How do you think about shared KPI’s with your demand generation? And what are ones that sales teams often miss?

I love shared KPIs with Demand Generation. We're all on the same team. If marketing doesn't bring in the leads, sales teams are turning to outbounding which elongates sales cycles. I see the sales team missing content creation on assets that don't yet exist to handle objections within the sales cycle. Take your top 10 objections, partner with your Demand Generation team and create blog posts or one pager PDFs to address the objections and provide best practices to your prospects. They're looking for advice from you.

Great question. The way that we've thought about shared KPIs has evolved over the years, and continues to evolve, as I think is true of most companies.

One of our mottos here at Vanta is to "never win alone" and that also applies to all things demand generation.

While we can cut the data a hundred ways, sales and marketing are still very much on "the same team" and hitting the company pipeline goal trumps everything else.

As for which KPIs sales teams often miss, it depends. I've been at companies where "marketing" often misses and companies where "sales" often misses.

I will say, being in the sales org, we think a lot about outbound SDR and outbound AE-sourced pipeline, and how we can continue to drive efficiencies there.

My advice, focus on the things that you and your sales team can control.

When it comes to shared KPIs with demand generation, the approach can vary depending on the maturity of the company.

Here’s how I think about it:

Early-Stage Companies: Focus on Quality Over Quantity

• Content Quality and Professional Outreach: In the early stages of a company, the key focus should be on the quality of content and outreach. The goal is to ensure that your SDRs (Sales Development Representatives) are delivering professional, world-class communications across all channels—whether it’s phone calls, LinkedIn inbox messages, or emails.

• Engagement Metrics: While it’s tempting to track metrics like the number of emails sent or calls made, what really matters at this stage is engagement. Specifically, you should be measuring responses from high-level decision-makers (e.g., VP, SVP, C-suite titles). The more you can gauge how effective your communications are at generating responses from these senior roles, the better you can assess the quality of your demand generation efforts.

• Incentivizing Engagement: To further drive this focus, consider incentivizing engagement KPIs. For instance, rewarding SDRs for securing replies or meetings with senior executives can reinforce the importance of quality interactions over sheer volume.

Mid to Late-Stage Companies: Establishing Rigorous Front-of-Funnel Metrics

• Activity Baseline: As the company grows, establishing a baseline of activity becomes more important. This includes tracking traditional KPIs such as the number of emails sent, phone calls made, and LinkedIn messages delivered. However, these activity metrics should be supported by a solid foundation of territory planning, account-based marketing (ABM) lists, and accurate contact information.

• Lead Qualification and Account Targeting: The effectiveness of demand generation also hinges on how well the team qualifies leads and targets accounts. Ensuring that your team is focusing on the right accounts and has a strong lead qualification process in place is critical for driving meaningful pipeline growth.

Key Metrics to Track:

• Engagement Rate: Track the percentage of outreach that results in meaningful engagement (e.g., replies from target contacts, meetings booked). This is a strong indicator of the quality of your demand generation efforts.

• Conversion Rates: Measure the conversion rate from leads to qualified opportunities. This helps you understand how well your demand generation efforts are translating into real sales opportunities.

• Pipeline Contribution: Assess how much of the pipeline is being generated by demand generation efforts versus other sources. This helps in understanding the impact of your demand gen strategy on overall revenue goals.

• Time to Engage: Measure the average time it takes to get a response from a key target after initial outreach. Shortening this time can indicate more effective messaging and targeting.

Commonly Missed Metrics:

• Engagement Quality: Many teams focus on activity volume but miss out on measuring the quality of engagements. For example, are your SDRs getting responses from the right decision-makers, or just anyone in the company? Focusing on high-value engagements is critical.

• Follow-Up Consistency: Another commonly missed metric is the consistency and effectiveness of follow-up. It’s not just about the first outreach but also how well your team follows up and nurtures leads through the funnel.

• ABM Effectiveness: Teams often overlook how effectively they are targeting accounts in their ABM strategy. It’s important to regularly review and adjust your target account list based on what’s working and what’s not.