I'm sure there will be questions about the best KPIs to track, what are some of the *worst* KPIs to commit to achieving?

• This is another great question!
• I think there a few categories of KPIs where you should be wary:
• (1) KPIs or metrics that are out of your control.
• I fully believe that marketing and demand generation should be really focused on driving meaningful results for the business. I see a lot of folks talking about demand generation having a revenue target. I think that's a relevant lagging indicator, but a really hard leading indicator to drive. You want to be able to have controls on the inputs in order to be fully responsible for a metric.
• In the example of wanting demand generation to own a revenue-related number, I'd recommend breaking this down into something that you and your team can drive from a leading indicator point of view. Ex. revenue could be equivalent to a closed/won sales deal. Closed/won sales deals come from opportunities, and those opportunities are sourced across various teams: CS teams, AE teams, BDR teams, and demand generation teams. Demand generation teams should be responsible for working with sales folks on generating those opportunities. Unless marketing can direct the activities of AEs or CSMs to actually close the deals, they shouldn't be fully responsible for the ARR outcome.
• In this example, marketing should be responsible for an SQL or opportunity generated target as the leading KPI, and then you'd want to make sure you are tracking the performance and seeing how it turns into revenue as a lagging KPI. If you are hitting the leading KPI and missing the lagging KPI, then you can dig in to see where the miss is once the opportunity is generated. If all of the down-funnel results are
• (2) KPIs that are not meaningful to the business.
• On the flip side, you also want to be wary of KPIs that are too far away from core company objectives. You don't want to crush it and knock it out of the park on metrics that ultimately don't support the business and what's important.
• (3) KPIs that don't take into account the addressable audience
• Ex. Signing up for 50 people to attend an event, when the total addressable audience is less than 500 people. You have to take a look at the various conversion rates you would expect to see. Ex. if you can send an email invite to 500 people, you are likely to get (at best) a 30% open rate. That's 150 people opening your email. Then MAYBE you'll get 20% of folks to fill out the form to register to attend, so that's 30 registrants. Then, depending on if it is a virtual or IRL event, you may get 25-30% of folks showing up: That's 8-10 people.
• (4) KPIs that you don't have the means to achieve
• Ex. I always believe in stretch targets and the value of setting goals that align to the overall growth you are looking to drive for the business, BUT, you also want to make sure that you have the means: resourcing, budget, time, support to make progress against that KPI.

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.

I love this question, though it’s a challenging one because there are plenty of KPIs that can be misleading or even counterproductive to commit to. Generally, I believe it's best to avoid KPIs that seem too easy, too vague, or overly flattering. The reason is simple: there are countless ways to tweak metrics to make them appear more favorable than they actually are.

Common Quantitative Pitfalls (often volume-based without a quality component):

-Leads collected during an event: For instance, it’s easy to boost lead numbers by simply scanning badges at the keynote entrance without real interaction. Many tradeshows now have strict guidelines on when, where, and how to scan leads to avoid these issues (I sense some crazy stories behind these rules). You may need 10 conversations at an event to get great results.

-Email open rates: These can be inflated by factors like bots opening emails or people who want to unsubscribe...

-Cost per lead (CPL): This one is particularly tricky. CPL can often be optimized in ways that look impressive on paper but don’t translate to real value. High CPL might yield more leads quickly, but without quality, it can flood SDRs with poor leads, erode trust in Demand Gen, and disrupt sales-marketing alignment. In my experience, CPL is one of the riskiest KPIs to commit to without a focus on quality.

Qualitative Pitfall: Committing to Company Names and Job Titles (Another Favorite Example)

This may sound counterintuitive, but committing to only high-quality leads based on company names, job titles, and professional email addresses can have unexpected drawbacks. In one case, we prioritized leads with ideal company names, professional emails, and fitting job titles, yet conversion rates declined over time. The reason? Cold channels like content syndication and LinkedIn Lead Gen were generating these ‘ideal’ leads, and more qualified leads without specific companies or emails (e.g., trial or demo requests) were deprioritized, which slowed down the sales pipeline on the long term.

