Alex Gammelgard

In any SaaS business, “adoption” is a company-wide priority. If customers aren’t happy and using the product, you’re just putting your sales/marketing investments into a leaky bucket. So it makes sense that Marketing -- and PMM specifically -- would monitor adoption closely, and even set KPIs in this area. While I see Product as primarily responsible for tracking the usability of the features they build in a detailed way (i.e. did moving the button make a difference/did a given change resolve broken user flows) PMM should be looking at the big picture of feature usage, and advancing adoption of the functionality that leads to success and expansion. Ultimately, the division of labor between Product and PMM is nuanced, and a lot depends on the Product/PMM relationship (for example, I’ve worked in companies where PMM has very little say in roadmap prioritization, and companies where PMM insights drive everything.) At a minimum, PMM should set KPIs to measure the adoption of “value ad” features that guide upsell/ justify packaging and pricing decisions, and ensure that product usage data is being leveraged for better outcomes company-wide. For example, in my last role, we identified that customers who adopted three core pieces of functionality were more successful using the product in the first 30 days, and were significantly less likely to churn within the year. So PMM focused on making sure that the right onboarding emails and support practices were in place across marketing and CS to guide customers to those pieces of functionality. We also leveraged in-product tutorial tools (like Pendo) to help customers get started in-app, and passed data from our tests to Product, so things that worked could be hardcoded into the product experience. Looking at success wasn’t just about the feature usage stats themselves, it was about measuring holistically the impact of our efforts across all of these teams, and helping the company understand/improve what drove adoption for all of our users. I think the other area PMM can focus on is promoted features (features launched based on win/loss data, differentiating features, upsell features.) PMM should always be monitoring whether these releases are being highlighted appropriately, and if campaigns result in significant uptick in usage and acquisition numbers. 

Whenever I’m reporting on PMM results, I include a slide called “PMM across the funnel.” This allows me to showcase how specific PMM programs impact the effectiveness of the entire team. For example, a lot of competitive projects/sales enablement efforts have nothing to do with pipeline generation, and are more focused on cycle times, competitive win rates, and close rates. In-product campaigns or assets associated with a product launch may be tied to adoption for a specific user segment, and other efforts may be directed at driving G2 reviews/customer NPS. Even things outside the funnel (like PR metrics) can be useful to look at, especially when PMM is responsible for new messaging or demos tied to a big event like Dreamforce. Looking at how we support results for all GTM teams and funnel stages is a great way to highlight all the ways PMM supports company growth, not just pipeline generation.

THE SHORT ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION IS THAT I AGREE WITH YOUR APPROACH -- LADDERING THE TEAM UP TO A LARGER NORTH STAR METRIC AGAINST WHICH ALL ACTIVITIES CAN BE TIED IS A GREAT SOLUTION. I THINK A SIMPLE RULE OF THUMB IS, IF YOU’RE WORKING ON AN INDIVIDUAL PROJECT THAT ISN’T TIED TO A COMPANY OUTCOME, YOU SHOULDN’T BE DOING IT. EVERY OKR SHOULD BE TIED TO SOLVING COMPANY CHALLENGES, AND SHOULD BE MEASURED BY OUTCOMES FOR THE BUSINESS. THIS IS A GREAT NORTH STAR THAT KEEPS TEAMS MOTIVATED, EVEN WHEN DOING SEEMINGLY MINUTE OR THANKLESS TASKS. PMMS NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS NO COOKIE CUTTER FORMULA FOR SETTING OKRS. THE FOCUS I’VE SET FOR PMM HAS BEEN DIFFERENT IN EVERY COMPANY, AND IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHERE THE COMPANY IS IN ITS GROWTH JOURNEY, AND WHERE IT SITS IN THE MARKET. ARE YOU STRUGGLING WITH SALES EFFICIENCY/EFFECTIVENESS, ROADMAP PRIORITIZATION, LEADGEN, PRODUCT ADOPTION/CUSTOMER RETENTION, PARTNER PROGRAMS, ETC.? ALL OF THESE CHALLENGES TIE BACK TO THINGS PMM CAN IMPACT THROUGH MESSAGING, ENABLEMENT, RESEARCH, AND CONTENT. AND ON AN EVEN MORE DETAILED LEVEL, UNDERSTANDING WHERE SALES BREAKS DOWN CAN HELP YOU DETERMINE WHERE IN THE FUNNEL THE EFFORTS SHOULD BE FOCUSED. ULTIMATELY, DETERMINING THE OKRS AND GOALS I SET FOR MY TEAMS STARTS WITH A STRONG UNDERSTANDING OF WHERE THE BUSINESS SITS, AND AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THE CHALLENGES ARE FOR EACH PRODUCT LINE OR BUSINESS UNIT. FROM THERE, YOU CAN START BREAKING DOWN THE GOALS INTO STRATEGIES AND TACTICS THAT COME WITH MEANINGFUL OKRS THAT CASCADE BACK UP INTO REVENUE RESULTS AND BUSINESS IMPACT.

