Fourteen Ways To Improve How You Measure Marketing Impact
Marketing measurement is a top issue for Healthcare B2B marketers, especially in 2024. According to several marketing leaders we have spoken with recently, a lack of confidence in the reported results of marketing investments could be the root cause of many of the cuts that have taken place in 2024.
It's been brutal!
What is the State of Measuring Marketing?
We polled the 33 members of The Healthtech Marketing Network to understand where they are in measuring marketing impact.
The good news is that 4 in 5 marketers can measure and report marketing pipeline metrics, including generated opportunities. And 1 in 5 feel they have a good handle on opportunity-centric or account-based marketing measurement.
When it comes to improvements, 2 in 5 want better ways to attribute marketing to revenue, and 1 in 5 wants to develop a better ROI model.
The biggest concern is that two-thirds feel their CEO is not convinced that marketing delivers a positive ROI. And only 1 in 10 feel that their CEO fully believes that marketing delivers a positive ROI.
In short, 9 in 10 don't feel 100% secure that their CEO is convinced their marketing investment is paying off.
So What Can You Do About This?
Well, actually, there is a lot, but it's not simple.
To help you make progress, here are fourteen improvements to consider. These are categorized into types of metrics, operational changes, new tools to consider, and changes to your growth strategy.
Metrics
1. Redefining success metrics around quality
Behind these recommended actions is the growing recognition that volume-oriented KPIs like leads, MQLs, and basic campaign metrics have less value as pipeline metrics than measures that focus on the quality of the pipeline generated.
We suggest that you move away from quantity-based metrics like MQLs and consider each lead’s quality and potential value. For example, how many members of the buying group are engaged in an account, the likelihood of a deal closing, the size of deals, the reputation of an account, etc.
You will need to establish clear criteria for what constitutes a high-quality opportunity. What specific characteristics, such as budget, authority, need, and timeline, make an opportunity more likely to convert?
2. Developing strategic qualitative assessment criteria
A shift to measurement based on quality means evaluating the strategic value of opportunities beyond just dollar amounts. For example, what is the potential for upselling, cross-selling, or expanding into new business units?
Other factors to consider beyond immediate deal size are the potential for expansion, strategic alignment, and influence within the industry. What is the long-term potential and strategic fit with your company’s goals for certain deals?
This will allow you to single out certain deals for higher priority regarding marketing investment.
3. Implementing account-based tracking
While the shift to account-based marketing (ABM) may be a stretch, one important thing you can do when marketing to large buying groups is mapping the buying group by account that is engaging with your marketing.
As you track more stakeholders at each engaged account, you will better understand which account appears in-market and consider your solution.
To do this, you must set up your CRM to track engagement at the account level. This includes aggregating all interactions and activities associated with a single company or account.
In addition, you need to define and monitor key buying group roles within target accounts, including decision-makers and influencers.
As my colleague Mark Erwich recommends, you want to create “state zero” opportunities for target accounts and track early-stage activities. You can set up placeholder opportunities in your CRM for target accounts to capture and measure early engagement, even before a formal sales process begins.
Think of this as working backward from an ideal state where you have opportunities across 100% of your target accounts and 100% of the buying group stakeholders have engaged with your marketing.
4. Focusing on opportunity progression
One of the biggest changes with this new approach is that you gain a clearer picture of the highest-quality deals moving through the pipeline. In a volume-based approach, the focus is on how many deals are progressing rather than specifically which ones.
You will need to track how marketing activities influence opportunity stage advancement. Over time, you will have better information on which marketing tactics are most effective at moving opportunities through different sales funnel stages.
In the long term, you want to be able to measure the velocity of opportunities through the pipeline. This means calculating how quickly opportunities move from one stage to the next. This will make you proficient at identifying any bottlenecks.
One of the most exciting aspects is that you will know which types of content or campaigns are most impactful at different points in the buyer’s journey.
5. Implementing intent data tracking
Part of this longitudinal measurement approach is identifying opportunities early on in the buying journey before stakeholders engage with you explicitly. This is where intent data comes in.
Third-party intent data tracks user behavior on third-party properties, and first-part intent data identifies engagement on your own properties.
The best practice here is to develop a scoring system that incorporates intent data into opportunity quality assessment. You can create a model that factors in various intent signals to help prioritize leads and opportunities.
As the intent data signals strengthen, you can prioritize accounts for targeted marketing and sales efforts. You then focus your resources on accounts showing the highest levels of purchase intent.
Operational Changes
6. Aligning with sales on definitions and processes
As you change the way you measure marketing, you will need sales to be bought in. If they validate your approach, it is more likely that your CEO will agree to the new approach.
