Any KPI pitfalls to avoid (such as number of content assets produced) and tips?

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 check in with Sales teams to understand what's working and what isn't — and we bake their feedback into the process of creating every asset. We track engagement with our collateral and work to understand which assets show up in winning deals and try to ruthlessly deprecate those that don’t.

The key is to measure what helps your team win, not what helps you look (or feel) busy.

A few important considerations when considering PMM KPIs:

1. Causation vs. Correlation: Some KPIs are impossible to track back to PMM efforts. These correlated efforts can be difficult to tie back due to limited visibility/tracking, complexity of engagements, or awareness-nature of the activities. Some of these KPIs are still valuable to build alignment and drive collaboration, but it's important to also have KPIs that can be directly tied back to PMM efforts.

2. Product Led Growth vs. Sales-led: Are you looking to drive customers to complete activities directly on your app or website? Or do you want them to get to your sales team to close? Your activites and your measures should differ depending on your focus. This can your entire business strategy or can vary by product, or even quarter.

3. Deliverable Metrics vs. Outcome Metrics: Building benchmarks on deliverable views/downloads and web traffic are great for maintaining visibility in the health/value of your deliverables. Meanwhile, outcome driven metrics are better for ensuring what you delivery is working. Does it speak to your target audience and drive them to action? Usually these metrics are signups, upgrades, purchase etc.

4. KPIs vs. OKRs: Key Performance Indicators are used to determine if you're doing what you intend to do. These should be fairly evergreen in nature with benchmarks to know the definition of 'good' vs. 'great'. These metrics help you determine where to make adjustments, where to give more attention at a given time. There should be several of these that are monitored regulary. Objectives and Key Results on the other hand are used to drive special focus. These should define what strategic priority or initiative is outside of the day-to-day that you're working on and want to improve. There should be very few of these as their intent is to drive focus. The expectations and definitions for success between KPIs and OKRs should also differ greatly.