We introduce multi-hop aggregate information efficiency (MIE_A), a comprehensive metric that captures several performance-affecting factors of wireless ad hoc networks in a unified formulation. This metric is then employed to analyze such networks with respect to their spectral efficiencies, network loads, and hopping strategies. The analysis reveals that the hopping strategy that achieves maximum information efficiency is that of multiple short hops with no more than a single packet retransmission allowed at each hop, as opposed to the alternative of fewer long-haul hops with multiple packet retransmissions. The implementation of that preferred strategy withstanding, it is found furthermore that the most efficient networks typically exhibit about 65 % of link outage probability, which corroborates similar findings obtained in different network settings and using different metrics. Bearing in mind that link outage is a function not only of deterministic parameters such as node density, but also of design parameters such as modulation, our analysis also shows that the modulation scheme that optimizes the aggregate information efficiency is in fact a function of node density. In that respect, our metric and method is shown to be useful to determining the modulation scheme that optimizes the performance of a network with a certain node density.