Definition
What it is
Percent increase is a way of expressing how much a value has grown relative to its original size. It shows the change as a percentage of the starting value, making it easier to compare growth across different metrics, time periods, or segments.
Mathematically:
[
\text{Percent Increase} = \frac{\text{New Value} – \text{Original Value}}{\text{Original Value}} \times 100%
]
If the result is positive, it is a percent increase; if negative, it is effectively a percent decrease.
How it relates to marketing
Percent increase is one of the most commonly used growth metrics in marketing. It quantifies how key measures such as traffic, leads, conversions, revenue, or engagement have changed period over period (e.g., month-over-month, year-over-year) or between test and control groups. Because it normalizes change relative to the starting point, percent increase allows marketers to compare growth across channels, campaigns, and segments of different sizes.
How to calculate Percent Increase
The basic formula:
[
\text{Percent Increase} = \frac{\text{New} – \text{Original}}{\text{Original}} \times 100%
]
Where:
- Original = starting value
- New = ending or comparison value
Example 1: Conversion volume
- Original conversions: 1,000
- New conversions: 1,250
[
\text{Percent Increase} = \frac{1{,}250 – 1{,}000}{1{,}000} \times 100% = \frac{250}{1{,}000} \times 100% = 25%
]
Example 2: Click-through rate
- Original CTR: 2.0%
- New CTR: 2.6%
Treat these as decimals in the formula:
[
\text{Percent Increase} = \frac{0.026 – 0.02}{0.02} \times 100% = \frac{0.006}{0.02} \times 100% = 30%
]
So the CTR increased by 30%, even though it went from 2.0% to 2.6% (an absolute increase of 0.6 percentage points).
Edge case: Original value of zero
If the original value is 0, the standard percent increase formula is undefined (division by zero). In marketing, this often appears when:
- A new channel or campaign starts from zero
- A new product or region had no prior revenue
In these cases, practitioners typically:
- Describe the change qualitatively (“from 0 to 500 leads in the first month”), or
- Use absolute change, or
- Use a different baseline period once consistent data exists.
How to utilize Percent Increase
Percent increase is used across marketing reporting, experimentation, and planning.
Period-over-period performance
- Measure month-over-month (MoM) or year-over-year (YoY) change in:
- Website sessions
- Leads or MQLs
- Deals closed or pipeline created
- Revenue and margin
- Compare growth across regions, product lines, or customer segments using a normalized measure rather than raw counts.
Campaign and channel evaluation
- Compare how much different channels or campaigns have grown over specific periods.
- Track percent increase in key KPIs such as:
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Conversion rate (CVR)
- Average order value (AOV)
- Revenue per user (RPU)
- Identify where performance is improving or declining, even when volumes differ.
Testing and experimentation
- In A/B or multivariate tests, percent increase is a simple expression of performance differences:
- Example: “Variant B increased conversion rate by 12% vs. control.”
- Combine percent increase with statistical significance to distinguish meaningful lifts from noise.
Forecasting and planning
- Use historical percent increases to:
- Estimate expected growth for future periods
- Apply conservative, moderate, or aggressive growth scenarios
- Translate strategic goals into required growth rates (e.g., “Target a 15% increase in qualified pipeline YoY”).
Stakeholder communication
- Express changes in a way that is easy to compare and understand:
- “Email-driven revenue increased 40% year-over-year.”
- “Self-serve sign-ups grew 18% quarter-over-quarter.”
