement Template and Example

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Download

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