Mastering Marketing Metrics with Bill Macaitis
Metrics are a marketing team’s guardrails. They help you stay on the right track and achieve your objectives. They also help better align marketing with the rest of the organisation, and crucially, help prove marketing’s contribution to business outcomes and ultimately revenue.
The challenge, however, lies in discerning which metrics are the most relevant to your business and those that will enable you to grow as efficiently as possible.
Bill Macaitis, Marketing Advisor and a former CMO and CRO of industry giants like Slack, Zendesk, and Salesforce, recently joined Dreamdata CMO Steffen Hedebrandt to share his experience with marketing metrics at all levels.
In this blog post, we’ll cover the main points discussed in the conversation, including:
Why metrics are a huge incentiviser
Metrics incentivise at different levels
6 marketing metric categories for B2Bs
Full-funnel metrics
Brand metrics
Experience metrics
Stakeholder Surveys
Data-driven milestones
Product-led Growth metrics
You can catch the full conversation here —>
The metrics we choose are a huge incentiviser
Before we jump into the 6 sets of metrics, we need to take a step back and understand why metrics are so important in the first place. Unfortunately, too many B2B go-to-market teams follow metrics blindly, without giving the necessary consideration to the impact of what you measure has on the outcomes.
Bill tells us, “The metrics we choose as a company, both at a company level and a team level at an individual level, are huge incentives for those people. And they’ll really dramatically alter what they focus on on a day-to-day.”
For instance, when 100% credit is given at the individual level for a sale, with no other metrics taken into account, you incentivise poor-quality sales.
The stereotypical car salesman is a good example here. These salesmen don't really care if you come back after the purchase, they’re just interested in getting the car sold. So they just do anything they can to get that one sale.
In B2B SaaS, this can be hugely damaging. That’s where the right metrics come in with the right incentives. For Bill, this has become his primary creed.
“I think my overarching philosophy is just you have to be really, really careful about thinking about the metrics you use. You know, what behaviour is that incentivising? Are you incentivising silos? Are you incentivising collaboration across different teams that might normally work together?”
Metrics incentivise at different levels of the organisation
Bill reminds us that we need to look at the three different levels of the organisation: the individual level, the team (marketing) level, and the company level. And especially understand how metrics can incetivise behaviours across each of these different levels.
For instance, setting leads as the only metric for marketing can impact the individual (producing a leads-at-all-cost mentality), the team (siloing it from the rest of funnel), and the company (not working towards business goals).
So, when you read through the metric categories below, bear in mind how the different levels might be influenced, or incentivised, by the different metrics.
6 marketing metric categories for B2Bs
Bill presents six metric categories he considers fundamental to effectively measuring (and incentivising) the marketing org at all levels.
These are: Funnel Metrics, Brand Metrics, Experience Metrics, Stakeholder Surveys, Data-driven milestones, and Product-led Growth Metrics.
1. Full-funnel metrics
Key takeaway: Funnel metrics are the baseline metrics that track the customer's journey through the funnel, from initial awareness to conversion, qualification and new business.
They need to include top-of-the-funnel metrics like website visitors and leads, middle-of-the-funnel metrics like marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs), and bottom-of-the-funnel metrics like actual revenue generated, and even beyond-funnel metrics like retention and upgrades.
“Marketing has a really impactful cause and effect on your overall company's growth, your revenue. And when you just take it down to leads, it's a very short area. It's a very narrow area, right?”
Bill emphasises the importance of using the full range of metrics. The focus cannot just be on lead generation but also measuring the quality and conversion of these leads.
By using funnel metrics right through the buying journey, you not only enable marketing to measure impact at all the stages but also inevitably become more of a partner with Sales versus more of an adversary.
Bill also reminds us that marketing plays a big role beyond the closed-won stage. Marketing plays a huge role in retention and upselling, so this needs to be tracked too.
“A lot of marketers will only do leads, but they'll only do leads for net new people coming in and I would argue especially like software SaaS, the field we're in, historically half your revenue will come from add-on upgrade expansion, different plans, new products.”
You can read more about setting up a go-to-market funnel that aligns Sales and Marketing here →
Reporting funnel metrics to educate the organisation
Finally, tracking metrics across the full customer cycle, not only makes the marketing team better at measuring and ultimately generating real business value but also serves to prove that marketing is doing just that.
“I found personally for that a huge part of your job, I would argue 25,30, 34, 35%, needs to be spent on communication and education of the company. And what the heck marketing does what like marketing is. What's your role, and what's your impact?”
2. Brand metrics
Key takeaway: You need to measure how a brand is perceived in the market. To do this, you can track metrics such as aided and unaided recall (how well people remember the brand with or without prompts), brand sentiment (how people feel about the brand), and share of conversation (how much people are talking about the brand compared to competitors).
All of which can help in understanding the long-term impact of brand-building efforts.
“You know, it's I think, you know, brand isn't as much really paid attention to in the B2B side. I would argue that's a big myth. But for those of you that have worked on the B2C side, it's absolutely tracked, you know, religiously looked at.”
Tracking brand metrics helps a business stand out and positively influence customer behaviour. “Brand is something that is going to allow us to differentiate... They're going to buy more. They're going to recommend more.”
Understanding not only the influence of your own brand but also that of your competitors. “Depending on your methodology, you will get not only your metric, but you'll get all your competitors’ metrics.”
For example, during his time at Slack, they implemented a simple email survey to measure brand recall. “We did a really simple email survey... That's unaided, you know, or you can give them the answers, you know, Slack, have chat up, you know, that's aided right. And then you just track it.”
These questions (and answers) give a sense of how well competitors are regarded, as well your own brand. And they also give a sense of the sentiment how people feel about a company, which he suggests can be especially revealing for new brands.
