John Yarbrough

When I think about measurement gone wrong, my first question is typically about the marketer, not the KPI. All KPIs can be useful, assuming your measurement is scalable (i.e., it doesn’t take a week to do the analysis) and you are using them appropriately (i.e., context is everything). That said, here are some metrics that I generally find less material to understanding the health of the business: 1. Impressions/Followers/Engagement: In a world overrun by bots, ad impressions, social media followers, and engagement metrics have become less relevant. You’d be surprised how many companies with massive social media followings built their audiences by purchasing cheap likes from engagement farms. 2. Frontend Email Metrics: Between email preview panes skewing results and well-documented issues stemming from privacy updates introduced in iOS 15, open rates have become far less relevant in recent years and are no longer sufficient to understand if your message is resonating. 3. CPL & Raw Lead Metrics Without Context: Lots of marketers fall into the trap of driving down CPL at the expense of lead quality. There's no faster way to lose the trust of your sales colleagues than flooding them with low-quality leads & expecting them to convert.

Start with understanding what the business cares about most. All Demand Gen teams are expected to help drive pipeline and bookings, but you should try to get as much context on both as possible. For example, is the business trying to move upmarket? If so, over what timeline? To what extent do your current-state investments support that objective? Are you hiring new reps? If so, in what segments/markets? The closer you can align your Demand Generation strategy to business objectives, the easier it will be to establish appropriate metrics for the team. For example, in the hypothetical above (i.e., business moving upmarket over X quarters), you will need to establish goals tied to growth within the Enterprise or Mid-Market segments instead of setting holistic lead, pipeline, and marketing-originating bookings goals.

You're right this is hard to do, and I'm sure you'd get different answers from different Demand Gen leaders. When you lack historical data for a given region to inform goal setting, the two most useful inputs are a) business objectives and b) comps from other regions where you are marketing to similar buyers. Business objectives should inform your investment level, mix, and funnel metrics. For example, if you need to generate $1M in incremental bookings from the region by the end of your first year in that market and your typical sales cycle is 90-180 days, you know that you need to set MQL and pipeline targets in the first two quarters that provide sufficient coverage. Comps from other regions can also be useful in forecasting CPL and setting appropriate goals by channel. For example, if you are running SEM campaigns in North America, you likely already have a sense of the average cost per acquisition from paid search. You can then use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, etc. to determine which of your campaigns will translate to the new markets you are entering based on search volume, estimated CPC, etc.

I answered this more comprehensively in another question, but to summarize: 1. Vanity Metrics: Anything that can be gamed or doesn't directly reflect impact with your target audience (e.g., raw traffic, followers, engagement metrics, etc.) 2. "Leads" Without Context: There are lots of low-value, scam-y ways you can incentivize someone to fill out a form on the internet. For that reason, "lead" volumes without context (qualification criteria) tell you very little about whether demand gen efforts are working.

First, congratulations on your new role! I love this question because it suggests you have already come to the realization that there are significantly more things that you could establish as KPIs than things you should establish as KPIs. A good manager earlier in my career told me once that good goals are those you can a) directly influence and b) easily translate into detailed plans to achieve them. In other words, try to avoid “goals by wishful thinking,” which is often how early-stage companies approach setting Marketing objectives. If I was in your shoes, here’s where I’d start: 1. Understand the Sales Process: If you haven’t already, define the lead stages & what will happen at each. Is Marketing qualifying leads or is Sales? This will help you understand what your team is accountable for vs what you can/should hold Sales accountable for. (Typical KPIs: MQLs, SALs, SQLs) 2. Know How Much Pipe You Need: This is harder in early-stage companies where GTM processes are less mature and changing rapidly; however, you should be able to establish baselines for stage-to-stage CVR% and C/W%, which are critical to understanding how much pipeline you need to generate. (Typical KPIs: Marketing Contributed Pipeline (MCP), Marketing Originated Bookings (MOB). 3. Establish a North Star: Finally, start by asking what the business is trying to achieve and on what timeline. What % of growth is Marketing expected to drive? If this is a brand new company or nascent category, awareness might also be a challenge that you need to invest in solving. Regardless, starting with the big picture will help you understand where to allocate resources and whether your budgets are sufficient to generate what the business is expecting of you.