AMA: Panorama Education Sr. Director of Demand Generation, Natasha Dolginsky on Demand Generation KPI's

It depends on the stage of the company and your goals. If you have huge brand recognition and can rely on organic (web or social) or word of mouth, you may not need ads to amplify your programs. Otherways, advertising is a great way to get in front of an audience. Another amazing (and often forgotten) application is that ads are a fantastic place to test and learn and then apply to other channels. In ads, you can control the audience, the test, and the message.

I always start with pipeline and am hard-pressed these days to find a DG team that doesn't have pipeline as their key result. The pipeline conversation should happen with all pipeline-generating teams – to ensure every team knows how much pipeline they're responsible for AND agrees on what's considered “marketing pipeline” vs “sales”, etc. Then I work backwards from pipeline. I look for the biggest impact levers I can pull in each channel - increasing conversion on the website; getting more meetings booked pre-event; improving speed to lead for demo / trial requests. I also have a “maintenance KPI”, something I'm not trying to increase or decrease but keep steady. If for example, I want to get more meetings from events, I'll also have a maintenance KPI of how meetings convert to pipeline. Otherwise, I might overachieve on meetings, but if they don't actually convert to the next stage, that's not really a win.

Great question and I’ll start with a very marketing-y answer - it depends. Because it really does! Depending on industry, sales cycle, product, etc the KPIs for marketing might be different because the GOALS for marketing teams might be different. However, in broad strokes metrics the first DG hire should own are: 1. Pipeline related - depending on business (+ budget and sales motion) DG should own a % of pipeline that’ll be driven by inbound activities 2. Qualified Lead related - no MQLs are not dead, and having a metric that looks at QUALIFIED lead volume is must. Plus, this can be a great leading indicator to see where demand is most likely to come from, who is interested, etc. The key here is to make sure that the Q in qualified is something that all parties are aligned on 3. Funnel conversion rates - this is in part a bridge between #1 and #2 - looking at how qualified leads convert to pipeline is critical, because you could hit it out of the park on #2, miss on #1 and conversion rate can help understand why. Additionally, other funnel conversion rates can include website conversion rate and lead>> qualified lead conversion KPIs first DG hire should NOT own: 1. This is probably an unpopular opinion but revenue should not be a marketing KPI. Yes, demandgen heavily influences and can help progress deals but at the end of the day the deal breaker for why a deal doesn’t close is never going to be marketing-related. Usually it’s product or sales process. Once a company is more mature AND marketing has enough resources (people and budget) to truly participate with deal acceleration then revenue can be considered a marketing KPI. Another exception is if the sales cycle is super short, where it borderlines e-commerce motion. 2. Product metrics - demandgen should not own usage, retention, etc. Demandgen should have a singular focus on generating demand, and product (while also being a DG lever) will be too much of a distraction to start.

My least favorite KPI is 'incremental ROI,' which I find almost impossible to calculate accurately. Even with tools and software it’s difficult to isolate the true incremental impact of any single campaign or tactic in a complex buyer journey and an everchanging market. It’s tempting to be able to say that for every extra dollar, I’ll make x dollars in pipeline, but that answer is usually more of a vanity metric than true representation of reality, even when the math matches. And when teams focus too much on incremental ROI, it might lead to oversimplifications or over-optimizations that don’t reflect the broader picture. Instead, I use metrics that more accurately measure contribution and account for the reality of multi-touch marketing.

To develop annual DG OKRs and tie them to individual projects, I take a working backwards approach. If my ultimate goal is pipeline, I can make an impact by increasing top of funnel leads/demand or improving conversion rates. With focus on conversion rate, I’d understand where the gaps are, get baselines, and set goals of what good looks like. Then identify activities that can help close the gaps. For example, if analysis shows that the biggest gap is within early-stage conversion rates in my mid-size, healthcare accounts, I’ll align specific projects—like targeted events, personalized content, and direct mail campaigns—to address that gap. Each project ties back to my pipeline KR, ensuring that everything the team does supports the larger objective.

One of the metrics I find overhyped is ROI by channel because it's a self fulfilling prophecy. If marketing is doing its job right, then all the channels are firing on all cylinders, creating the optimal outcome. ROI by channel is like asking which ingredient in the minestrone soup made it a success - broth, tomatoes, onion, salt - obviously the answer is the combination of ingredients and execution in cooking made It a success. Same, in marketing, it’s the combination and interaction of all the marketing touchpoints—ads, events, content, website, podcasts—that create that perfect result. Focusing too much on individual channel ROI creates siloed strategies and underestimates the impact of the collective effort.

There are a few processes my team manages uses to track KPIs by channels. First is clear goal setting for both leading and lagging indicators by channel. Leading indicators differ by channel, while lagging indicators include leads, pipeline, funnel conversions. Both are looked at frequently to make stop, start, continue decisions. Second, all data stems from a single source of truth reporting in Hubspot, and then is sliced and diced by various segments and views by channel dashboards. This means that anyone and everyone on the team is always looking at the latest data that is consistent Third, we review these metrics in monthly meetings, including one at the end of the quarter for a quarter lookback. Goals for the following quarter are set by taking into consideration our modeled assumptions but also adjusting for any historical lifts or drops in performance. Fourth, we share the most high-impact metrics with the leadership team to show how demangen is impacting and driving pipeline. During these conversations, we might ask for more budget, shift budget around by channel, or work with finance on next quarter goal setting.