Discovering Key Metrics for Broadband Providers

What You’ll Learn

Erika Nelson of Lynxx Networks talks about the KPIs broadband providers should be paying attention to. From market share and ARPU to digital analytics and customer reviews, Erika shares how her team uses data to guide decisions and measure success.

Guest Speaker

Erika Nelson

Show Notes

Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability. 

Intro: StoryConnect, a Pioneer podcast, helps you discover ideas to shape your stories and connect with your community. Love this episode? Follow StoryConnect on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube so you don’t miss your next great idea.

Andy Johns: What are some of the key metrics that broadband providers are looking at? That’s what we’ll be talking about on this episode of The StoryConnect Podcast. My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer, and I’m joined on this episode by Erika Nelson with Lynxx Networks, who is the Director of Digital Media. Erica, thanks so much for joining me.

Erika Nelson: Thanks for asking me to be here. It’s an honor.

Andy Johns: Now we are here at the Calix ConneXions Conference 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. So as we always say, any extemporaneous noises that you hear, it’s not background noise, it’s ambiance. So this is kind of the center of the broadband universe this week, and there’s been a lot of good sessions, including the one that you were a part of yesterday, looking at KPIs and some of the other metrics that folks are looking at. So talk me through that panel a little bit, and it’s nice. Everybody had a little bit different approach. What when we say KPIs, key performance indicators, we’re probably not going to be too heavy. We’re going to try not to do too many acronyms. But what are some of the indicators that you guys are looking at Lynxx to kind of determine performance and how things are going?

Erika Nelson: Yeah. So in that session, I gave some background on how we even got into tracking KPIs. And a couple years ago, we had two simultaneous events at our company, a changeover in management. And literally it was the mass exodus, and so we swapped every management position with the exception of our sales director.

Andy Johns: That’ll change things.

Erika Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. So we had a group of people that they were wonderful, did a lot for the company, but they came in at a time under the kind of just plain old telephone service.

Andy Johns: Sure.

Erika Nelson: And so they saw, you know, the company take on internet as a product and TV and all those things. And so, by the time they retired, the place that we were at from a marketing standpoint, for example, I described it as more of just awareness campaigns instead of marketing campaigns.

Andy Johns: More tactical. Yeah.

Erika Nelson: Yeah. So the strategy was, okay, you know, we do one campaign a quarter. So what have we talked about so far this year? Well we, you know, did managed service. You know, we did phone. Let’s do TV this time. But there’s no data looking back at, you know, how did this campaign perform? And, what are our goals for how many new TV customers or new phone customers or internet, whatever it is, new customers we want to obtain through this campaign. Or, you know, overall in a given year. And so that piece was missing. And so we had the changeover in management. And at the same time, in 2021, we started three huge expansion projects at our company.

Andy Johns: Okay.

Erika Nelson: The biggest really that we’ve taken on in the company’s history, outside of just initial, you know, build outs.

Andy Johns: Right, right.

Erika Nelson: And so really the last big project was the overbuild of our ILEC around 2010.

Andy Johns: So, it had been a little while.

Erika Nelson: It had been a while. Yep. So this was two different cities. And then what we call our grant area. It was a 900 home and business rural area around one of the cities that we were building.

Andy Johns: That you had not traditionally served.

Erika Nelson: Correct.

Andy Johns: Okay.

Erika Nelson: Yep. Yeah. So at that point, with a new management team in place, doing these projects, investing all this money, and we’re thinking, “Okay, what information do we need to have here?”

Andy Johns: Right?

Erika Nelson: How do we know, you know, if we’re being successful in these areas at all?  And one in particular, we were up against a lot of competition. We still are. Some big box providers in the area. It’s a bedroom community of a larger town. And so, there’s just a lot more there. And so that has really caused us to start tracking all those numbers and try to figure out what our KPIs are in general. So that kickstarted and we really, we began that process with some Excel tracking of the acquisition. You know, how many how many customers do we have available in this community that we could reach? And how many customers do we have tracking that by month. Revenue, ARPU, all those things. And so we have four – market share is another one – we have for reports that our leadership team can see every, well, you can see at any time you want.

Andy Johns: It’s live.

Erika Nelson: Mhm. It lives in Teams. It gets updated once a month, and then that same report goes to our board once a month so they can see what’s going on as well.

Andy Johns: Okay.

Erika Nelson: So our data tracking started there, and it’s kind of evolved.

Andy Johns: Nice. Now there are a few different things I want to kind of break apart and get into there. Let’s start with market share, which you said on the back end. So you’re looking basically in the areas where you have more competition. And how many competitors are you all going up against in some of those spots?

Erika Nelson: Yeah. In the worst one, as I describe it, there’s –

Andy Johns: The most competitive one.

