Revenue and Marketing should be working on the same KPIs
Marketing has the reputation of being a fluffy world of pretty pictures and no tangible results, but it shouldn't.
Sometimes I speak with marketing people and realize they have no idea how their work affects revenue—and worse, they’re not even interested. It’s surprising, because the whole point of marketing is to sell, so keeping an eye on revenue should be second nature.
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I have plenty of theories about why this happens, and they’re not particularly flattering. In my opinion, those who don’t truly know how to do their jobs well shy away from KPIs that highlight accountability. It’s understandable: it’s uncomfortable to see your marketing campaigns have zero impact beyond vanity metrics. Nobody is immune to that; even legends like Ogilvy and Bernbach had their share of failures.
In my experience, the best marketing people often have some background in sales. They’ve had to convince someone one-on-one to buy a product. They don’t need to have been top-notch sales reps, but they should have at least some success under their belt.
When you learn to sell to one person, you develop a deep understanding of each crucial step in a good marketing plan: get the appointment, find the pain point, figure out how to position the product, present it, close the deal, seal the contract. If a marketing person can do all that, they can scale it into a broader marketing strategy.
The main takeaway is that marketing and revenue are intimately connected. Marketing, Sales, and Revenue (whether global or ancillary) should operate within one cohesive feedback loop, working together to drive growth.
Of course, you can’t measure all marketing actions through weekly or monthly revenue alone. Some brand-building efforts only pay off years down the line. But ultimately, every marketing endeavor should be aimed at generating more sales.
That’s why the joke about CMOs who start by re-branding or rebuilding the website rings true. It highlights how some people climb the corporate ladder based on maneuvering rather than performance. In fact, the first thing most good marketers do when they arrive is avoid touching the brand immediately and instead look for quick wins. Or, as I wrote in last week’s newsletter, they identify the real problem and fix it—and that problem is rarely the logo.
So, demand that your marketing team measure revenue.
PS: The risk is that they become fixated on revenue as a KPI—just bean-counting—rather than using that data strategically. But the alternative, ignoring revenue, is far worse.
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About me: I'm a fractional CMO for large travel technology companies helping turn them into industry leaders. I'm also the co-founder of 10minutes.news a hotel news media that is unsensational, factual and keeps hoteliers updated on the industry.
