Revenue tells you what already happened. Ads tell you what you paid for. Neither tells you what’s coming next.
That gap is where most growth strategies break down. Teams optimize toward lagging indicators, then scramble when performance shifts without warning. By the time revenue dips or CAC spikes, the underlying behavior has already changed.
Community changes that equation.
Participation, contribution, and advocacy don’t just reflect brand health. They predict it. When customers start engaging more deeply, they signal future purchases long before a transaction appears on a dashboard. That’s why community is a leading indicator of growth, while ads are merely a historical record.
Most growth teams manage by looking in the rearview mirror.
Common lagging indicators include:
These metrics are useful, but they describe outcomes, not causes. They confirm performance after decisions have already been made.
Ads, in particular, are inherently reactive. You spend, you observe, you adjust. When performance deteriorates, it’s often too late to prevent the impact.
Lagging indicators answer the question, “What happened?”
They don’t answer, “What’s about to happen?”
Community activity captures intent before it converts into dollars.
When customers engage without being prompted by an ad, they reveal motivation. They show curiosity, belief, and momentum. These behaviors consistently precede revenue events.
Leading signals include:
These actions indicate commitment, not just attention. Unlike clicks or impressions, participation requires effort. Effort is one of the strongest predictors of future value.
Traditional LTV models are backward-looking. They rely on historical spend and cohort averages, which means they improve only after revenue accumulates.
Community enables predictive LTV by introducing early behavioral signals.
When brands track participation patterns, they can:
Customers who participate early tend to stay longer, spend more, and advocate more. Predictive LTV becomes clearer when behavior is observed upstream of transactions.
This is where community shifts growth from reactive optimization to proactive strategy.
Ads are excellent at scaling demand that already exists. They are far less effective at revealing whether demand is strengthening or weakening.
Community fills that blind spot.
When participation increases:
When participation drops:
Community acts like an early warning system. Ads only confirm the damage after it happens.
CFOs don’t just care about growth. They care about predictability.
Leading indicators improve:
When growth depends entirely on paid acquisition, forecasts swing with platform volatility. When growth is supported by community participation, performance stabilizes.
Predictability increases enterprise value. Community contributes directly to that outcome.
The mistake most brands make is treating community like a campaign layer.
Leading indicators only matter when they’re tracked consistently and tied to decisions. That requires infrastructure, not one-off efforts.
Platforms like TYB surface participation signals in real time, making them usable for forecasting, segmentation, and prioritization. Community becomes an operating signal instead of a marketing anecdote.
That shift is what allows growth teams to see around corners.
This concept anchors several related ideas:
When community is understood as a leading indicator, it becomes the connective tissue across acquisition, retention, and revenue strategy.
Ads tell you what just happened. Community tells you what’s coming next.
Brands that rely solely on lagging indicators react to growth. Brands that track participation anticipate it. That difference compounds over time.
Community isn’t just a channel. It’s an early signal system for future value. When you can see growth before it shows up in revenue, you stop chasing performance and start shaping it.
A leading indicator signals future performance before outcomes occur. In growth, participation and engagement often predict revenue, retention, and advocacy before transactions happen.
Ads measure outcomes after spend occurs. Metrics like ROAS and CAC confirm performance only after demand has converted, making them reactive rather than predictive.
Community participation requires effort and intent. Customers who engage early are more likely to retain, spend more, and advocate, making their behavior a strong predictor of future value.
Predictive LTV estimates customer lifetime value using early behavioral signals rather than historical spend alone. Community participation significantly improves its accuracy.
Leading indicators improve forecast confidence, risk management, and capital allocation. They help finance teams plan ahead instead of reacting to volatility.
TYB captures participation signals and connects them to retention, advocacy, and revenue outcomes, enabling teams to act on leading indicators rather than lagging reports.
