AMA: Observable Head of Growth Marketing, Erika Barbosa on Demand Generation KPI's

From a product-led growth (PLG) perspective, I don’t see enough emphasis put on identifying and tracking toward an activation or “aha moment” KPI. What is the one action a user or team needs to take to make your program exponentially more successful? Is it adding members to a team account? Is it performing a certain action? Demand gen teams can no longer solely focus on the acquisition side. While it can be debated whether metrics such as retention fall under demand gen, I urge you to go one step further in quality.

From a product-led growth (PLG) perspective, I don’t see enough emphasis put on identifying and tracking toward an activation or “aha moment” KPI. What is the one action a user or team needs to take to make your program exponentially more successful? Is it adding members to a team account? Is it performing a certain action? Demand gen teams can no longer solely focus on the acquisition side. While it can be debated whether metrics such as retention fall under demand gen, I urge you to go one step further in quality.

I’m going to give you two specific KPIs that I recommend against committing to if not paired with a quality metric. Why? These two metrics in isolation are not meaningful. They are solely quantity metrics with no quality indicators. * Sign-ups or MQLs. Why? Similar to what I noted above if you exceed your target for this KPI, but it doesn’t translate to quality or an impact on the business, does it matter? * Website traffic. Why? While important when paired with quality metrics, this KPI by itself is not very impactful. If your target audience is not visiting your website, this metric will not support your desired outcomes. When you pair these KPIs with quality indicators you can better understand if your targeting is correct. You can better understand if you are delivering on your `marketing promise` and providing value to customers. However, without this layered approach, they are solely just counts. This will differ depending on your go-to-market motion and business, but the recommendation holds true.

Before the work starts: * Identify your stakeholders using a decision-making framework that is clear (there are many, and some favor DACI). * Identify KPIs that will define success and learnings and reach an agreement with your stakeholders on these KPIs. * Communicate your KPIs and goals with the broader team. Set up a dashboard to show pacing towards KPIs to ensure visibility. When it’s done: * Perform a retrospective which consists of a summary of the program, data from the dashboard you created in the step above, and recommendations. * Identify what worked and what didn’t work and why. * Provide recommendations going forward based on the experiment. Ultimately, err on the side of what may feel like over communicating. It’s still probably not enough communication. :)

OKRs or Objectives and Key Results are important business tools. They help forge alignment cross-functionally and give purpose to day-to-day work. For goal setting, my preference is to work backward from the goal. What are your overarching company goals or desired outcomes? Armed with this information, you can then develop quarterly and annual demand gen OKRs. * Based on the company goals, what does this look like for demand gen for the year? For example, this could look like an attributed pipeline or quality sign-ups depending on your go-to-market motion. * Based on the annual goal you have defined, how can you segment this into quarterly milestones? The sum of the quarterly goals will equal or surpass your annual demand gen OKR. * Based on your quarterly goals, how can you segment this based on individual projects? Each project should have a forecasted outcome. The bottoms-up math should then equal your quarterly goals across the projects. I have found this step is often missed. This step will help you identify any gaps earlier so that you can deploy additional projects or make adjustments as needed.

OKRs or Objectives and Key Results are important business tools. They help forge alignment cross-functionally and give purpose to day-to-day work. For goal setting, my preference is to work backward from the goal. What are your overarching company goals or desired outcomes? Armed with this information, you can then develop quarterly and annual demand gen OKRs. * Based on the company goals, what does this look like for demand gen for the year? For example, this could look like an attributed pipeline or quality sign-ups depending on your go-to-market motion. * Based on the annual goal you have defined, how can you segment this into quarterly milestones? The sum of the quarterly goals will equal or surpass your annual demand gen OKR. * Based on your quarterly goals, how can you segment this based on individual projects? Each project should have a forecasted outcome. The bottoms-up math should then equal your quarterly goals across the projects. I have found this step is often missed. This step will help you identify any gaps earlier so that you can deploy additional projects or make adjustments as needed.

This is going to be dependent on your business objectives and goals, the stage of the start-up and your go-to-market motion. Generally speaking, here are a few examples of KPIs you should and should not own. You should own: * MQLs or sign-ups * A quality metric to measure MQLs and sign-ups against * CPA by source or channel * Conversion rate by source or channel You should not own (you should be a partner in this, not an owner): * Retention * Revenue This list contains a few examples and is not comprehensive. You’ll find there are some KPIs you should own and others you should partner on as it’s not completely in your control. When thinking about KPIs, focus on what you can control or influence versus what you can’t.

This is going to be dependent on your business objectives and goals, the stage of the start-up and your go-to-market motion. Generally speaking, here are a few examples of KPIs you should and should not own. You should own: * MQLs or sign-ups * A quality metric to measure MQLs and sign-ups against * CPA by source or channel * Conversion rate by source or channel You should not own (you should be a partner in this, not an owner): * Retention * Revenue This list contains a few examples and is not comprehensive. You’ll find there are some KPIs you should own and others you should partner on as it’s not completely in your control. When thinking about KPIs, focus on what you can control or influence versus what you can’t.

