KPIs for ROI from Marketo/CRM (Salesforce)

Hi Mike - that is a loaded question. Below I have a few lists by type and then if you are presenting to leadership. For the data to cross over properly you need to make sure you are adding cost tags in Marketo and SFDC, program and member status and success in the programs, have assets set up locally for acquisition and then use the program and campaign connector. If you have that in place you can a majority of program and campaign ROI. You need to have contact roles set up and then contacts must have a contact role on the opportunity to shoe campaign to opportunity or lead to opportunity influence revenue. And for funnel metrics you will need RCM form Marketo or you will need to build out a pretty comprehensive lifecycle sing custom fields for capturing date to measure the funnel. - Hope this helps some!

But here are a few examples that I highly recommend. Also it depends on the level you are presenting to.

Tactical KPIs

• Net new engaged leads added to database in period
• Volume of marketing sourced MQL in a period
• MQL – Above Opportunity conversion rate and trends
• Marketing influenced leads (as a percentage of total)
• Campaign performance metrics
• # of leads in lead score bucket
• Most influential campaign types
• Content performance (engagement with content by content name, and content type)

Operational KPIs

• Funnel performance
• Lead quality
• Funnel Velocity
• Lead scoring efficacy
• SLA adherence by sales and marketing for a given period
• Database penetration
• Database engagement by % of total/cookied
• Data cleanliness
• Journey measurements

Revenue KPIs

• Top Lead Sources by MQL volume or asset value
• Most influential campaigns by above funnel/asset value
• Assets acquired by month, quarter, annual influenced by marketing activity
• Assets acquired by region and by BDO
• Asset predictability based on marketing pipeline and sales funnel

Executive Leadership

• Avg Days Engaged to MQL
• Avg Days MQL to SAL
• Avg Days SAL to SQL
• Avg Days SQL to Closed Won
• Ratio of Marketing influenced opportunities in the pipeline (KPI)
• Value of Marketing influenced opportunities in the pipeline (KPI)
• Ratio of Marketing influenced Closed Won Opportunities (KPI)
• Value of Marketing influenced Closed Won Opportunities (KPI)

At my last position, we did all of our marketing reporting using only base-level Marketo and SFDC. Caitlin Culbert gave a very comprehensive set of KPIs, but you may need to start a little bit smaller if this is all new to you. I think her list is what you should be striving to.

Here is my advice:

- Make SFDC the system of record for all things related to revenue.

- Make Marketo the system of record for all things related to marketing activities. You can track Marketing costs in Marketo as well.

- Your whole sales team needs to be on board with the reporting as well. Revenue reporting won't work if your sales team doesn't attach contacts to opportunities and if you don't track source correctly.

Look at the funnel and build your reports around that.

• New Names (Marketo - Leads created by Source)
• MQLs (Marketo - Leads whose lead stage changed to 'MQL' in a specific time period)
• Passed to Inside Sales (Marketo - Leads whose lead stage changed to 'Inside Sales Qualified')
• SQL (Marketo - Leads whose lead stage changed to 'SQL')
• Number of Opportunities created from a Marketing Source (Salesforce - Opportunity report filtered out for your marketing sources. You might want to report on all opportunities and show which percent came from Marketing, ex. Webinars, Website, Social, etc)
  • **In this case you need to make sure your sales team is using an Opportunity Source (which can default from the Lead Source when a lead is converted to an opportunity). If your opportunities don't have a source then you won't get the data you need.
• Value of Opportunities (Salesforce)
• Total Bookings (Salesforce - Similar to the opportunity report, but looking at only opps that are Closed-Won)

I hope that helps!

Hi @Mike Collins​,

This post could get very lengthy very quickly trying to determine the definitive list of metrics. What is important is the metrics that are key to your organization. I spent the last year rolling out a successful Marketo implementation in a large SaaS company, and marketing/finance leadership had one guiding metric: Marketing-Generated Pipeline (which was measured by the dollar amount of opportunities created from marketing-generated MQLs). We used standard, out-of-the box Revenue Cycle Explorer reports to get to this number; there is a fair amount of working in making sure your program channels, progressions, and success paths are defined correctly, but once they are, this metric is easy to pull.

You mentioned that you're specifically looking for ROI numbers - I caution you that getting the relevant program costs can be a lengthy exercise, that should certainly involve the finance department. If you're looking to get to program ROI, here are some good posts I found helpful:

Checklist for Program Performance Reporting

Why You Need Period Costs for Reporting

In the end, spend some time at the beginning of this process to agree upon the metrics you're delivering to finance - it could save you some time as your prioritize your reporting set-up!