Turn media KPIs into growth

To help local media companies assess their go-to-market (GTM) maturity and readiness for recurring revenue growth, I created the ‘SaaSification GTM Audit,’ a diagnostic tool that evaluates how closely your organization aligns with proven SaaS GTM principles.”

Todd Handy is a growth architect and transformation strategist who’s helped reshape the digital media, AdTech and SaaS landscapes

How to use your KPI metrics

You don’t need to have a SaaS tech stack to track your KPIs. Start with a simple spreadsheet and baseline your numbers. Identify the biggest leaks in your revenue engine — whether your customer acquisition cost (CAC) is too high, your customer lifetime value (LTV) is too low, or churn is going unaddressed.

These metrics will help you:

• Diagnose why revenue is (or isn’t) growing.
• Where acquisition expenses could be decreased.
• Align teams across a shared definition of success.
• Set smarter pricing and packaging strategies.
• Prioritize retention alongside acquisition.

You don’t need more dashboards — you need a consistent framework, an optimized playbook and better decisions.

These KPIs are the foundation of a smarter, more sustainable media revenue model. With those in place, it’s time to introduce a practical audit framework to help you assess how SaaS-ready your go-to-market (GTM) strategy really is.

The ‘SaaSification GTM Audit’

Knowing why you need to change is one thing. Knowing where to start is another.

To help local media companies assess their go-to-market (GTM) maturity and readiness for recurring revenue growth, I created the “SaaSification GTM Audit,” a diagnostic tool that evaluates how closely your organization aligns with proven SaaS GTM principles.

This audit doesn’t just highlight gaps. It surfaces strengths, benchmarks your progress and provides a roadmap for operational transformation.

The framework

The audit evaluates six key pillars of GTM success:

• GTM strategy and execution
  Is there a clearly defined GTM leader or cross-functional team? Is marketing aligned with sales goals and metrics?

• Sales and revenue model
  Are you offering recurring advertiser programs, not selling one-off campaigns? Are you tracking and optimizing CAC?

• Customer success
  Does a dedicated team (or role) proactively support advertisers post-sale with onboarding, optimization and retention touchpoints? Are post-campaign summaries and monthly business reviews (MBRs)/quarterly business reviews (QBRs) conducted and tied to retention/expansion?

• Revenue metrics
  Are you tracking monthly recurring revenue (MRR)/annual recurring revenue (ARR), churn, LTV, net revenue retention (NRR)/gross revenue retention (GRR) and CAC, and using them to drive decisions? Is cohort-based retention analysis part of reporting?

• Packaging and pricing
  Are your offerings bundled, tiered or structured for renewal and upsell with a clear path for upgrades? Are add-ons and cross-sells designed into the offering structure?

• Organization alignment and systems
  Do you have a RevOps or similar function in place to unify revenue data? Do your teams share KPIs, workflows and reporting infrastructure, or operate in silos?

Each category is scored from one to five, with clear criteria for what maturity looks like at each level.

Final score interpretation

Your total score across the six categories determines your SaaSification maturity:

6–12:   “Legacy Media Model”

13–20: “Model in Transition”

21–26: “SaaS-ready Foundation”

27–30: “SaaS-ified Media Model”

Download your free copy of the “SaaSification GTM Audit” at go.disruptiveimpact.co/gtmaudit or click here.

Todd Handy is a growth architect and transformation strategist who’s helped reshape the digital media, AdTech and SaaS landscapes. He’s led revenue, marketing, customer success, operations and transformation for companies including Deseret Digital Media, Beasley Media Group, MarketStar and Tout. As founder of Disruptive Impact, he partners with companies to reinvent their business models using proven frameworks and dual transformation principles. A frequent keynote speaker and LMA board member, Todd offers fractional leadership and advisory services to drive measurable, recurring revenue growth. Reach him at todd@disruptiveimpact.co.