There are a lot of tasks and responsibilities a marketing team is faced with on a daily basis. Whether it’s overseeing a content strategy, designing a website, or attending events, there’s a lot to be done.
That’s why it’s important to have a set of key performance indicators — or KPIs — to keep your marketing team in check. KPIs help you measure success and hold your team accountable for any of their marketing efforts.
But, sometimes, it’s easy to set the wrong KPIs for your marketing initiatives. If you’re not setting the right KPIs, you might notice that your marketing isn’t as effective as it should be and people on your team aren’t being held accountable for their work.
To make sure that you’re setting the right KPIs for your marketing team, we’ve detailed nine KPI-setting mistakes that marketing teams commonly make.
1. Setting too many KPIs
When it comes to setting KPIs, less is more. If you set too many KPIs, you’ll spread your team too thin, and it’ll be challenging to focus on the most important ones.
Start by setting a few KPIs that you believe will have the most significant impact on your marketing goals. As you start to hit those KPIs, you can add more to your plate.
2. Setting KPIs that aren’t measurable
If you can’t measure it, it’s not a KPI. It’s that simple.
If you’re setting a KPI, you need to be able to measure it. Otherwise, you won’t be able to track your progress or know if you’re successful.
For example, “increase brand awareness” isn’t a measurable KPI. Instead, you could track your social media reach, website traffic, or the number of branded searches, as well as product discovery metrics like on-site search usage and zero-result searches. All of these metrics are quantifiable and can help you measure your progress.
On the other hand, “become a thought leader in our industry” is a great goal, but it’s not a KPI because it’s not something you can measure. Instead, you could set a KPI to increase your website traffic, grow your email list, or get more speaking engagements. All of these metrics can help you gauge your thought leadership efforts.
3. Setting KPIs that don’t align with your goals
One of the most common KPI-setting mistakes is setting KPIs that don’t align with your goals.
This can happen in a couple of ways. First, you might not have clear goals and objectives, which then makes it difficult to create KPIs that align with them.
Secondly, you might have too many goals and objectives, which then makes it difficult to create KPIs that align with all of them.
To avoid this mistake, make sure to set clear, specific goals and objectives before you start creating your KPIs. Then, make sure to prioritize your goals and objectives so you can create KPIs that align with your most important goals.
4. Setting KPIs that don’t inspire action
Some KPIs are just more exciting than others. Consider the difference between setting a KPI for your email list growth versus your email open rate.
While both are important, the email open rate is more of a “watch” metric. It’s a number you’re going to monitor to see if it’s improving or declining, but it’s not something you can really take action on. If your open rate is declining, you might experiment with your subject lines, but that’s about it.
Now, consider your email list growth. If your KPI is to grow your email list by 10% in the next quarter, that’s something you can really get excited about. You can brainstorm new lead magnets and email verification tools, create new pop-up forms, or experiment with your website’s calls to action. It’s a KPI that will inspire a lot of action on your team.
5. Setting KPIs that don’t tell a story
Every KPI you set for your marketing team should be part of a larger story — the story of how your team is driving the business forward.
If you were to list out all of the KPIs you track, what kind of story would they tell? Would they tell a story of how your team is driving leads and revenue? Would they tell a story of how your team is growing brand awareness and perception?
Take a look at the KPIs you’re tracking and think about what story they tell. Then, think about what story you want to tell and what KPIs you would need to track to tell that story.
6. Setting KPIs that are too hard to understand
The last thing you want to do when setting KPIs is to make it hard for your team to understand how they’re doing. If your team can’t understand what success looks like, they’re going to have a hard time working towards it.
So, when you’re setting KPIs, it’s important that you choose KPIs that are easy to understand. Don’t get too fancy or complicated. Instead, choose KPIs that are simple and straightforward, and that can be easily tracked and measured.
7. Setting KPIs that are too hard to achieve
Setting KPIs that are too easy to achieve can lead to a lack of growth. But setting KPIs that are too hard to achieve can lead to a lack of motivation and burnout.
Before setting KPIs, it’s important to understand what’s realistic for your team. If you have a new team or a team with a lot of new members, you might want to start with KPIs that are a bit easier to achieve. As your team grows, you can gradually increase the difficulty of your KPIs.
8. Setting KPIs that you can’t control
Finally, it’s important to remember that KPIs are not just a way of measuring success — they’re a way of setting goals and targets for your marketing team.
If you set KPIs that are beyond your control, you’re setting your team up for failure. Instead, focus on KPIs that are directly related to your marketing team’s activities and that you have the power to influence.
For referral, affiliate, and influencer initiatives, tools like ReferralCandy help teams stick to controllable KPIs—applications approved, active partners, share rate, referred conversions, and revenue per partner—so performance ties back to actions the team can actually run and improve.
9. Setting KPIs and forgetting them
KPIs are not a one-and-done thing. They should be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure they continue to align with your marketing objectives.
For example, if you’re a new company, you might set an initial goal to grow your customer base by 100% over the next year. You’d then set KPIs around website traffic, leads, and customers. As you grow and evolve, you’d update those KPIs to reflect your new goals and objectives.
Conclusion
In the end, setting KPIs is all about balance. You need to set goals that are challenging, yet achievable. You need to set goals that are specific, yet flexible. You need to set goals that are focused, yet holistic. And you need to set goals that are based on data, yet leave room for creativity.
Avoid the mistakes above, and you’ll be well on your way to setting KPIs that help you improve your marketing performance and achieve your business objectives.
