One of the best things about working with an inbound marketing agency is the ability to dive into the metrics. But because everything you’re doing online can be measured, from tweaking pages for better conversion rates to the traffic earned from that last guest post, sometimes trying to wade your way through the numbers can be a bit daunting.

You can learn your average cost per lead or conversion, determine which content pieces were the most talked about (and what people were saying) and even use the data to find which influencers have turned their attention your way. It’s powerful, but it’s all a bit dizzying.

While it’s true that there are immensely valuable insights to be had by digging deep into the granular details, sometimes you just want a quick idea of how successful your inbound marketing really is.

Here are inbound marketing’s “Big 3”, the fast, easy metrics you can look up in seconds to get a sense of where things are at.

1. Traffic

One of inbound marketing’s biggest goals is to bring in additional traffic. Here, the trend you want to see is pretty obvious: a constant, steady increase – not just the occasional spike here or there. Net traffic is a fast, feel-good metric, but for a real picture of how things are performing, you’ll want to consider the other two of the “big 3” as well.

2. Leads

Lots of new traffic is great (especially as customers will need multiple touch points before buying), but you want to be sure that content is qualified. How can you tell? The number of new, top-of-funnel leads you’re getting! One of the best ways to tell if your inbound marketing is paying off is whether or not your sales team are reporting higher numbers of qualified leads at their fingertips.

The good news is that if you’ve gone through the process of building personas and integrating them into the content you’re creating, chances are good that the traffic you’re generating is qualified from the start. Which brings us to our last point…

3. Sales!

No matter how you slice it, inbound marketing is only valuable if it boosts your bottom line. The kingpin of your ROI, sales are the surest way to know if your investment is paying off. That said, you shouldn’t expect sales to explode right out of the gate, instead ramping up slowly throughout the first months and then achieving a higher, steady number as all the different pieces of the strategy start to work together.

Did you notice that every one of those 3 criteria above feeds into the next? Traffic sparks leads, leads lead to sales. That speaks to the fact that inbound marketing is a process, with important “conversion” points at every step. These three numbers can help you see the big picture, without needing to dive into the big data.

You can assign a topic. They can put It on blog layout, as topic module. You can group blog post by topics. Topics and categories all the same. It’s just best practices, and better for usability.