Start by agreeing on what constitutes a sales-ready opportunity and developing criteria for determining when a lead is ready for sales. Refine and document the handoff processes between marketing and sales, including what information should be provided.
Get agreement that the sales team will update opportunity stages and outcomes in the CRM. You will need to train and possibly incentivize the sales team to keep the CRM up-to-date with each opportunity’s latest status.
7. Implementing regular pipeline quality reviews
Once you are aligned on the new model, implement operational routines to keep this on track. Conduct joint marketing and sales meetings to review the pipeline, where both teams discuss the current pipeline and its quality.
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These meetings should include analyses of how high-quality opportunities are acquired. This will inform future strategies. Look for the common characteristics among your best opportunities and refine your targeting and nurturing strategies accordingly.
Periodically refine definitions of a quality opportunity based on closed-won analysis.
Together with sales, you should continuously update your criteria for what makes a good opportunity based on actual results.
8. Improving data integration
With a well-integrated tech stack and good data, none of this will be impossible. You can experiment with some of these techniques manually, but it’s incredibly hard to scale this without the right technology.
The basics are to connect your CRM, marketing automation, and ABM platform if you have one. The goal is for data to flow between your key marketing and sales systems accurately and seamlessly.
Your CRM will be the single source of truth.
Once you have this in place, consider implementing a data visualization tool (e.g., Power BI) for better reporting. The dashboards should provide a holistic view of your marketing and sales performance.
9. Implementing closed-loop reporting
A well-designed tech stack and measurement system empowers you to track opportunities from creation to close. Ideally, you will track all touchpoints in your control and capture every interaction with you throughout the customer journey.
In addition, you can analyze won and lost deals to understand what defines a truly high-quality opportunity. You can improve your opportunity qualification process by studying the characteristics and journey of successful and unsuccessful deals.
New Tools
10. Developing a multi-touch attribution model
We all know that single-touch attribution is of little value, especially last-touch attribution. Buying groups may have dozens of touches on your marketing activities and even more with information that you can’t measure before they engage with sales.
Multi-touch attribution is difficult to achieve, but software like Bizible, Dreamdata, and Hockeystack can help you track various touchpoints throughout the buyer’s journey. You can then analyze all marketing and sales interactions across different channels.
This will enable you to assign appropriate weight to different types of interactions and determine the relative importance of various touchpoints (e.g., content downloads, webinar attendance, demo requests) in influencing the final purchase decision.
11. Investing in predictive analytics
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a massive enabler of implementing an ideal measurement approach. AI’s biggest impact could be in predictive analytics.
AI and machine learning tools can help you predict which opportunities will likely close. Advanced analytics tools like 6Sense and Demandbase can help you forecast the probability of deals closing based on historical data and current signals.
These will help you develop models to forecast pipeline quality based on early-stage engagement signals. Lastly, they can help you estimate the potential value of opportunities early in the sales process.
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12. Educating stakeholders
This is as much about change management as it is about technology and new approaches. Getting everyone on board is critical. In addition to getting sales buy-in, your team and your executive team need to be on the same page with you.
Firstly, you must train your marketing team on the new quality-focused metrics. Teach them about the shift from quantity to quality, why this matters, and how to measure and report on the new metrics.
Secondly, you will need to educate executives so that they buy into why this approach provides a more accurate picture of marketing’s impact. Help them understand the benefits of focusing on quality over quantity in measuring marketing effectiveness.
Regularly communicate the value of this approach to all stakeholders.
13. Continuously refining your ideal customer profile (ICP):
Your ideal customer profile (ICP) and resulting target account list are the foundations of a modern B2B model.
As you gather more data about their buying behavior, use the data used to update your ICP. Analyze your best opportunities and customers to refine your understanding of what makes an ideal customer.
And ensure marketing efforts are aligned with targeting the most promising accounts. Focus your marketing resources on accounts that best fit your updated ICP.
14. Developing a lead-to-revenue model
The last benefit of changing to this model is that it will help your organization forecast more accurately. It will also help you justify the marketing budget and resources needed and what results can be expected.
With better measurement, you can create a model showing how early-stage activities translate into pipeline and revenue over time. This helps build a predictive model linking early marketing activities to eventual revenue outcomes.
This model can help you forecast future pipeline quality based on current activities and revenue based on current marketing efforts.
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I know this all sounds like a great deal of work. You will need to think about how to implement these steps over time.
Let us know how we can help. Our team has been through this multiple times, and we can guide you through it.
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