This is a great question! Demand generation marketing and content marketing should work hand-in-hand to achieve broader marketing objectives. When identifying KPIs and metrics to measure demand generation and content marketing together, you should consider the type of content being distributed and the channels through which it's being distributed. This will help determine your KPIs. For example, a blog post may not have the same KPIs as a gated piece of content or a video. The channel mix of promotions will also factor into KPIs. Is this a larger integrated marketing campaign that will require a more extensive mix of promotions and budget? Or is this a smaller campaign, perhaps targeted at a specific/smaller audience, that won't require as much external distribution and promotion? Once you understand these components, you can determine your KPIs. Here are some general KPIs to consider: * Number of site sessions to a blog post * For gated content: Conversion rates, form fills * Number of video views * MQLs, SQLS, sourced opps and/or influenced opps from the content being promoted (how many deals/opps were generated or influenced by this content) * Impressions * Share of voice * SEO metrics - keyword rankings, organic search traffic to the content

Determining what types of campaigns/tactics to include in your strategy starts with you understanding every milestone metric in your funnel. What is your acquisition cost? How much does it take to bring a lead in? How much does it take to get a sign up- everything you do need to map back to how much you spend? Having clear answers to these questions will allow you to optimize and get more efficient overtime. Let's dive into some examples. For example, You might find that facebook drives you a ton of traffic and newsletter sign-ups but it doesn’t help you drive trials. Based on your data, Trials are your highest converting offer. So what do you do with Facebook? Do you cut your spend? No, you set the strategy based on what it’s designed to do. If it’s effective in driving contacts for your email database, you judge the effectiveness of that channel by that metric. Here’s how you do the math. You take your CAC, customer acquisition cost and back into all the various metrics upstream and this backwards math can help you figure out what the maximum dollar amount you can spend to acquire each email subscriber. So you’ve got people in your database, while it’s great to get sign-ups if your traffic doesn’t convert, it hurts your bottom line. So you have to look at activation and your 1st time purchase metrics. If you are a B2B company, you need to know whether or not the deals you are driving from your marketing programs ultimately make it to closing or if you have a more e-commerce like product, you might be measuring app usage and digital transactions. Let me give you an example, you might find out that specific non-branded search terms might cost you a fortune because there isn’t a lot of volume. However, if you have the right reporting structure in place, you might find this has the highest returns because you get revenue from it. The point is, look beyond that form complete. Now the last piece here is Retention. Lastly, at a SaaS company or any company in fact, if you can’t keep your customer’s happy, you fail. LTV is something I’ve been obsessed about at every role i’ve taken because I think that’s a metric that we should all strive to hit. It tells the full story. For example, just because you acquisition cost is high to start, don't cut a program right away. You need to factor in assumptions for LTV. You will have segmentations of customer that are going to be with you for a few years, and/or grow into using more products/features - that value of the customer dramatically increases and the initial cost per acquisition can sometimes be misleading.

Always be open to feedback. Any feedback either positive or negative is a gift. There's always opportunities to improve and grow no matter how much experience you have. In your case, if you don't agree with the feedback, I would ask for examples on how you could have done something differently, or better. Your boss may not see eye to eye with you and that's okay, but as long as you can show impact through your work, numbers don't lie.

The best Demand Generation candidates possess a unique blend of strategic thinking, creativity, and executional excellence. They deeply understand the product, messaging, and audience, enabling them to craft compelling go-to-market strategies. Creativity is key—they generate innovative ideas to activate campaigns and drive engagement. I was once tasked with building a campaign for a software product we were selling in the Retail space. To activate this beyond the run of the mill webinar and content, we decided to take over a luxury retail store in SoHo during fashion week. We hosted top customers for an exclusive shopping experience and a live interview with the famous designer that we also streamed online and amplified on social media. Because this was such a unique and memorable activation, we were able to close business and also drive awareness. In addition, a strong grasp of channel strategy and optimization is essential. These candidates know how to leverage paid media, content, email, events, and other channels effectively, continuously testing and iterating for performance improvement. They are resourceful and scrappy, thriving in fast-paced environments where they must do more with less. Beyond tactical execution, top candidates are natural leaders who can align cross-functional teams, collaborating seamlessly with product marketing, creative, field marketing, and sales. Their high emotional intelligence (EQ) allows them to navigate pressure with composure, influence stakeholders, and drive alignment across departments. Being data-driven is non-negotiable. The best candidates don’t just execute campaigns—they analyze performance metrics, extract insights, and refine strategies based on data. They understand pipeline impact, revenue contribution, and how to optimize for business outcomes. Ultimately, the strongest Demand Generation professionals balance analytical rigor with creativity, strategic vision with hands-on execution, and leadership with adaptability. Their ability to connect the dots between messaging, channels, data, and cross-functional collaboration makes them invaluable assets to any marketing team.

