AMA: Cortex Head of Product Marketing, Lauren Craigie on Product Marketing KPI's

Our PMM KPIs are always related getting something out the door, or unsticking something in the funnel. So while I generally have a rule of thumb of "one big content rock per quarter" that can be sliced up in different ways for DG efforts, exactly which DG-related KPIs we choose will vary based on business priorities during annual planning and quarterly thereafter. So for example, in Q4 we're really focused on taking good care of opportunities that might be leaking out of the funnel. We kicked of ...Read More

The biggest challenge for us lately is that it's hard to track certain KPIs on a quarterly basis, because the nature of enterprise deals is that they can take longer than 3 months from very first touch to contract signing. We like to do it to ensure directional improvement and alignment, but things like "reduction in closed losses" or "increased conversion to POV" are really hard to measure from quarter beginning to end, in comparison to the last quarter beginning to end—specifically because by ...Read More

Love this question. Anything related to content/brand performance, filling the top of the funnel, or even SQOs are a fantastic reflection on PMM's ability to provide DG and Digital with compelling messaging for a clearly defined IC, but those metrics do have a longer line to draw to closed revenue for the business. So if you're looking for something a little closer to the metal, I would look at later stage conversion rates—but still within the realm of things PMM can influence. Mine would be con ...Read More

I love this question, but also don't love an environment that needs to conclusively prove one team is responsible for adoption! Ideally you're just using metrics to guide whether you should do more or less of a thing, rather than as an award system But even so, the best way to figure out whether you should send more launch emails in future, is just use a control. Start with a pre-launch pool of say 50 users that you think having the highest likely of adoption. Send the email on Day 1 to the firs ...Read More

All of our PMM KPIs are really reflective of our impact on other parts of the business, but yes primarily they come down to pipeline influence (not just filling the funnel but impact on velocity and conversion rates from sales enablement efforts). My team also owns content (not true of all PMM teams), so those KPIs typically relate to search, ad performance, brand awareness, etc. And while it's not a focus for my team this coming quarter, it wouldn't be unusual for us to choose some KPIs related ...Read More

I'm not sure the topline KPIs will change, but how we're tracking them should get a hell of a lot easier, which means we should be able to reasonably add more that are sort of "always on" rather than focusing on just a few of the most urgent issues that need correcting that quarter. A few years ago, I probably wouldn't have signed up for a KPI that said something like, "90% of all intro calls are using the new messaging," because I don't have time to listen to 90% of calls. But with Gong's AI ca ...Read More

Even if you have other teams that "own" activities that are owned by PMM in smaller companies, your KPIs can probably still remain the same—they just become reflections of cross-functional efforts, and you'll need to ensure how you're calculating them matches how your DG, or content, or lifecycle teams are calculating. I've never run into a situation where a growth team, for example, takes issue with the fact that one of my KPIs matches or is directly supporting their KPI. I sometimes even call ...Read More