AMA: Gong Performance Marketing Lead, Bhavisha Oza on Demand Generation KPI's

B2B demand generation OKRs should be defined by funnel metrics and channel metrics 1. Funnel Metrics: Marketing OKRs should include marketing qualified leads (MQLs), sales qualified leads (SQLs), pipeline and closed-won revenue. Being held accountable for pipeline and revenue/customers sourced by marketing drives revenue marketers. It is incredibly rewarding to look back at the end of the quarter/year to see that our campaigns drove x% customers and $ ARR 2. Channel Metrics: In addition to funnel metrics, OKRs should also be defined by channel. Channel metrics benchmarked against best practices help keep an eye on the day-to-day, especially for B2B as it takes time for a lead to become a MQL / SQL * Paid Search: landing page conversion rates, ad click through rates, cost per acquisition * Paid Social: Ad click through rates, SQLs influenced by paid social, cost per lead * Webinars Registrations and attendance rate for webinars * Email Marketing: Email open rate and click through rate * Direct Mail: Meetings booked

Brandformance. Brandformance is the idea of driving brand awareness to improve performance and conversion rates. Most demand gen teams are laser focused on clicks and conversions. It is important to take a few steps back and look at the big picture. Easier said than done for sure. We all know the importance of brand awareness and the impact it has on clicks and conversions. That said, it is not easy to prove the ROI of brand campaigns which makes budget approval tougher. I would encourage demand gen marketers to continue to test the impact of brand on demand gen campaigns especially on LinkedIn and YouTube. Collaborate with LinkedIn customer success teams and get them to help you prove the success of LinkedIn brand campaigns on LinkedIn demand gen campaigns. YouTube team can help with the brand lift study. Be sure to launch a concurrent search lift study to prove the impact of brand campaign on conversions.

When demand generation teams are held accountable for sales qualified leads (SQLs), pipeline and closed-won revenue, the process defines itself. Here's why: 1. It encourages collaboration between sales and marketing. Marketing is incentivized to generate quality leads that convert into SQLs 2. Sales teams look up to marketers to help them meet their revenue goals 3. It is incredibly rewarding to look back at the end of the quarter/year to see that our campaigns drove x% customers and $ ARR

KPIs should be socialized: * Before the work starts so all stakeholders are aligned and marching towards the same goal * On an on-going basis with a weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews to understand how campaign KPIs are tracking to goals. These check-ins also provide an opportunity to course correct as needed The one critical piece is to use one single source of truth. In addition to campaign manager tools in ad platforms such as LinkedIn Ads, Google Ads or your webinar platform, be sure to set up dashboards in Salseforce, Tableau or any BI tool you use to track MQLs, SQLs, pipeline and closed won deals. This ensures individual contributors and leadership teams are looking at the same KPIs

This may sound cliched but it is tried and tested. Targets should be SMART :) * Specific KPIs should be defined for each channel tactic or campaign. Paid search, paid social, webinars, events should have channel specific goals. The Marketing team overall maybe responsible for # of SQLs and pipeline revenue but each campaign owner needs to understand how their channel/campaign contributes to the SQL and pipeline goals * Measurable Having measurable targets drives success. Sometimes when you launch a campaign you may not have all the answers. Even in cases such as these, it is helpful to draw a line in the sand. This then becomes a baseline you can build from. For example, I just launched a direct mail campaign and if you have launched one you know how tough it is to track meetings booked and MQLs sourced by direct mail. We have our target account list and I collaborated with sales to define conversion rates for meetings booked, SQLs and pipeline sourced and influenced. * Achievable This is a no-brainer. Achievable targets inspires the team to go get them. You can always define goals and stretch goals :)) * Relevant Targets should be defined so they are relevant at every level - to campaign managers, marketing leaders and to the business. * Time-Bound This is self explanatory. Targets should be defined annually and for the quarter