Most reports measure motion, not money
A typical broker marketing report is full of impressions, reach, clicks and sign-ups. They look like progress and tell you almost nothing about return. None of them is money. The only numbers that prove marketing worked are funded accounts, the volume those accounts trade, and whether their value exceeds what you paid. Everything else is a diagnostic at best.
The metrics that show real ROI
Cost per funded account. What it actually costs to produce a depositing trader.
Lifetime value. What a funded trader is worth over the whole relationship, not just the first deposit.
LTV to CAC ratio. The core ROI number. If a trader is worth more than they cost to acquire and keep, with a healthy margin, marketing is profitable and scalable.
Traded volume per source. Which channels bring traders who actually trade, not just fund once and go quiet.
Track the full journey
ROI lives across the whole funnel, from click to deposit to retention. A campaign that looks cheap on cost per sign-up can be expensive on cost per funded account, and a source that brings cheap deposits can be poor on volume and retention. Measuring only the front of the funnel hides the truth. Track click to funded account to lifetime value.
Attribution is hard, do it honestly
Knowing which channel drove a deposit is genuinely difficult, especially across brand, social and paid working together. Be honest about the limits, use consistent tracking, and avoid both over-crediting the last click and ignoring the brand work that made it convert. Imperfect honest attribution beats a clean but misleading number.
Use ROI to decide, not just report
The point of measuring ROI is to act on it: scale what proves profitable, fix or cut what does not, and shift budget toward funded accounts and retention. Our retention gap piece shows where the highest-return spend often hides.