AMA: Salesforce Senior Director, Global Campaigns, Justin Carapinha on Demand Generation KPI's

While KPIs such as MQLs, SQLs, Marketing generated pipeline are typical, I think KPIs that allow marketing and sales to get more granular into what is actually happen with lead disposition is critical. Often times marketers will have a laser focus on those standard KPIs (which is not a bad thing) that they often times don't have the right insights to determine why leads may or may not be converting. For this I believe it's also important to look at KPIs and data points associated to different le ...Read More

I don't necessary think there are any KPIs that are "unimportant" as everything can be measured and provide value and insights to the business. However, there is a difference between marketing "inputs" and "outcomes." And "outcomes" should ultimately be those KPIs that truly impact that business (e.g. MQLs, SQLs, marketing generated pipeline, product demos or trials downloaded/viewed, etc.). While "inputs" are still important, they are those KPIs that help lead to or drive the business outcomes ...Read More

This is a great question as marketers can often times fall into the trap of wanting to measure everything or too much, which is not a luxury they can have at a startup. I'd start with what leadership and sales cares the most about. If it's a self-service SaaS offering, measure quality visitors to the website and core product pages, as well as conversions on the offering/trail downloads. If a B2B sales led motion, I recommend measure not just the number of leads you're generating and passing to s ...Read More

Typically a content marketing function is measured on the engagement with the associated content put into market via paid, owned, earned tactics (i.e. content/asset downloads, social media engagements, webinar views, etc.), however when associating that content to demand generation programs and campaigns, It's important to understand how that content is impacting and driving the business. Essentially, how many MQLs did that content produce and ultimately what is pipeline associated to the conten ...Read More

Depending on your business model and offering, I recommend first and foremost partnering with your cross-functional stakeholders and building trust. For example, in a traditional B2B sales led go-to-market motion, you should make it a point to become best friends with your sales leadership team and understanding what is most important to them. If you're not aligned with what is important to sales, it'll be very difficult to see success. If you're part of a self-service SaaS go-to-market motion, ...Read More

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 ...Read More

Ultimately you want to work across the company's leadership team and determine what is most important to them and what success for marketing and demand generation looks like. If leadership is not bought into what marketing is measuring or finds important, then it will create a disconnect that is difficult to overcome. Now, seeing that all companies and leadership teams are different, I strongly recommend trying to tie your demand generation efforts as close to company revenue and tangible ROI as ...Read More