Erika Nelson: The most competitive. That’s a way better way to phrase it. Yeah. Around five.

Andy Johns: Okay. Yeah.

Erika Nelson: Yeah.

Andy Johns: That’s hard work.

Erika Nelson: It is. Yep. And one started building at the exact same time that we did, and we did not know that they were coming in. So they’re building on one side of the city. We’re building on the other. And yeah, you’re just dealing with it as it comes.

Andy Johns: All right.

Erika Nelson: Yeah.

Andy Johns: So when you’re building this market share report, are you basically looking at what you have and what everybody else has? Or are you getting data enough to break down which competitor also has which other shares?

Erika Nelson: No, we haven’t done by competitor yet, just kind of big picture the community knowing how many total serviceable addresses there are. And then comparing that with our numbers and how many customers we have in that area.

Andy Johns: Perfect. So that’s going to be pretty similar to the take rate then.

Erika Nelson: Yes.

Andy Johns: Okay.

Erika Nelson: Yep.

Andy Johns: All right. Yep. some of the other numbers that you broke down. If folks are not familiar, ARPU, you’re basically looking at the amount of money you’re getting off of each subscriber. You want to talk any more about what that number tells you, or what you guys are looking at when you’re looking at that number?

Erika Nelson: Yeah, we’re just, we’re looking at kind of, it gives us an idea of where people are falling. Not only in our internet tiers that are available, but then also the other products that they’re, you know, putting in that stack of offerings as well. So kind of gives you the big picture of how are we doing overall as far as marketing all three of our products. Actually, it’d be four with managed, so.

Andy Johns: And so you’re looking at that ARPU number and that will be if they have a higher broadband speed, that helps. Or if they add some of these other services that also helps, but you don’t necessarily know which it is that they’re taking, I guess, if you’re just looking at the dollar amounts.

Erika Nelson: Right. Yeah.

Andy Johns: Yep. What are some of the others? I know that obviously director of digital media, you talked about, some of the analytics that you’re also looking at. How does that factor in?

Erika Nelson: Yeah, so we’ve had Google Analytics going for years with the website, but then started on Google ads, gosh, maybe a year ago, maybe less than that. But, it really, with our expansion areas and trying to get that message out, hitting the folks in those communities with just all sorts of, you know, billboards, mailers, all the things. Google ads was a really big part of our trying to get our message where it needs to go. And so tracking that data became crucial to see how our messaging was hitting. And then just watching all those different things that you can watch and their impressions, click through rate, keywords, search terms. And then changing up that messaging and then seeing how people respond to the changes in messaging, all those things to kind of keep the data that we’re seeing in the range that we want it in. You know, and I did make the comment yesterday, so I met a guy named Chris at a conference digital summit.

Andy Johns: Okay.

Erika Nelson: It’s a great conference, but he has his own business doing just Google stuff. You have all these consultants out there that just specialize in this platform because it’s such a black hole.

Andy Johns: They’re so deep.

Erika Nelson: Oh my word. Like you get in there. I know enough to be dangerous. That’s pretty much what it is. You know, I can make our edits and things like that, but when you really get into the nitty gritty. I need some help. I need a guide. So I’ve worked with Chris with Teach to Fish Digital. He’s based out of Arizona. And he’s helped us kind of especially get things set up between the platforms, between analytics and ads and tagging and then the looker studio reports. So you can see the big picture of how everything is working together. So I’ve also utilized Jake Martin from Calix to help with that as well. So yeah, the guides definitely help. But again, it’s just one of those pieces that gives us the bigger picture of how is our messaging hitting in this area? Just one more avenue of reaching people, so.

Andy Johns: Right. You mentioned one other spot that y’all are looking, and I know a lot of folks will use net promoter score. That’s been a big talk here this time. When you’re looking at customer satisfaction, you said primarily y’all are looking at some of the online review platforms.

Erika Nelson: Yeah.

Andy Johns: Talk to us a little bit about which ones you’re looking at, which ones matter. You know, I’ve had folks say some folks will look at the social media reviews, some will look at some of the other service review sites. Which ones are you looking at when it  comes to watching those online reviews?

Erika Nelson: Yeah, yeah, we’ve definitely been suggested that, you know, we do the NPS score, but we haven’t gone down that road yet.

Andy Johns: Sure.

Erika Nelson: We do a lot with Google reviews. We really try and push that with our customer base. Mainly because, you know, when there’s a restaurant or new business or whatever that you’re interested in, what do you do?

Andy Johns: You go look at Google.

Erika Nelson: You look at Google. Yep. So that for us is huge. And when you look at a lot of the other competitors, the big boxers, their Google reviews aren’t great.

Andy Johns: Not very good.

Erika Nelson: No, and it’s very telling in the comments that you see there. So really trying to show how we’re different with our Google reviews and the things our customers say about us online. Then usually once per year, we survey our customer base to get the feedback that an NPS survey would give us.

