The Marketing Scorecard for Outdoor, Western & Industrial Brands
This scorecard tracks a brand that sells two ways at once: direct to consumer on its own site, and through dealers, distributors, and retail partners who carry the line. It covers brand search protection, DTC revenue and return on ad spend, dealer locator usage, wholesale-influenced demand, seasonal catalog pacing, organic category authority, and the share of revenue email carries. The marketing lead runs it weekly with the media buyer, the ecommerce lead, and the sales lead who owns the dealer channel in the room.
Why this scorecard exists
Why a DTC scorecard breaks at a brand with dealers
Most ecommerce scorecards assume every dollar of demand you create lands in your own cart. A brand that sells boots, coolers, work gloves, or fencing through a dealer network knows that is not true. A shopper searches your brand name, clicks a paid ad, checks the dealer locator, and buys at the farm store down the road. The DTC number says the campaign lost money. The wholesale number three months later says the campaign worked. A scorecard that only reads the cart will cut the very spend that keeps dealers stocked and ordering.
Measuring this business means holding two truths on one page. DTC revenue and ROAS are real and need a row. So does the demand that leaves your site on purpose through a dealer locator or a where-to-buy click. Brand search is the asset you defend, because the moment a marketplace or a competitor buys your name, your dealers feel it before you do. And the calendar runs the business: spring catalog, hunting season, back to work, holiday. Pacing against the season, not the month, is the only way to know if the plan is on track. We have run this for brands you know in outdoor, Western, industrial, and agricultural retail, across $100M+ in managed spend, and the pattern holds.
When the scorecard is live, the media buyer stops defending DTC ROAS in isolation because dealer locator sessions and where-to-buy clicks sit right next to it. The sales lead who owns dealers sees marketing demand in a language they trust: locator lookups by territory. The catalog launch has a pacing line, so nobody finds out in week six that the season is behind. Brand impression share gets a red flag, so a competitor conquesting your name is caught in days, not at quarter end. Every row has a name on it, and the weekly meeting turns from a report into a set of decisions.
The scorecard
11 numbers. Every one has an owner.
| Metric | What it means | How to set the target | Owner | Cadence | Red flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand search impression share Brand search is the cheapest demand you have and the first thing marketplaces, resellers, and competitors buy when they want your customers. | The share of searches for your brand name and product names where your paid ad actually showed, reported by the search platform. | Pull your trailing 8-week brand impression share and set the floor at that level, then raise it toward the top of the range the search platform reports as lost to budget rather than lost to rank. Split the row into your own brand terms and brand plus product model terms, because they erode at different speeds. | Media buyer | Weekly | Any week where brand impression share drops below the floor, or where the auction insights report shows a new domain bidding on your name, triggers a same-day budget and bid review on the brand campaign. |
| DTC revenue vs. season plan A brand with catalog seasons cannot judge revenue against last week, because last week may have been a different season. | Revenue from your own site this week compared to the number the seasonal plan said this week should deliver. | Build the season plan from the same weeks last year, adjusted for this year's product launches and inventory, and set the weekly target as that week's share of the season total. Compare to the plan line, not to the prior week. | Ecommerce lead | Weekly | Two consecutive weeks under the plan line triggers a split of the gap into traffic, conversion rate, and average order value so the fix lands in the right place. |
| Blended DTC ROAS (revenue divided by all paid spend) Platform-reported ROAS double counts the same order across Google, Meta, and TikTok, and a dealer brand needs the honest blended number to decide how much to spend. | Total site revenue divided by total paid media spend across every platform, so no single platform can take credit for the whole. | Take your trailing 12-week blended ROAS as the baseline and set the target by working backward from contribution margin after cost of goods, shipping, and returns. The number that makes a DTC order profitable is the floor, and the number that also funds dealer demand is the goal. | Media buyer | Weekly | Blended ROAS below the contribution floor for two weeks starts a spend reallocation review, but only after checking the dealer locator row, because demand may have moved to dealers rather than disappeared. |
| Dealer locator sessions and locator-to-dealer clicks This is the demand you created that chose to buy through a dealer, and without it the wholesale side of the business looks like it has no marketing behind it. | The number of visitors who used the dealer locator and the number who clicked through to a dealer's page, phone number, or directions. | Baseline the trailing 8-week locator sessions and the click-through rate from locator to a dealer action. Set the target as the median, then raise it in step with the DTC revenue plan so both channels grow together. Report it by territory so the sales lead can use it. | Sales lead (dealer channel) | Weekly | A week where locator sessions rise but locator-to-dealer clicks fall triggers a locator audit, because a broken map, missing dealers, or stale hours are turning demand into dead ends. |
