AMA: Zendesk Group Product Marketing Manager - AI, Claire Peracchio on Product Marketing KPI's

When it comes to a launch, market research allows you to understand your market opportunity and validate your go-to-market strategy. It helps you answer the most important questions for product marketers:  What problem are we solving? (Customer needs) Who are we solving it for? (Target audience) How do we win? (Competitive positioning) For example, when we were launching a new AI product at Zendesk, our market research combined: Direct customer feedback (e.g. interviews from our beta program) Co ...Read More

With complex products, buyers need different content at each stage to build confidence and prove value. You can't just share a list of features and expect that to get deals over the finish line. Here are some ways to think about content that keeps the momentum going: Early stage: Focus on education and awareness Customer stories showing measurable outcomes Industry trend insights, ideally tailored to your customer’s segment or vertical Third-party ROI studies or analyst reports to add credibilit ...Read More

As PMMs, it’s very easy to fall into a pit of despair here! You spend weeks crafting the perfect pitch deck or ROI calculator, only to discover months later that Sales isn't using it. Or worse, you find out they've gone rogue and created their own version because they don’t like yours. The biggest trap is getting caught up in measuring activity, like the number of assets created, rather than actual impact. This is why regular, honest feedback loops are crucial. At Zendesk, we made it a habit to ...Read More

Longer or more unpredictable sales cycles make it challenging to know if your GTM approach is working. While it's tempting to focus solely on closed deals as a measure of success, waiting months for validation isn't ideal. You need to identify and measure the key moments that show momentum along the way. This became clear when launching our AI product at Zendesk. Customers were excited about the potential, but some were uncertain on how to prove value. One big cross-functional effort that’s help ...Read More

I’ve found it helpful to orient cross-functional teams, including product marketing, around clear metrics linked to revenue. Here's a good way to think about some of the key metrics that PMM can influence: Direct Revenue Impact Bookings and pipeline touched by PMM initiatives like sales plays Win rates (by segment, product, competitor) Average deal size  Sales Effectiveness Pipeline conversion rates by stage Sales content usage and engagement Deal velocity and sales cycle length New rep ramp tim ...Read More

Some of the key launch metrics worth tracking: Pipeline and bookings generated Win rates Adoption rates  Customer activation milestones Sales team confidence The important part is not just collecting metrics, but actually using them to understand performance and adjust your strategy as you go. For example, are you noticing deals getting stalled in the early stages? Are customers getting stuck during onboarding? Does it seem like your messaging is targeting the wrong segments? Then you can make t ...Read More

Isolating campaign impact is tricky, and there's rarely a perfect 1-to-1 correlation between what you did and what moved the needle. Here are some ways to navigate this. Start by building a clear baseline before your campaign or launch by assessing: Normal conversion rates Typical sales cycles Standard deal sizes and win rates Then look for specific patterns or changes in behavior once you’ve launched. For example, when we created a new value selling framework, we didn't just track overall sales ...Read More