Andy Johns: Sure.

Erika Nelson: So for example, in June we did Customer Appreciation Month. And as a part of that, we sent out survey links through QR codes, emails, mailers, that kind of thing.

Andy Johns: Multiple channels.

Erika Nelson: Yep. Try to get as much feedback as possible. And, had people fill out a review form, and everybody who filled out a form got submitted into a drawing. And we gave away a lot of free stuff. So there was a lot of incentive.

Andy Johns: Sure.

Erika Nelson: Submit your review form. We wanted honest feedback, obviously. So we got several hundred reviews from that. Both business customers and residential. So we’re able to see, you know, from those platforms. So those are kind of our big two that we do.

Andy Johns: Before we move on to, what do you do about some of these numbers, are there anywhere that I’ve left out? You talked, we talked about market share. We talked about the reviews, some of the digital analytics. Are there any other KPIs that you’re looking at on a regular basis that we haven’t covered before we move on?

Erika Nelson: Yeah. The only other one would be marketing campaigns. So for example, we did a campaign this summer, $500 off our top three speed tiers. And it was $500 off, $25 a month comes off after six months of service. We did that very intentionally because usually in that first six months we see the disconnects.

Andy Johns: All right smart.

Erika Nelson: So if you’re paying full price, then for the first six months before the money starts to come off, hopefully you’re going to stay in service is the idea behind that.

Andy Johns: And then a lump, like a lump sum, $500 after six months?

Erika Nelson: Nope. It’s $25 a month until that $500 runs out.

Andy Johns: I got you sorry, I misunderstood.

Erika Nelson: No. That’s okay. So we take campaigns like that and we, you know, once it’s finished, look at how did it do? So I had shared those numbers as well. And it was really neat to see because our top tier is an eight gig, which is a lot.

Andy Johns: Yes.

Erika Nelson: And we had, I think 12 people sign up for an eight gig speed tier. Most of them fill in our two gig, but then we break it down by area, and we can see, you know, obviously who is taking what speed where. And you know, it just gives us an idea of who’s responding to the promotion versus, you know, just coming out of the draft queue from, you know, spring and winter or whatever. So it just allows us to see the effectiveness of our campaigns. We did the ARPU math on that one as well, and we’re very pleased with that. So anytime we were in a promotion like that, we look at the numbers in the back end and say, “How did this work? What are our goals for next time?”

Andy Johns: Smart. Got to do that. When you’re saying areas, you’re talking about actual geographic areas, so does this community that people are responding differently? Okay. Interesting.

Erika Nelson: Yep.

Andy Johns: All right. So those are some great places that y’all are looking to get the numbers. But now what do you do with them? When you’re, you know, whatever, whether it’s the Google reviews. That’s a great to take a snapshot in time as to how things are right now. Obviously, I’m kind of making an assumption here. You want those numbers to be as good as possible everywhere. So what do you do with those numbers? It sounds like it’s it’s great that it’s not just you looking at them. It’s also upper management and the board. But what do you do with those numbers? Have you got the big thermometers in the office, you’re coloring to try to get higher and higher on those? What do you do once you look at those numbers?

Erika Nelson: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. We do have the thermometer. So for example, in our expansion areas, the build outs are pretty much done. We’re just doing drops at this point for new people signing on. But when we hit goals that we’ve set, we celebrate. Oh, so office wide. That’s an example. I will backtrack to another topic real quick. So one of the things that we also do is have our customer, we call them customer technology, customer service. Same thing. That team, anytime somebody signs up for service, they have an option that they can check and all the things that they do that lets us know how that person, you know, heard about us signed up for service, why. So it can be a promotion, it can be a friend, family referral. It can, you know, whatever it may be.  So then we can pull those reports, and we can see where this traffic is coming from. So like I said, we did it on our promotion. But then we also see consistently that, you know, friends and family referrals are one of our biggest reasons for connections. So in response to, you know, something like that, we run a promotion to our current customers saying, you know, hey, we really appreciate these referrals. We have a $20 for you, $20 for them program, unlimited numbers of referrals that you can get, and then we do another promotion on top of that, another incentive for our current customer base. So the numbers that we get, the KPIs that we get, then determine what our next action is.

Andy Johns: Perfect. When you’re dealing with the numbers like the Google reviews, obviously that’s something that you can have on your focus, but there are so many links in that chain that have to go well to get that good review. How deeply are these, you know, these metrics kind of permeating the whole company? Are the install techs, the CSR, is everybody paying attention to these? Or is marketing kind of alone as the main cheerleader there?

