What are the top three KPIs for Product Marketing and how do you track/measure them?

Good PMM work should always be measurable. It’s easy for PMM to become a catch-all for things that don’t fit anywhere else. Without measurement it’s hard to stick to prioritization and drive meaningful impact. 

That said, it can be very hard to track Product Marketing KPIs, especially on short timelines. I have found in several PMM roles I’ve held and in some teams I have led that the team can fall back onto output or activity metrics and lose focus on actually driving impact. 

Setting input metric / leading indicator goals for the team that can be impacted in-quarter is a best practice for measurement within the team and to ensure you’re demonstrating your impact to cross-functional teams and external co-marketing partners. 

The most critical metrics PMM should focus on: 

1. Product adoptions -- If PMM does nothing else, the function should drive awareness and adoption of new product features. For new companies and established companies, the goal of product marketing should consistently be driving adoption for new and existing products. 

2. In-Product Activation -- In-Product activation is something that should similarly be owned by product marketing, both from strategy to execution. This gives product marketing the opportunity to segment the audience and deliver targeted messages to different audiences,build and test a content strategy with different customer segments and drive direct impact on product goals -- all with limited budget investment. 

3. Organic Passive Reach -- Passive reach is anywhere potential customers or current customers are engaging with the company -- but they are not yet a qualified lead. (e.g. content on .com, blogs, community posts, changelogs, social content, thought-leadership content on external sites) 

It’s also critical to be clear with cross-functional and external stakeholders the importance of patience with product marketing’s impact. I have found that the metrics I use to measure my team’s impact often take a long time to shift, with both large and small populations. Building a good measurement model, with leading and lagging indicators and strong hypotheses on how the indicators interact is critical. 

The above three metrics are the most critical for PMM; any other metric in the traditional software marketing funnel can be affected by someone else in the organization, but these are measures that PMM should always take responsibility for.

If you could only track three KPIs, here are the top three that I recommend as a product marketer 😊

1. Pipeline is foundational; it shows PMM's direct impact on revenue and business growth. To measure pipeline, we use Salesforce to track leads coming from campaigns, content, webinars, and events. This lets us see the exact dollar value our work contributes and proves the impact of messaging.

2. Product Adoption & Engagement: A successful launch isn’t just about the initial buzz - it’s about keeping customers engaged over time. I’ll work with the product team to set a target adoption rate, then monitor it during and after launch. If adoption falls off, I work with customer-facing teams to adjust messaging, or we use in-app guidance to improve onboarding.

3. Win rates indicate if our positioning is resonating and that sales is enabled to close deals in high-priority segments. To track win rates, I’ll analyze win/loss data by segment to spot trends, which helps us know where our messaging works well or needs updates. This feedback then informs adjustments for specific verticals or customer personas.

There's a lot of metrics you can track and help drive from Product Marketing, but the most important starting point is ensuring you have alignment with leadership and your cross-functional partners. Depending on your company stage and sales motion, adoption-focused metrics may make sense (for a PLG company) where as pipeline and win rate metrics may make more sense for a company with an enterprise sales motion.

All that being said, right now my top 3 KPIs are:

• Pipeline Contribution

• Win Rate

• Customer Retention & Expansion