Ultimately, there is more than one way to measure Inbound Marketing results.

Inbound marketing is the intentional creation of information/content to draw targeted people into your information portal.  It may be a blog or a website.

So measurement #1 is increased traffic.

But effective Inbound Marketing draws in targeted traffic, not just general traffic.  So how many people are taking advantage of your call to action?  If it is a low number, your Inbound Marketing may not be targeted very well or your call to action may not be attractive to the market.  One way to know this is by looking at the search engine keywords people are using to find your site.  If the keywords are good and seem to be the right target, then your call to action needs improved.  If you are not getting good keywords, your content is not targeted or optimized.

Measurement #2 is leads from that call to action.

Measurement #3 is actual sales.  This may take longer to track, but is your Inbound Marketing effort generating sales results?

Your Inbound Marketing strategy may have some other outcomes you want to target and measure as well, such as growing lists.

When I say grow a list, I mean a lot of things.  Email list, twitter followers, faceBook friends and RSS subscribers are all different kinds of lists that you can grow with Inbound Marketing.

If you assign a value to each of these things, you can then estimate the ROI on your Inbound Marketing – be sure to include the time you spend writing.