The 5-Question Test to Know If Your Marketing Is Actually Working

Most business owners cannot tell you whether their marketing is working or not. They have a rough sense — "things are going okay" or "leads feel slow" — but not real clarity.

That is a problem. If you do not know what is working, you cannot make it work better. And you might be about to cut the thing that is driving 70% of your new customers.

Here are 5 questions that will give you a clear picture in under 30 minutes.

1. Where did your last 10 customers come from?

Not where you think they came from — where they actually came from. Call them. Look at your CRM. Check your intake form. If you can answer this clearly, you are already ahead of most businesses.

2. What is your cost per new customer?

Take everything you spent on marketing last month — ads, agency fees, software, content — and divide by the number of new customers you got. This number should be meaningfully less than the average value of a customer. If it is not, you have a problem worth solving now.

3. Which channel brought in your best customers?

Not just the most customers — the best ones. The ones who stayed, spent more, and referred others. Often this is different from the channel with the highest volume. Knowing this tells you where to double down.

4. What would happen if you turned off your biggest marketing channel tomorrow?

If the answer is "everything would stop," you have a fragility problem. Good marketing builds multiple sources of customers so no single channel is a single point of failure.

5. Do you know your conversion rate at each step?

How many people visit your website each month? How many contact you? How many become customers? If you can answer all three, you can find exactly where customers are dropping off — and fix it. Most businesses optimise spend instead of fixing conversion, which is almost always the wrong priority.

What to do with the answers

Answering these questions honestly is more valuable than any new tactic or platform. It tells you where to focus and what to leave alone. Do this exercise every 90 days and you will have better marketing instincts than most agencies.