What is an important KPI that you see demand generation teams completely missing?

1. Cost per $1 of pipeline

I see a lot of teams simply focus on cost per lead, then cost per opp, then cost per closed won -- but when you look at cost per $1 of pipeline, or even better, cost per $1 of annual recurring revenue, you will start to understand how efficient your demand gen machine is and where you need to turn the dials for maximum efficiency. ie. targeting more up market to pay a higher cost per lead, and higher cost per opp, but a lower cost per $1 of pipeline because the deal is larger.

2. Customer lifetime value

It's important for businesses to understand and track CLV so you know how to allocate resources and optimize their efforts to maximize the return of a customer. If it costs you $500 to acquire a customer that pays $250/yr but you know they churn within the first year, you are actually in the negative. Way more than just the dollar amounts listed above -- there's overhead that doesn't always get calculated -- the cost per rep managing the account, the hourly costs of reps trying to work the deals etc. It's important for teams to not focus on short-term goals but think longer term about the growth and trajectory of the customer for the true overall health and success of the business.

From a product-led growth (PLG) perspective, I don’t see enough emphasis put on identifying and tracking toward an activation or “aha moment” KPI. What is the one action a user or team needs to take to make your program exponentially more successful? Is it adding members to a team account? Is it performing a certain action?

Demand gen teams can no longer solely focus on the acquisition side. While it can be debated whether metrics such as retention fall under demand gen, I urge you to go one step further in quality.

From a product-led growth (PLG) perspective, I don’t see enough emphasis put on identifying and tracking toward an activation or “aha moment” KPI. What is the one action a user or team needs to take to make your program exponentially more successful? Is it adding members to a team account? Is it performing a certain action?

Demand gen teams can no longer solely focus on the acquisition side. While it can be debated whether metrics such as retention fall under demand gen, I urge you to go one step further in quality.

ROI and marketing attribution is the most challenging KPIs for startups in the technology space; most of these companies do not measure CLV and instead, they measure results on an annual basis, depending on factors such as average sales cycle, average deal size and market maturity, reporting returns of marketing investment in the short term is challenging. One important KPI that demand generation teams may overlook in fast-growing technology companies is the customer lifetime value (CLV).

CLV is a metric that calculates the total amount of revenue a customer is expected to generate for a company over the course of their relationship. It takes into account factors such as customer acquisition cost, average purchase value, and customer retention rate, and provides a more accurate picture of a company's revenue potential than simply looking at short-term revenue or leads generated.

By focusing on CLV, demand generation teams can prioritize their efforts on acquiring high-value customers who are more likely to generate long-term revenue for the company. They can also identify areas where they can improve customer retention and increase the overall value of each customer.

Overall, CLV can provide a more comprehensive and strategic view of a company's revenue growth potential and help demand generation teams make more informed decisions about their marketing and sales strategies.

The biggest thing that many demand generation teams miss is a Revenue metric.

Typical ones to think of are:

• ARR
• Customers
• Pipeline ($ based)
• # of Opportunities

For many demand generation teams, there's a tendency to believe that their job is done when the lead is there (MQL, PQL, etc.). The reality of the situation is that the job of the entire function is to drive impact across customers and revenue. If we're providing low quality leads that doesn't ultimately translate into pipeline and revenue, then we're missing the intent of our job.

Brandformance.

Brandformance is the idea of driving brand awareness to improve performance and conversion rates.

Most demand gen teams are laser focused on clicks and conversions. It is important to take a few steps back and look at the big picture. Easier said than done for sure. We all know the importance of brand awareness and the impact it has on clicks and conversions. That said, it is not easy to prove the ROI of brand campaigns which makes budget approval tougher.

I would encourage demand gen marketers to continue to test the impact of brand on demand gen campaigns especially on LinkedIn and YouTube. Collaborate with LinkedIn customer success teams and get them to help you prove the success of LinkedIn brand campaigns on LinkedIn demand gen campaigns. YouTube team can help with the brand lift study. Be sure to launch a concurrent search lift study to prove the impact of brand campaign on conversions.

A fully burdened CAC/LTV (cost of acquisition vs lifetime value) model. This is very hard to do and even harder to do right but it is the only way to truly understand if the investments you're making are paying off. If you can't do it on an ongoing basis at least revisit it a few times a year. Make sure that what you're bringing in is net positive to the company within a reasonable payback period.

There are a couple of KPIs that can do with some love:

• Customer Lifetime Value: We don’t see enough emphasis on CLV, which is an important metric in improving customer retention. Without tracking CLV, we are constantly in a state of monitoring tactical metrics even for large enterprise accounts. A focus on CLV will yield rich dividends in retaining the top strategic customers, converting them into advocates for your brand.

• Account based marketing (ABM): Not 1 specific metric, but all metrics tracked through the ABM lens. Basically, everything account related from page views, to MQLs, SQLs, Opportunities. We don’t track it well enough and hence lose that edge when it comes to account based marketing. This also includes unknown visitors to the ABM pages, signups from personal email-ids, etc. For ABM, everything should go through the account lens, with a razor sharp focus.

In any demand generation role, you are very clear on the "must-have" KPIs e.g., ROI, MLQs, conversion Rate, CPL, etc. This is all about being "efficient," but you also need to be "effective", and to me, it's

80% (efficient) / 20% (effective) = Complete KPI

Effective means are more qualitative, such as how well they interact with the sales, product, and customer success teams to support and collaborate.

This comes to getting regular qualitative feedback. E.g., "Please provide an example of a recent interaction or collaboration you had with the sales team, product teams, or customer success team. How would you rate this interaction's effectiveness (1 to 5), and what could have been done differently to improve the collaboration and support provided?"