Comparison to similar approaches
| Concept | Definition / Formula | When to Use | Pros | Cons / Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent Increase | ((\text{New} – \text{Original}) / \text{Original} \times 100%) | Comparing growth relative to a baseline | Normalizes change; easy to compare across different scales | Misleading on very small bases; undefined when original is zero |
| Absolute Change | (\text{New} – \text{Original}) | When magnitude of change matters (e.g., +5,000 leads) | Simple and intuitive; works when original is zero | Hard to compare across segments of very different sizes |
| Percent Decrease | ((\text{Original} – \text{New}) / \text{Original} \times 100%) | Measuring declines in KPIs | Symmetric counterpart to percent increase | Same issues with small baselines and division by zero |
| Percentage Point Change | (\text{New Rate} – \text{Original Rate}) (for percentages) | When comparing two rates (e.g., 3% → 4.5%) | Avoids confusion between “%” and “percentage points” | Less intuitive for non-technical stakeholders without explanation |
| Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) | (\left(\frac{\text{Ending}}{\text{Beginning}}\right)^{1/n} – 1) | Multi-year growth smoothing | Shows “smoothed” annual growth over multiple years | Hides year-to-year volatility; more complex to explain |
| Indexing (Base = 100) | (\text{Index} = (\text{Value} / \text{Base}) \times 100) | Tracking relative change vs. a base period or group | Good for charts comparing many series against a common baseline | Requires explanation of index base; less immediately intuitive than direct percent |
| Lift / Uplift | ((\text{Test} – \text{Control}) / \text{Control} \times 100%) | Experiments and test vs. control comparisons | Directly expresses improvement vs. baseline condition | Needs a well-defined control and sample size considerations |
Percent increase is essentially the same mathematical structure as lift; the naming depends on context (time-based growth vs. test vs. control).
Best practices
- Be explicit about the baseline and period
- Always specify what “original” and “new” refer to (e.g., “Q2 vs. Q1,” “2025 vs. 2024”).
- Clarify whether comparisons are intra-year (MoM, QoQ) or year-over-year (YoY).
- Distinguish between percent and percentage points
- For rate changes (e.g., conversion rate), explain both when needed:
- “Conversion rate increased from 3% to 4.5% (+1.5 percentage points, a 50% increase).”
- For rate changes (e.g., conversion rate), explain both when needed:
- Avoid over-interpreting small baselines
- Large percent increases from tiny starting values (e.g., from 10 to 50 leads = +400%) can be misleading.
- Provide absolute numbers alongside percentages for context.
- Pair percent increase with volume and significance
- Report both percent change and underlying counts (e.g., percent increase in revenue plus actual revenue figures).
- In experiments, combine percent lift with statistical significance or confidence intervals to indicate reliability.
- Use consistent calculation methods across teams
- Align on the standard formula for percent increase.
- Document conventions (e.g., which period is “original,” handling of returns, cancellations, or refunds) to avoid inconsistent reporting.
- Handle zero or near-zero baselines carefully
- When the original value is zero or extremely small, avoid quoting percent increase without explanation.
- Use absolute change, narrative description, or choose a different baseline period.
- Make comparison groups clear
- When expressing percent increase between segments (e.g., Region A vs. Region B), clarify which is being compared to which.
Future trends
- Automated growth diagnostics in dashboards
Analytics and BI tools will more routinely highlight notable percent increases and decreases, flagging material movements without manual inspection. - Context-aware alerts
Systems will increasingly tie percent changes to thresholds that adapt based on historical volatility and seasonality, reducing noise from routine fluctuations. - Integrated experimentation insights
Percent increases from tests (e.g., conversion lift) will be automatically combined with significance and confidence intervals in reporting, reducing misinterpretation of noisy results. - Normalization across complex customer journeys
As organizations adopt more multi-touch and multi-channel reporting, percent increase will be applied consistently across stages of the funnel, with standard ways of handling overlaps and deduplication. - Education on interpretability and risk
As percent-based metrics continue to drive performance incentives, more emphasis will be placed on training marketing and business teams to interpret large increases from small bases and to differentiate true growth from statistical noise.
Related Terms
- Absolute Change
- Percent Decrease
- Growth Rate
- Year-over-Year (YoY)
- Month-over-Month (MoM)
- Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
- Percentage Point Change
- Lift (in Experiments)
- Conversion Rate
- Key Performance Indicator (KPI)