Finally, he also mentions the ease of tracking brand searches online, noting how this once costly metric is now easily accessible and give an overview of brand recognition.
“So some people will literally do direct searches. That's probably the easiest one. Direct searches of your brand from the web, right? So you know how people are tapping your company's name in Google. That's an easy one.”
Check out what Paddle CMO, Andrew Davies said about ‘WTF moments’ in brand marketing →
3. Experience metrics
Key takeaway: Track metrics that focus on the customer experience with the product or service. These include Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) which are crucial for understanding how customers feel about the product or service, their likelihood to recommend it to others, and the overall health of customer relationships.
“I want to drive my funnel metrics, but whoa. Like the experience is having a big influence here because if no one's having a good experience with our with our company, no one's recommending it, I have to buy all the leads.”
At Slack and Zendesk, Bill said, customers who rated high on the NPS were asked to participate in marketing activities, like writing reviews or introducing the company to procurement officers.
“If someone self-identified as a nine or ten is an advocate at Zendesk or Slack, we would have automatic rules, right? Like, Hey, will you write a review for us?”
Bill really underscores the importance of integrating experience metrics into overall business strategies, including their influence on employee performance evaluations and bonuses.
Highlighting the benefits of satisfaction surveys post-sales interactions, to evaluate the performance of sales personnel on various parameters like helpfulness, responsiveness, and knowledge. “We would send a survey... How helpful was she? 1 to 5, How responsive was she?... Whatever lenses you want to think about.”
This approach, not only enhances customer satisfaction but also drives the right behaviours (incentives, remember?) in the workforce, moving away from purely quantitative metrics like ticket resolution speed towards more qualitative, experience-focused measures.
4. Stakeholder Surveys:
Key takeaway: Marketing teams work closely with various internal stakeholders, such as sales, product development, and finance. Internal stakeholder surveys help 1) ensure cohesion between teams, 2) focus on customer-centricity, and 3) get recognition for the value of marketing.
To gauge the effectiveness of all the interactions marketing has with the wider organisation, Bill recommends conducting surveys that ask stakeholders to evaluate the marketing team's performance.
“We would run a survey to all these stakeholders and we would ask them, Hey, how much value did marketing create for you? How responsive was marketing? You know, all these different lenses.”
In particular, he emphasises the importance of this approach for sub-teams like product marketing, which collaborate with many internal teams. Where the surveys help ensure that the marketing efforts are aligned with the needs and expectations of these teams. “So again, run that survey, you know, create more of an internal customer centricity”, he advised.
Bill also warned against the complacency that can arise in marketing teams. He stressed that it's not enough for the marketing team to feel successful; other departments must also recognize and appreciate the value created by marketing.
“It's a really dangerous situation when you're in marketing and you're just like, we created this latest and greatest shiny object. We're great. You know, pat ourselves on the back. You want to make sure everyone else also believes what you're doing and that you're adding value. So you don't run in the situation where it's also like, Whoa, nobody thinks marketing, doing a good job.”
5. Data-Driven Milestones
Key takeaway: Data-driven milestones play a role in setting specific, measurable goals for marketing campaigns and initiatives. These milestones are crucial for assessing engagement and the effectiveness of a specific product or feature in stimulating growth.
In the conversation, Bill underlined the importance of setting time-bound objectives, particularly in the context of significant marketing events like product launches or major industry conferences.
He cited an example from Marc Benioff, noting his preference for data-driven approaches that establish clear targets and deadlines.
“Marc Benioff... he used to say he liked data-driven stuff because you put a flag in the ground and you could really make excuses. It's like, Hey, we've booked Moscone on these dates. We have to have everything ready for it.”
This approach, according to Bill, stands in contrast to more flexible, iterative methods like agile sprints. While agile allows for continuous improvement, data-driven milestones provide a fixed target to aim for, creating a sense of urgency and focus.
6. Product-Led Growth (PLG) Metrics
Key takeaway: In PLG motions, marketing should track metrics that go beyond traditional marketing funnels, focusing on user engagement and product interaction with metrics such as daily active users and product qualified leads.
PLG metrics like daily active users and product-qualified leads track user engagement with the product and identify leads generated directly from product usage rather than traditional marketing channels.
“There are things like daily active users, things like product qualified leads... not just going through a traditional funnel but going into the product and then becoming a lead that way.”
He also stressed the importance of collaborative ownership of these metrics across different teams to prevent siloed operations.
For instance, both marketing and product teams should jointly own metrics related to creating a frictionless user experience within the product.
Bill also encourages marketers to think beyond conventional metrics and consider broader impacts on the company. This includes simplifying processes, enhancing brand elements in the product, and integrating creative elements like colour palettes or mascots.
“How do we make things simpler? How do we reduce steps?... How do we include more Easter eggs, maybe our mascots in the software?”.
A final word
The insights from this conversation with Bill Macaitis prove just what a vital role metrics play in the B2B marketing org and beyond.
The article has delved into six key categories of marketing metrics for B2Bs, each playing a unique role in steering marketing efforts towards tangible business outcomes.
In summary, when setting tracking marketing success, we need to consider:
1) full-funnel metrics that track the entire customer journey,
2) brand metrics that gauge brand perception and sentiment,
3) experience metrics that reflect customer satisfaction,
4) internal stakeholder surveys that offer invaluable feedback on Marketing's internal impact,
5) data-driven milestones which provide tangible, time-bound targets for marketing campaigns, and,
6) product-led growth metrics that identify leads generated directly from product usage.
Finally, Bill’s added emphasis on the role metrics play in integration and collaboration across different functions within an organisation further cements the idea that what you measure will impact how effective and recognised marketing is within the wider company.