Depending on your organization’s goals bringing in sales, CS, and operations can be key to running successful Demand Generation campaigns. I have more experience working in the B2B Enterprise space and the relationship with Sales and CS has been important to success. * In large-scale Enterprise sales (where deal lengths can extend beyond a year), the Field (sales, sales engineers, etc.) is critical to moving a deal from TOFU opportunities to POC and closed-won opportunities. Sales can help you understand the core influencers and buyers in the sales cycles and the problems customers are trying to solve. It’s important to align on the top accounts and how you are best positioned in the market. * Customer Success becomes more important in B2B buying cycles because customers who churn are very costly to the business. In addition, happy customers will buy more over time. If you have a large product portfolio, CS can be another seller for you, helping drive additional upsells and cross-sell opportunities in the buying cycle. Both of these teams help accelerate opportunities and can provide a unique perspective you may not have considered in past Demand Generation campaigns. 

Short answer: Yes, it's one of the very best paths to CMO at a growth stage startup. Medium answer: I could be wrong but my experience tells me that growth stage startup C level roles (the only space I know) come from one of two backgrounds: PMM or Demand Generation. They are going to hire to solve the problems they are facing. It's usually driving predictable demand first, with a measure of brand building second. Worth thinking as you navigate your path forward. Longer answer: Please see my answer to "Is there a single career path for demand gen? Or what are some good career paths that can lead to a demand generation leadership role like yours?" I go into more detail there!

Nand generation is going out into the market and generating interest in your product. Growth marketing is a process in which you develop a hypothesis, test that hypothesis through AB testing, measure the results, continuously iterate.

It's not too different from your traditional demand funnel/waterfall and KPIs, but instead of leads > MQLs > SQLs > Opportunities > $ pipeline, your funnel should start with web traffic, both from an aggregate perspective, as well as the core pages you want to drive users to sign-up for your self-service offering. Quality web visitors are essentially your "leads," and from there you measure conversions to your sign-up pages, web trial downloads and starts, paid users, and eventually upgrades, expansion, etc. Then depending on your martech sophistication you can get extremely granular with your UTM parameters to measure where traffic is coming from, whether by channel (i.e. organic search, SEM, paid media, organic social, etc.), tactic, campaigns, etc. and continually optimize based on where you're seeing the greatest conversion throughout the self-serve funnel.

* Net Promoter Score (NPS): While it’s a decent pulse check for customer sentiment, it doesn’t always correlate with growth or revenue. * Bounce Rate: Taken in isolation, it’s rarely actionable and often misunderstood. * Click-Through Rate (CTR) Alone: CTR without downstream metrics like conversion rate or cost-per-lead is incomplete. * Time on Page: Without context, this doesn’t tell you if the time spent was valuable.

It depends on the stage of growth, but if I had to pick one, I’d say Marketing Operations & Analytics. You can have the best creative, a well-funded ad budget, and an airtight product positioning, but if you can’t measure what’s working, optimize campaigns, or prove impact, then you’re just throwing money into the void. Marketing Ops is what makes everything run smoothly. They make sure leads are getting scored and routed correctly, that attribution is set up so we know what’s actually driving pipeline, and that we’re focused on quality over quantity. Because that’s a big trap—thinking that more leads means better performance, it doesn’t. If you’re bringing in leads that aren’t high-intent or a good fit, they won’t convert, and all you’ve done is inflate vanity metrics. That’s why having an Ops function is critical from the start. Once that foundation is solid, the next hire really depends on the business’s goals. If acquisition is a priority, then a paid media or growth marketing specialist makes sense. If you’re targeting larger accounts, you need ABM expertise. If retention is an area of focus, then a lifecycle marketer should be next. But none of those roles can function properly without a strong Ops foundation. If your data is a mess, your lead flow is broken, and your reporting isn’t giving you the insights you need, scaling becomes impossible. Operations is the backbone of a successful Demand Gen team. Without it, everything slows down.