I hear you. Depending on your business and how you implement and follow through on goals, it could feel arbitrary. However, even if that were the case, see the goal-setting process as a north star for your day-to-day work. It helps give your work additional meaning when you have a better understanding of the impact you are driving. Focus on what is in your control and how you will measure it. When possible, segment it into milestones so it feels more accessible and realistic. When you think about it in its parts, every project can be reconciled against if it is driving towards the KPIs that you have set. If not, the project gets deprioritized. My recommendation is to reframe the goal-setting process as a process that illustrates how your day-to-day ladders up to the overall company objectives and the impact your efforts drive. This is incredibly beneficial to you and your growth.

I hear you. Depending on your business and how you implement and follow through on goals, it could feel arbitrary. However, even if that were the case, see the goal-setting process as a north star for your day-to-day work. It helps give your work additional meaning when you have a better understanding of the impact you are driving. Focus on what is in your control and how you will measure it. When possible, segment it into milestones so it feels more accessible and realistic. When you think about it in its parts, every project can be reconciled against if it is driving towards the KPIs that you have set. If not, the project gets deprioritized. My recommendation is to reframe the goal-setting process as a process that illustrates how your day-to-day ladders up to the overall company objectives and the impact your efforts drive. This is incredibly beneficial to you and your growth.

Here are a few valuable examples of OKRs for demand generation that I encourage you to consider. I’m going to approach this question from a SaaS product-led growth (PLG) perspective. * Objective: Increase brand awareness * Increase lift of branded search by X% in X timeframe. * Increase direct traffic as a source by X% in X timeframe. * Objective: Increase quality sign-ups * Increase total volume of new leads by X% in X timeframe. * Improve the conversion rate of visits to sign-up by X% in X timeframe. * Increase the percentage of activated sign-ups by X% in X timeframe. * Objective: Optimize demand gen programs * Improve cost-per-acquisition (CPA) by X% in X timeframe. * Launch at least three experiments per X timeframe and conduct retrospectives after each experiment. Furthermore, my recommendation is to develop a framework for how you will report on the progress of your OKRs. This ensures accountability and visibility into what is working and what isn’t working.

Here are a few valuable examples of OKRs for demand generation that I encourage you to consider. I’m going to approach this question from a SaaS product-led growth (PLG) perspective. * Objective: Increase brand awareness * Increase lift of branded search by X% in X timeframe. * Increase direct traffic as a source by X% in X timeframe. * Objective: Increase quality sign-ups * Increase total volume of new leads by X% in X timeframe. * Improve the conversion rate of visits to sign-up by X% in X timeframe. * Increase the percentage of activated sign-ups by X% in X timeframe. * Objective: Optimize demand gen programs * Improve cost-per-acquisition (CPA) by X% in X timeframe. * Launch at least three experiments per X timeframe and conduct retrospectives after each experiment. Furthermore, my recommendation is to develop a framework for how you will report on the progress of your OKRs. This ensures accountability and visibility into what is working and what isn’t working.

I’m going to approach this question from a product-led growth (PLG) perspective. My process for identifying the appropriate metrics consists of mapping out the user journey along with its associated metrics. For example, a user will sign up, experience value, engage, stay retained and hopefully refer others and expand. Then I would identify the metrics that align with this flow. This would consist of metrics such as: * Count of sign-ups * Sign-up rate * A quality metric based on your goals * Activation rate * Engagement rate * Retention rate * Churn rate From a PLG perspective, I do believe in being responsible for metrics past the sign up. This does fall into the world of growth marketing, but especially in today’s economy, it’s smarter marketing.

Setting targets for demand generation KPIs all starts with understanding the goals. All of the departmental and individual goals should roll up in support of the overall company objectives. This allows day-to-day work to stay focused, impactful and meaningful. Here are a few ways to get started: 1. Define the objectives. What are the overarching company objectives? Once this has been defined, you can start to think about how to best support these objectives. 2. Identify your ideal customer profile (ICP): Depending on your business, you may be at various stages of having a defined ICP and product market fit (PMF). However, this is critical. Without understanding your target audience and what pain points you are addressing and helping to solve, your efforts and KPIs will not be focused. 3. Identify supporting metrics. Based on the goals you are supporting and your target audience, what does success look like? How will this be measured? 4. Define measurement. Measurement can mean different things to different companies and individuals. What does measurement look like for you? This does not mean every program has to result in a revenue KPI. This step is about having a way to gauge success. 5. Set milestones. It’s helpful to have a north star. Segment your goals into manageable milestones. This allows you to have smaller “wins” along the way. This helps from a few perspectives including reporting to stakeholders and your overall satisfaction with your efforts on a program. 6. Establish reporting. You’ll find it incredibly helpful to have reporting that when possible, includes how you are pacing toward goals. This allows you to keep a pulse on what’s working and what isn’t working. 7. Identify experiments. This should be an iterative process. Experiment and learn as quickly as you are able both for successes and “failures” a.k.a. opportunities to learn. Here are a few additional responses I’ve given that may be helpful for this question: * What is an important KPI that you see demand generation teams completely missing? * I'm sure there will be questions about the best KPIs to track, what are some of the *worst* KPIs to commit to achieving? * How do you recommend socializing KPIs (before the work starts and when it's done)?