I'm working at a start-up, and a first demand generation hire; what KPIs should I own and not own?

Own all of the lead generation because no one else can do it besides DG.

Have a stake in opportunity creation (% of your pay with accelerators), pipeline generation, and inbound revenue.

I would not own organic social media and only ask to own SEO if you have a dedicated head or agency for it as that's a slow burner and needs a decent amount of attention. 

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.

As a first demand generation hire at a startup, some KPIs that you could own are:

1. Lead generation: This KPI measures the number of leads generated through marketing campaigns, events, or other channels. Depending on your market and industry, you may want to consider measuring results from your target account list.
2. Conversion rates: This KPI measures how many leads are converted into paying customers, or at different stages of the funnel.
3. Cost per lead: This KPI measures the cost of acquiring each lead, which helps you optimize your marketing spend and allocate resources more efficiently.
4. Website traffic: This KPI measures the number of visitors to your website and can indicate the effectiveness of your SEO, content marketing, and other inbound marketing efforts.
5. Social media engagement: This KPI measures the level of engagement on your social media platforms, including likes, comments, and shares.

Remember that the specific KPIs you own may vary depending on your company's goals and the resources available to you. 

A first hire means a lot of ground to cover, as well as the need to show some quick wins. Hopefully, the start-up has attained product-market fit.

Your primary responsibility is the funnel – generate leads, opportunities/pipeline, etc.

Most often you’d have to over pivot on digital as a channel focusing on driving leads through website, content, paid, social, email, etc., to achieve scale.

But apart from digital, you should look at leveraging other channels to help you build the funnel.

Congrats! This is an exciting role, and it’s definitely an addictive one because you’ll have the chance to build everything from the ground up.

I’d start by focusing on MQLs as your north star—quality leads that either support sales or, in a self-serve model, drive free trials. The definition isn’t set in stone; it’s a work in progress. You’ll need to find the right balance, possibly through lead scoring, to determine what qualifies as a perfect MQL.

It’s also helpful to consider metrics like Leads or Marketing Engaged Leads to gauge how many inbound leads you’re able to support.

Demand Gen typically owns conversions, so those are key KPIs you can commit to as the business scales. Think of it as tracking the journey from eyeballs (page views, impressions) to leads, then leads to MQLs, and finally MQLs to SQLs/opportunities. Every quarter your efforts should be able to improve these conversion rates.

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 sales, but also which of those are truly qualified and willing to have a conversation with sales. Defining what your company's "MQL" looks like will be very important in gaining buy-in with sales leadership. From there you'll want to measure the conversion from MQL to SQL and pipeline attributed from your marketing programs/campaigns.

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.

Being the first demand generation hire is incredibly exciting. You’re in a position with endless opportunities 🌊, but that also means you’ll need to balance owning many KPIs with focusing on the ones that truly matter.

Here’s how I would approach it:

1. Own All KPIs, But Prioritize What You Report 🎯:

   • As the first hire, you’ll naturally be responsible for tracking a wide range of metrics. You’ll care about things like blog performance (e.g., low bounce rates 📉 or high engagement 📊) because these help you understand what’s driving traffic and conversions. However, not every KPI needs to be reported to stakeholders.

   • Your job is to filter the noise. Stakeholders like the CEO or leadership team will only care about KPIs that directly move the needle 📈.

2. Track These Key Metrics for Stakeholders 🔑:

   • Opportunities Generated

   • Demo Requests

   • MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads)

   • Total Leads

   • Closed-Won Opportunities from Marketing Efforts 💼

3. Stay Informed on Supporting Metrics 🧩:

   • While stakeholders may not care about metrics like blog bounce rates or webinar attendance on a granular level, these are crucial for your strategy. Use them to inform decisions about content creation, conversion paths, and campaign optimization.

4. Be Patient With Big Wins ⏳:

   • Early on, wins might feel small and less frequent. That’s normal. Over time, as you refine your processes and track your progress, those wins will compound, creating a powerful growth story 🚀.

By focusing on KPIs that matter to leadership while using supporting metrics to refine your strategy, you’ll build a strong foundation for demand generation success—and create impressive results to showcase on your resume 🌟.