| Where-to-buy clicks from product pages These clicks are the clearest wholesale-influenced signal you can see on your own site, and they explain a chunk of the DTC ROAS that looks like it went nowhere. | Clicks on the retailer and dealer buttons on your product pages that send a shopper to a partner site or store. | Baseline the ratio of where-to-buy clicks to add-to-cart clicks on your top product pages over the trailing 8 weeks. Set the target so the combined number, not the DTC number alone, meets the season plan. Watch for a shift in the ratio, not just the total. | Ecommerce lead | Weekly | A sharp swing in the where-to-buy ratio on a top product without a pricing or stock change on your site triggers a check of partner pricing and marketplace listings, because someone is probably underpricing you. |
| Dealer reorder signal (wholesale orders from marketed territories) It is the closest thing to attribution the dealer channel can offer, and it is what the sales lead needs to keep marketing spend funded. | Wholesale order volume from dealers in the territories where your paid and organic demand is concentrated, compared to the rest. | Split dealers into marketed and non-marketed territories using your own geo spend data, then compare trailing 12-week reorder volume between the two groups. The target is a widening gap in favor of marketed territories, reviewed monthly because wholesale orders lag consumer demand. | Sales lead (dealer channel) | Monthly | A month where marketed territories fall behind non-marketed territories on reorders triggers a joint review of geo targeting and dealer stock levels before any spend is added. |
| Seasonal catalog campaign pacing Hunting season, spring planting, and holiday do not wait, and a campaign that spends late spends into the clearance window. | Percent of the season's planned spend and planned revenue delivered so far, compared to the percent of the season that has elapsed. | Set the pacing curve from last year's weekly revenue shape for the same season, not a straight line, because most seasons front load. The target is spend pace and revenue pace within a band of each other that you set from your own history of how far apart they normally run. | Marketing lead | Weekly | Spend pace ahead of revenue pace by more than the band for two weeks triggers a creative and landing page review, and revenue pace ahead of spend pace triggers a budget release so the season is not left on the table. |
| Organic non-brand category traffic This is the measure of whether your content and category pages own the questions shoppers ask before they know which brand to buy. | Visits from search engines on queries that describe the category, like work boot sizing or cooler ice retention, rather than your brand name. | Baseline trailing 12-week non-brand organic sessions from your search console, grouped by category. Set the target as growth against the same weeks last year, since category search is seasonal, and tighten it as new content ships. Track which categories are growing, not just the total. | Content lead | Weekly | A category that loses non-brand traffic year over year for four straight weeks gets a content and page audit, and the same check runs on how AI answer engines describe the category. |
| Email and SMS revenue share Owned channels are the cheapest revenue a brand has, and the share tells you whether paid media is building a list or just renting customers. | The percent of DTC revenue attributed to email and SMS in your ecommerce platform, split into campaigns and automated flows. | Baseline the trailing 12-week email and SMS share of DTC revenue, then set the target as a steady climb by a point or two a quarter while paid spend stays flat. Watch flows and campaigns separately, because a growing flow share means the list is compounding. | Ecommerce lead | Weekly | Two weeks where campaign email revenue rises but flow revenue falls triggers a check of the welcome, browse, and cart flows, because something in the automation is broken. |
| New-to-brand customer share of DTC orders A dealer brand's DTC site should pull in new customers the dealers can later serve, not just resell to people who already own the product. | The percent of this week's DTC orders that came from a customer with no prior purchase on file. | Baseline trailing 12-week new-customer share from your ecommerce platform and set the target from where you want the business to be, higher if the goal is growth and dealer pull-through, lower if the goal is margin. Review it alongside blended ROAS so both move on purpose. | Marketing lead | Weekly | New-customer share below target for three weeks while paid spend holds steady triggers an audience review, because paid media is retargeting the list instead of prospecting. |
| Paid spend on out-of-stock or dealer-only products Seasonal brands sell out, and every dollar spent on a sold-out product is a dollar that should have gone to brand defense or dealer locator traffic. | Dollars spent on ads for products your site cannot ship this week, whether sold out or carried only by dealers. | The target is a ceiling set from your own inventory feed: the share of spend allowed on products under your reorder point. Start at what you spend today and cut it in half each month until it holds at the level your feed accuracy allows. | Media buyer | Daily | Any day where spend on out-of-stock products exceeds the ceiling triggers a pause on those items and a redirect of the budget to the where-to-buy page for that product. |
Targets are set from your own history, never from someone else's benchmarks. The builder does the arithmetic once you plug in your numbers.
