If you google ‘how to measure campaign effectiveness’, the top results are bound to include some variance of ROI and Pipeline.
Measuring the effectiveness of your B2B marketing campaigns can be challenging, especially when you still need to be focused on metrics like ROI and pipeline. While those are important for advanced campaigns, getting there requires building a foundation first.
Whether you’re just starting or are ready for more advanced measurements, here’s a guide to evaluating campaign success with the “Crawl, Walk, Run” approach.
Crawl: Understanding Basic Campaign Metrics
If you’re new to measuring campaign effectiveness, the first step is defining what you want to measure. This involves understanding the basic metrics that clearly show early campaign success. At this stage, you’ll likely focus on:
- Account Stages: These are the stages that leads or accounts pass through before being qualified. If you’re not using Account-Based Marketing (ABM) yet, these can include lead or contact stages. Tracking how leads move through these early stages provides insight into potential future opportunities.
- Engagement Metrics: Measuring how many engaged leads or accounts are needed to drive revenue or pipeline. Understanding early engagement is crucial for predicting the success of future efforts.
By focusing on these early-stage metrics, you’re setting the groundwork for more detailed analysis later.
Walk: Moving to Intermediate Metrics
Once you’ve determined a baseline, you can move toward more sophisticated metrics that give a better view of campaign effectiveness. At this stage, you’ll likely shift focus to:
- Opportunity Stages: Tracking Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), pipeline created, closed-won, or closed-lost opportunities. Depending on your team’s marketing strategy, you might consolidate or prioritize the most impactful stages.
- Opportunity Impact: Evaluating how your campaigns directly influence these opportunity stages is key. If your goal is to drive pipeline, then opportunity stages will serve as your primary measure of success.
At this stage, it’s important to understand that account-level metrics (from the crawl phase) can serve as leading indicators for opportunity metrics. This allows you to estimate future pipeline and revenue based on your current metrics.
Run: Advanced Metrics and Strategic Goals
In the advanced “run” phase, your metrics will reflect your long-term goals and tie more directly into revenue impact. This is where defining S.M.A.R.T goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound becomes essential. Here’s an example:
- S.M.A.R.T Goal Example: Suppose your goal is to increase Marketing Qualified Accounts (MQAs) by 10% next quarter, knowing your budget will increase by 7%. If you averaged 1,350 MQAs per quarter, you could set a goal of increasing that by 10%, reaching 1,485 MQAs.
This goal can now be divided up by channels you wish to track or keep as a higher-level metric. If you’re looking to divide it up by channels, use attribution reporting to determine how much each channel has historically driven to set your channel goals.
Using this framework allows you to establish clear, data-driven goals that are both realistic and aligned with your overall strategy.
Crawl, Walk, Run: Visualizing the Progression
It’s helpful to visualize how your team will move from basic metrics to advanced, strategic goals. The “crawl, walk, run” framework allows you to gradually build on your metrics, refining and expanding as your campaigns mature.
- Crawl: Start by measuring early-stage account metrics.
- Walk: Move toward opportunity and pipeline metrics as your campaigns evolve.
- Run: Finally, focus on setting and achieving S.M.A.R.T goals that align with revenue objectives.
Need Help Measuring Campaign Effectiveness?
If you still need to figure out which metrics are best for your team or need help tracking campaign effectiveness, our Customer Success team is ready to assist. We’re here to help you get the most out of your campaigns and achieve your marketing goals.
