How does your team manage tracking KPIs and goals by channel?

This is the million-dollar question! It’s a real challenge for many companies, as it touches on all the complexities of attribution.

1. I would start by defining a straightforward way to track each channel’s performance across the funnel stages—Leads, MQLs, and SQLs—for different channels (events, paid, product, organic, etc.).

2. Next, analyze past results to identify where you have control over volume, and adjust planning for the upcoming quarter based on these insights.

3. For ongoing tracking, the team should sync regularly on KPIs with sales and hold a mid-quarter review to refine goals and make necessary adjustments. KPIs and Goals live into a central updated document everybody can check.

We try to keep it simple. We align the channel to where it will impact the in the funnel and then create a KPI for the funnel stage and channel. That means that a channel might show up a couple times. For example for Paid search we can have a mid-funnel KPI for lead creation, and a bottom of funnel KPI for sourced pipeline or bookings. We track efficiency metrics next to production metrics to compare over time periods (MoM, QoQ, YoY) to get a sense of relative performance of the dollars spent in each channel. Upper funnel KPIs we often get from the platform, for example we use 6sense for display ads, so we'll get influenced pipe and view through KPIs from their platform.

We organize tracking KPIs in a few ways - dashboards built in a BI tool of your choice, then spreadsheets to map out the channel measurement plan, and decks to summarize performance monthly and quarterly to the team.

Managing and tracking KPIs by goals and channels can vary from team to team, depending on team structure and organization. For example, your organization may have a dedicated role or team for marketing analytics and reporting, while other teams may be structured differently, with the campaign manager or channel owner responsible for managing and tracking KPIs and goals.

In any case, I recommend developing a scorecard with the top-line KPIs and goals you want to achieve for a specific time frame. Share this scorecard with your larger stakeholder group in advance for feedback. You could create a quarterly scorecard that is updated and refreshed at the beginning of each quarter and shared with the necessary stakeholders. Then, monitor progress on a weekly basis throughout the time frame to stay close to progress and the pacing towards your end-of-quarter goal.

This approach allows you to focus more energy on what's working well and quickly identify underperforming KPIs. You can then audit and determine what's causing the drop in performance.

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.