The weekly review
Twenty minutes, same order, every week.
// 01
Start with brand impression share
Brand search is the one number that can be taken from you by someone else, so it goes first. The media buyer reads it against the floor and names any new domain in the auction insights report. If it is fine, the meeting moves on in under two minutes.
// 02
Read DTC and dealer demand together
Put DTC revenue against plan, blended ROAS, dealer locator clicks, and where-to-buy clicks on one screen. The question is not whether DTC hit its number. The question is whether total demand hit the plan, and where it chose to buy.
// 03
Sales lead, then ecommerce lead, then media buyer
The sales lead speaks first on locator sessions by territory and any dealer feedback about stock or pricing. The ecommerce lead covers conversion, email share, and new-customer share. The media buyer speaks last, because spend decisions depend on what the other two just said.
// 04
Decide pacing and one fix
Close by checking seasonal pacing and deciding whether budget moves forward, back, or stays. Then pick the single red flag that fired hardest this week, assign it to its owner, and set the date it gets reported back. One fix per week is what gets done.
Where scorecards die
Mistakes we see constantly.
Judging paid media on DTC ROAS alone
A dealer brand's best campaigns often send shoppers to a farm store, not a cart. Cutting spend on DTC ROAS without reading the dealer locator row starves the dealers who carry the line.
Leaving brand search unprotected
Marketplaces and resellers bid on your name because it converts, and once they own the top spot your dealers lose the sale too. Brand impression share needs a floor and a red flag, not a quarterly glance.
Pacing the season on a straight line
Hunting, planting, and holiday seasons front load, and a straight line pace makes a campaign look ahead in week two and behind in week eight. Build the curve from last year's weekly shape.
Running the meeting without the sales lead
If the person who owns dealers is not in the room, locator data has no one to act on it and wholesale lift never gets connected to spend. The scorecard only works when both channels have an owner at the table.
Advertising products the site cannot ship
Seasonal sellouts are normal, but spend keeps running because nobody connects the inventory feed to the campaign. A daily ceiling with a pause rule stops the leak before the season is gone.
Other scorecards
Same discipline, different numbers.
By platform
By business type
Want it set up live in your dashboards?
We install scorecards on real data, wire the owners and alerts, and coach the weekly review. Scorecards and accountability is the service.
Questions we get
Straight answers.
How do we credit marketing for sales that happen at a dealer?
You will not get order-level attribution from a dealer, so stop chasing it. Track dealer locator clicks and where-to-buy clicks as the demand you handed off, and compare wholesale reorders in marketed territories against the rest. Together those give the sales lead and the marketing lead a shared number to trust.
Should DTC and wholesale have separate scorecards?
No. The whole point is that one shopper can end up in either channel, so the numbers have to sit side by side. Separate scorecards let each side blame the other for a soft week.
What do we do when a marketplace or reseller outbids us on our own brand name?
The brand impression share row catches it, and the red flag triggers a bid and budget review the same day. Beyond bidding, the fix is usually a conversation with the reseller about your minimum advertised price policy and their use of your trademark in ads.
How do we set targets when every season is different?
Build each season's plan from the same weeks last year, adjusted for launches and inventory, and pace against that curve. Targets are logic drawn from your own history, not a number borrowed from another brand.
Can we run this ourselves or do we need help?
Most brands can run the weekly review once the rows, owners, and red flags are set and the data flows live. The hard part is the first build: connecting the locator, the ecommerce platform, the ad accounts, and the wholesale data into one view. That is what the Performance Audit at /diagnostic and the scorecard coaching at /coach/scorecards are for.
A scorecard is only as good as the system feeding it.
Start with a diagnostic call. We will tell you which of these numbers you can trust today and what it takes to trust the rest.