A cornerstone of my PMM strategy, and how I set/socialize PMM KPIs is something I call the “state of the customer report.” This is done quarterly, and is a look at the market based off of win/loss interviews, revenue and churn data, competitors, and other insights relevant to company performance. The report establishes where we are seeing the biggest breaks in the sales funnel, biggest gaps in terms of product adoption/NPS, and any other threats/opportunities perceived (for example, a new competitor stealing market share in a strategic vertical, a product use case attracting a new market segment, or a new buzzword/theme driving traffic to the website.) The report is an educational tool for the company, but it has the added bonus of making it crystal clear where PMM should focus their efforts, and the KPIs that matter to the company, given market and business conditions. In each report, I lay out how PMM will address issues from the report over the next quarter/6 months, and how we will measure success, so it’s clear that we are building our plan/goals based off of where we are needed most. Everytime I’ve launched this process at a company it’s been a game-changer, and made it very easy for me to get buy-in for PMM activities and metrics. This report is also what I link to when I share out results for the quarter so that people can see very specifically and clearly how plans -- and results -- are tied to what we’re seeing as a business.

PMM can be one of the most impactful orgs in the company - we have a unique view into the market, the competition, and engage daily with product, CS, and the entire GTM team. We also often have a seat with Finance, given our responsibilities in pricing and packaging. That’s why it always surprises me when PMM shies away from taking on KPIs that show true business value. Everyone wants to measure the outcomes of a product launch/major campaign, or look at content usage, etc., but the things the CEO cares about are sales growth in a particular segment, win rates against a competitor, sales cycle times, etc. These are all things PMM can meaningfully impact. This is where I can’t highlight the importance of a robust win/loss program enough. In a world where there is never enough time to do everything, and there is no one-size-fits-all way to determine PMM impact, win/loss can help you decide where to focus, and what KPIs would be meaningful to the company. For example, in one organization we realized our quotes were the core reason our superior product was losing in the market, which kicked off a packaging exercise that delivered huge results. In another company, we found that one of the main pillars of our sales messaging was a huge turnoff to a critical, but often overlooked, stakeholder. In a third case, we discovered an issue with our sales routing system, leading to slow sales response times / high loss rates. None of these are core PMM areas necessarily, but are examples of the way PMM can bring outside info back to the company for better results. In my experience, PMM’s ability to drive impact in these kinds of ways is what makes PMM highly strategic, and is even more important than some of the stereotypical KPIs. 

At most startups, the business founder is the first product marketer. This makes sense bc the founder knows the problem deeply, as well as the market, the product vision, and the opportunity ahead, and is willing to do the work to get those first sales across the line. The challenge is, knowing the landscape and the challenges is VERY different from knowing how to action your knowledge into playbooks, so very quickly, not having PMM to scale the story and GTM process causes problems. What I typically see when I join a series B company is - sales struggling in vain to copy the founder's approach to closing deals (it's an impossible ask -- only the founder can close founder-story deals) - lots of back-and-forth debate about "who is our buyer" and product roadmap priorities - one very junior PMM running around in circles, taking orders from every department (and drowning) - extreme relief I'm joining, as well as a completely muddied view of what my role will be While I think early companies benefit from the vision and direction of the founder, and can rely on the founder sale to close those first 5-10 customers, getting a product marketing lead early can really save you some pain. It seems like a lot of companies focus on demand first, and wait until they hit series B to bring on any real PMM leader, but I would argue a senior PMM and a scrappy junior demand person can be a GREAT combo/differentiator for an early startup. The faster you get clear on how to continue knowing your market and evolving your product, the faster you get VERY clear on your messaging and personas (even though they evolve) and the faster you can use strategic PMM insights to drive your demand strategy, the faster you will get to a point where things feel fun, and even EASY (if that exists in a Series A, B, C world!) 

Any KPI, no matter how small, can be important if it’s tied to organizational performance. That said, my biggest pet peeve is when PMMs attempt to show the value of their team with KPIs that aren’t actually tied to anything outcome-based. A common one that comes to mind is setting goals for “views” of a specific piece of content. Content views are something that should be tracked for diagnostic reasons, but not as a team KPI, unless you want to become a team of “list marketers” checking the box on activities that you just do to hit your marks. In my view, it’s way better to assess how your team’s content meaningfully contributes to speeding sales cycles, or converting a trial customer to a paid user. If you can make those kinds of outcomes the metric, with the content simply being a supporting tactic, you are in a much better place to be strategic within the company.