Measuring: What to Measure & Why It’s Important
In marketing, it’s one thing to have a gut feeling that a channel or piece of content will work. It’s another thing entirely to actually be able to objectively measure it all the way through from first touch to close, and to see effectiveness at every stage. The buyer journey is often somewhat convoluted. It can be difficult to get to and measure correctly, because it’s not all linear. But, what we as marketers need to be focused on, is what programs, channels, and campaigns are working — objectively. It’s not about credit; it’s about what performance metrics are contributing to pipeline. Metrics such as:- Where did we spend money effectively?
- How can we move money around to be more effective?
From there, they can determine ROI on that eBook. Then, they can make recommendations on when and where to best use that content throughout the buyer’s journey to impact revenue. We often stop at the dashboards and reports. Chere’s team is a good example of those who are taking it a step further.“We closed a deal today that started about 10 months ago. And when they were asking what the origin of that and how … revenue was attached to that, and what marketing was attached to that, being able to go in and look at all my channels and measurements, I [determined that] it came from an eBook.
… We’ve had five sales [from it]. One of them came in today for … $12,000. I’m able to see exactly what touch points that eBook had been used in the journey for that enterprise account … and attribute dollars to every step.”
Marketers need to move from dashboards to decisions. To do so, use the Dashboards to Decisions framework.Don’t get mired in the details of the dashboards. Make the shift.What are the insights you’re deriving from these dashboards? Don’t just repeat what the data is saying – what’s the reason why this metric is performing or not performing?
What do you recommend we do about it?
What’s the expected impact? How will your recommendation affect performance towards goals?
Lingo: What the C-Suite and Board Really Care About
The C-Suite and Board want to talk about business metrics. They don’t want to hear about deep-down vanity metrics like web visits or form fills. They want to know: how is this going to impact revenue and pipeline? They want outcomes. At the end of the day, they want to know, are you going to be able to hit the numbers you’ve told us you were going to hit? Are we going to be successful as a business? Chris thinks about it in a four-part framework.- Effectiveness: how effective are we towards our goals? In terms of Pipeline Generated, Revenue, Source, etc.
- Efficiency: how efficient are we?
- What is our Return on Investment (ROI)?
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)?
- Lifetime Value (LTV)?
- Cost-per?
- Velocity: how fast is it happening? How fast can we scale?
- Trends: how is our performance against our goals trending quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year, etc?
Planning: Building the Right Recipe for Experimentation
The first thing is get everybody on board with what the company goals are. That comes with anything. Chere recommends working with your CFO and their financial model for where you need to be at the end of the year when it comes to revenue. Both Chere and Chris recommend developing an experimentation model to apply to your planning. When planning to test new strategies, spend 80% of your time running experiments, using 20% of your budget. Test small at first, then lean in and scale what works. Most importantly, always make sure you have the right digital infrastructure in place to actually measure effectively. Data can get skewed, especially if you’re pulling it from so many different places. It can tell the wrong story if you don’t have the right infrastructure in place. CEOs looks to marketing leaders for supporting data to justify why things are being done a certain way, should they ever need it in discussions with the board (and they likely will). If you can arm your CEO with the data, dashboards, and most importantly decisions they need, they’ll always be able to speak objectively. “Make sure you can give your CEO armor, and yourself, so you’re [never taking any] cuts without some really good reasoning.”Measuring: What to Measure & Why It’s Important
In marketing, it’s one thing to have a gut feeling that a channel or piece of content will work. It’s another thing entirely to actually be able to objectively measure it all the way through from first touch to close, and to see effectiveness at every stage.
The buyer journey is often somewhat convoluted. It can be difficult to get to and measure correctly, because it’s not all linear. But, what we as marketers need to be focused on, is what programs, channels, and campaigns are working — objectively.
It’s not about credit; it’s about what performance metrics are contributing to pipeline.
Metrics such as:
- Where did we spend money effectively?
- How can we move money around to be more effective?
At HammerTech, their buyers are large enterprises that have a complex and very long buyer’s journey.
Their team uses account-based marketing to drive demand, and determines efficacy based on engagement across the account and how spend in different campaigns or channels impacts that.
“We closed a deal today that started about 10 months ago. And when they were asking what the origin of that and how … revenue was attached to that, and what marketing was attached to that, being able to go in and look at all my channels and measurements, I [determined that] it came from an eBook.
… We’ve had five sales [from it]. One of them came in today for … $12,000. I’m able to see exactly what touch points that eBook had been used in the journey for that enterprise account … and attribute dollars to every step.”
From there, they can determine ROI on that eBook. Then, they can make recommendations on when and where to best use that content throughout the buyer’s journey to impact revenue.
We often stop at the dashboards and reports. Chere’s team is a good example of those who are taking it a step further.
Marketers need to move from dashboards to decisions. To do so, use the Dashboards to Decisions framework.
What are the insights you’re deriving from these dashboards? Don’t just repeat what the data is saying – what’s the reason why this metric is performing or not performing?
What do you recommend we do about it?
What’s the expected impact? How will your recommendation affect performance towards goals?
Don’t get mired in the details of the dashboards. Make the shift.
Lingo: What the C-Suite and Board Really Care About
The C-Suite and Board want to talk about business metrics. They don’t want to hear about deep-down vanity metrics like web visits or form fills.
They want to know: how is this going to impact revenue and pipeline?
They want outcomes.
At the end of the day, they want to know, are you going to be able to hit the numbers you’ve told us you were going to hit? Are we going to be successful as a business?
Chris thinks about it in a four-part framework.
- Effectiveness: how effective are we towards our goals? In terms of Pipeline Generated, Revenue, Source, etc.
- Efficiency: how efficient are we?
- What is our Return on Investment (ROI)?
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)?
- Lifetime Value (LTV)?
- Cost-per?
- Velocity: how fast is it happening? How fast can we scale?
- Trends: how is our performance against our goals trending quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year, etc?
Your data tells a story. When you have good data, you can tell a number of different stories with it.
The CFO is another persona that marketers often need to communicate results with. Chere recommends always leading with the bottom line.
Acquisition costs, most effective ROI, and attribution are all key areas of information that CFO’s look for.
Speak their language – CFO’s are very data oriented, so provide real, objective numbers that will resonate with them.
Planning: Building the Right Recipe for Experimentation
The first thing is get everybody on board with what the company goals are. That comes with anything. Chere recommends working with your CFO and their financial model for where you need to be at the end of the year when it comes to revenue.
Both Chere and Chris recommend developing an experimentation model to apply to your planning.
When planning to test new strategies, spend 80% of your time running experiments, using 20% of your budget. Test small at first, then lean in and scale what works.
Most importantly, always make sure you have the right digital infrastructure in place to actually measure effectively. Data can get skewed, especially if you’re pulling it from so many different places.
It can tell the wrong story if you don’t have the right infrastructure in place.
CEOs looks to marketing leaders for supporting data to justify why things are being done a certain way, should they ever need it in discussions with the board (and they likely will). If you can arm your CEO with the data, dashboards, and most importantly decisions they need, they’ll always be able to speak objectively.
“Make sure you can give your CEO armor, and yourself, so you’re [never taking any] cuts without some really good reasoning.”