Erika Nelson: Yeah, it’s a work in progress. I would say, for sure. We’re looking at starting a employee kind of rewards program. You know, taking reviews that have a specific employee mentioned or a specific team. And then, you know, whether we enter those people into a drawing or just reward, you know, those employees in general. So we’re looking at things like that. But yeah, I’d say that this is definitely an evolving area for us as we try to work through that.

Andy Johns: What are some of the wins that you’ve had when you’re looking at these KPIs? What are some of the ones that you’re proud at, the way you’ve been able to move the needle with some efforts and being smarter about, you know, learning at every step along the way. What are some of the ones where you have moved the needle, and what do you think it’s taken to do that?

Erika Nelson: Yeah, we have a group in each of these three expansion areas that we built that have a drop, but they don’t have service yet. Trying to get in one particular, the one where we have the most competition, trying to get those people to move has been really challenging. I think there’s just –

Andy Johns: To forward with signing up?

Erika Nelson: Right. Yeah, I think it’s kind of, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. You know, like they have another provider, they signed up for a drop, probably just in case it improves the value of your house, whatever. And it just sits for now. So how do we get those people from point A to point B? So our campaign that we did this past summer intentionally targeted those people. That’s pretty much what we’ve done this year is try to reach this group. We’ve been applying for BEAD funding. We’re still waiting for all that to kind of shake out. So I feel like we’re in a little bit of limbo at the moment. And still going after that drop customer base really makes sense. Or “to be” customer base, hopefully.

Andy Johns: Right.

Erika Nelson: And so yeah, like I said, our promotion this summer targeted that group, and we were really pleased with the response that we got. You know, it’s summertime. People are busy. It can kind of go either ways, you know, as far as whether somebody’s going to respond to something. But our non-promotion month ARPU for that campaign was over $90, which I was pretty impressed with.

Andy Johns: Yeah. That’s great.

Erika Nelson: And that’s internet and you know, managed, so.

Andy Johns: Right. That’s a strong number, so that’s good. So let’s close here. What advice do you have for somebody who’s thinking about this, who’s hearing you talk about it and say, you know, like you said, everything’s a work in progress. Maybe they’re not looking at all these numbers, or they’re looking at maybe 1 or 2. What’s some advice that you have for folks that are trying to get going there, and get a little deeper and get more folks to the company paying attention?

Erika Nelson: Yeah. So I told this story yesterday in our session. We had an employee who attended the HubSpot Inbound Conference in September. Obviously huge marketing conference people from across all industries. And she was talking to somebody from Sony and asked about KPIs. And the response was, “Oh, don’t even get me started. You know, it’s just the kind of thing where it’s a pain point that we all feel.” Like, what are we tracking? Are we doing the right things? Are we bringing in the right information? You know, is there something we’re missing? And so that was helpful to us to hear that this is not only our pain point, but it is one for other people as well. So I’d say, you know, start small. You know, figure out what you’re interested in gathering information on whether you start, you know, with just 2 or 3 things and figure out how to do that and do it well, and then try to get your picture from there. Okay, we have this information, what else do we need to move forward? You know, and work within, we work within our senior management team to figure out long term goals for our company. And then our marketing department figures out our goals based on what the company is doing. And then things get shared within our leadership team and other ideas come up from there. So there’s some bouncing off of the other departments. But you know, if it’s not something that’s being done across your company, I’m assuming that accounting is at least doing things, but.

Andy Johns: You would hope. Yeah, at least accounting.

Erika Nelson: You would hope. If other departments aren’t doing much, like I said, start small and try to encourage other people with the data that you’re bringing in and showing the results of the things that you’re doing.

Andy Johns: I know I said that was the last one. You brought something up that was interesting to me though, of those goals that you’re setting and that the upper management is setting, do all of those tie in to some of these KPIs that we’re talking about? Are there some that do and some that don’t? Is it rare for them to? How often are those KPIs and the analytics and metrics we’ve talked about now worked into those goals?

Erika Nelson: Yeah. I would say at least 50% of the time.

Andy Johns: Okay.

Erika Nelson: I mean, it kind of depends on what we’re talking about. If we’re talking about, you know, expansion areas or, you know, metrics for the upcoming year, like how many customers do we want to bring on and how much revenue and all that thing. Obviously, that would be a bigger conversation versus, you know, something that is maybe a promotion that marketing’s doing. Other people need to know about it, but they don’t necessarily need to be involved in the nitty gritty details, the planning of that kind of stuff, so.

Andy Johns: Perfect. Well, we appreciate you getting into the nitty gritty details and sharing with us a lot of what you guys are doing over at Lynxx. So thanks for sharing the ideas.

Erika Nelson: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Andy Johns: She is Erika Nelson with Lynxx Networks. I am Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer. And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro: StoryConnect is a production of Pioneer Utility Resources. Send questions to hello@pioneer.coop and learn more about our member-owned marketing agency at pioneer.coop.