As a data-lover and budding young marketer, I began taking an interest in marketing KPIs and metrics soon after reading through related assets. This interest was further compounded by a MECLABs course in email marketing, which contained a lot of data and research.
But then, as I began to dig around the internet in search of more information about these elusive KPIs. I wasn’t finding exactly what I was looking for. It was in that way that I located Dayna Rothman, who ran content at Marketo for three years before moving to EverString. Rothman is a lead generation expert and attributes her focus on metrics related to them with her time at Marketo.
She said she constantly wrote content at Marketo about lead gen metrics, which also helped. She is also the author of Lead Generation for Dummies.
So I (virtually) sat down and asked her a few things about lead generation KPIs.
HiP: What are (in your opinion) the most important metrics in lead generation? What makes them important?
Rothman: What lead gen metrics you value as the most important really depends on your business and your goals. However, some basic lead gen metrics to track are:
- Leads generated: The number of leads a program brings in–also track new leads vs. known leads
- MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) number: How many good leads a program brings in
- Cost per MQL: How much do your MQLs cost to generate?
- Opportunity influence: Tracking how your marketing programs influence an account over time–this includes marketing touches with each individual on the account decision-making team.
- First-touch attribution: Giving revenue attribution to the first program that brings a new lead in
- Multi-touch attribution: Assigning value to all of the marketing touches throughout a deal lifecycle
HiP: Making the question more specific, if you had to pick a single lead gen KPI for a company to focus on, what would it be?
Rothman: While the most important KPI for a company truly depends on the business case, I believe tracking multi-touch revenue is critical. You want to know how your programs are affecting conversion throughout the deal lifecycle. If you just track what program brought a lead in you are missing out on a lot of data. In today’s buying cycle there are generally multiple touches throughout the buyer lifecycle and multiple decision makers. When you are able to assign value and track all of the marketing touches you are much more likely to prove marketing’s value in the sales process.
HiP: What made you personally interested in marketing metrics? There are definitely some marketers out there who seem to just make up advice, when in reality there are no metrics to back up the information.
Rothman: I think that marketing has really changed. Because there is so much technology available and because the buying cycle has become more complex, it has become imperative for marketing teams to report out on specific metrics. It is no longer acceptable to make guesses on how marketing programs have affected the deal lifecycle. Instead, marketers have the tools to report out much more specifically on ROI. As a result, to survive and be effective as a marketer, you need to become a marketing technologist. For me, the move to being more ROI focused did not come naturally. As a content marketer, I am generally more of a creative. However, to keep my skills fresh, it has become critical that I improve my ability to track metrics and look critically at programs.
HiP: Do you have any recommendations for those working in the industry to improve any of their numbers?
Rothman: Practice and educate yourself! Dive into tracking metrics and insist your organization become more metrics-driven. Additionally, there are a ton of great resources to educate yourself about marketing metrics. Many of the technology vendors provide vendor-neutral thought leadership that you can read. You also want to make sure that you are up-to-date on the newest technology solutions that help you track these KPIs.
[poll id=”6″]