Ultimately, the best KPIs balance quality with impact across the full funnel.

The "worst" KPIs in my opinion would be ones supporting work that isn't aligned to what the department and company are trying to achieve. One of the questions above asked their question around OKRs. I think that method provides a good check point to make sure your commitments and roadmap align up to department and company strategy.

A second way to answers this is to not to commit to a KPI that you can't measure. I've had this happen on program specific KPIs.

To determine the KPIs you want to track, it's important to align with stakeholders on which KPIs matter most. While there may not be an inherently "wrong" KPI to track, some may require more analysis to understand the full picture. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Email open rates can indicate interest in a topic or message, and can be useful for benchmarking overall email engagement. However, open rates aren't always the most accurate due to bots, email client blocking, or privacy features. Instead, I'd recommend click-through rates if you're looking to get a better understanding of how people are engaging with your emails and taking action based on the message

2. Website visits are certainly an important KPI to measure, but they should be analyzed and segmented, especially from a demand generation perspective. For instance, if your organization has recently released new open roles, it may cause a spike in website visits, but these visits may not necessarily convert into customers

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.

I hesitate to use the word "worst" because, in most cases, KPIs aren’t inherently bad—they’re often just "less optimal" depending on the context, goals, and how they’re used. That said, there are definitely KPIs that can lead you astray if you're not thoughtful about their relevance to your objectives or the limitations of your organization. Here's some KPIs I would be wary of:

1. "Big Swing" KPIs
   These are ambitious, high-reaching goals that aim to inspire teams and generate excitement—think "double our pipeline in one quarter" or "grow MQLs by 200%." While pushing boundaries is essential for growth, these KPIs my not always be grounded in the reality of your current resources, processes, or market conditions. t's good to stretch strategically, but don't goals that might derail morale if they’re unattainable.

2. Vanity Metrics
   Vanity metrics, like website traffic or raw follower counts, can look great in a report, but their value diminishes if they aren't tied to business outcomes like revenue, pipeline, or customer retention. For example, having thousands of monthly website visitors means little if those visitors don’t convert into meaningful leads or qualified opportunities.

3. Email Deliverability and Open Rates
   At face value, email deliverability and open rates seem critical, but they’re becoming less reliable due to external factors. For instance, IT teams at large enterprises often auto-open emails for security scanning purposes, inflating open rate numbers. Additionally, modern privacy features, like Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, further muddy the waters. Instead, focus on downstream email metrics like click-through rates (CTR) or conversions that better reflect actual engagement and interest.

4. Social Media Engagement Without Pipeline Attribution
   Social metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and even follower growth can boost your visibility and brand perception, but they don’t always translate into relevant demand generation indicators. Without tying social activity to pipeline contribution or conversion rates, you risk investing heavily in social platforms and campaigns that drive awareness but fail to generate demand.
   

In general, avoid KPIs that prioritize activity over impact. Focus on KPIs that align with your organization’s broader revenue and growth objectives, and always maintain a clear line of sight to the business outcomes they support. And if you have to commit to the "worst" KPIs, know that delivering great results are table stakes, though they may not necessarily bring actual value.

When I think about measurement gone wrong, my first question is typically about the marketer, not the KPI. All KPIs can be useful, assuming your measurement is scalable (i.e., it doesn’t take a week to do the analysis) and you are using them appropriately (i.e., context is everything).

That said, here are some metrics that I generally find less material to understanding the health of the business:

1. Impressions/Followers/Engagement: In a world overrun by bots, ad impressions, social media followers, and engagement metrics have become less relevant. You’d be surprised how many companies with massive social media followings built their audiences by purchasing cheap likes from engagement farms.

2. Frontend Email Metrics: Between email preview panes skewing results and well-documented issues stemming from privacy updates introduced in iOS 15, open rates have become far less relevant in recent years and are no longer sufficient to understand if your message is resonating.

3. CPL & Raw Lead Metrics Without Context: Lots of marketers fall into the trap of driving down CPL at the expense of lead quality. There's no faster way to lose the trust of your sales colleagues than flooding them with low-quality leads & expecting them to convert.