Those familiar with product marketers know their roles can vary widely depending on the company. Businesses have different expectations for what product marketers should do; their duties change regularly, and organizations don’t always agree on measuring their success. Some focus on direct revenue impact, whereas others prioritize new customer acquisition or specific product marketing metrics like win/loss ratios and brand awareness. Moreover, according to Forrester, companies that measure and optimize their marketing activities are significantly more likely to see positive ROI.

Although defining the tangible results of a product marketer’s efforts can be challenging, it’s certainly achievable. This article examines the key product marketing metrics every product leader should track to measure customer and business impact.

How Do Product Marketers Measure Success?

Product marketers measure success by evaluating a mix of quantitative and qualitative metrics. These include revenue growth, asset utilization, win/loss ratios, brand awareness, and more. A holistic approach ensures visibility into product marketing efforts and areas for improvement, ultimately driving product success.

To track these product marketing metrics, they often use tools and dashboards like customer relationship management (CRM) systems (e.g., Salesforce), marketing automation tools (e.g., HubSpot or Marketo), and analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics ). Business intelligence (BI) dashboards help visualize and analyze these metrics in one centralized location, enabling real-time tracking and data-driven decision-making.

Why are Product Marketing Metrics Important?

Product marketing metrics provide insights into what works and what doesn’t. They help you understand customer needs, measure initiative success, and make data-driven decisions. Without these metrics, you’re guessing. This can lead to missed opportunities and wasted resources.

For example, tracking the win/loss ratio during a product’s go-to-market (GTM) phase can pinpoint weaknesses in your competitive positioning. If the data shows losses due to pricing objections, you might adjust your strategy by highlighting unique value propositions that justify the price or offering limited-time discounts. This targeted adjustment helps refine your GTM approach, ensuring your messaging resonates with potential customers and increases conversion rates.

OKRs and KPIs in Product Marketing Metrics

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are essential in product marketing. OKRs help set goals and track progress, while important KPIs measure specific outcomes. Together, they provide a structured approach to evaluating and achieving marketing success.

Sample OKRs:

• Objective: Increase product adoption in Q3.
• Expected results include:
  1. Achieve a 25% increase in active users.
  2. Reduce churn rate by 15%.
  3. Conduct five webinars to educate users on new features.

Sample product marketing KPIs:

• Monthly Active Users (MAU)
• Customer Churn Rate
• Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)

10 Product Marketing Metrics That Matter

Understanding success in roles not directly tied to revenue, like product marketing, can be challenging. Unlike sales, where quotas are clear, or customer success with surveys, product marketing impacts are less direct. So, how do we measure the value product marketers bring to the table?

Here are ten key metrics that showcase product marketing’s impact:

1. Revenue Growth

A product marketer’s ultimate goal is to impact sales positively. They usually accomplish this through sales enablement activities, messaging the product’s true value, and understanding competitive forces. In other words, sales should increase if a product marketer does their job well.

While measuring revenue growth is important when looking at a product marketer’s performance, relying solely on it can be misleading. Just as marketing isn’t the only department in the organization, they are not the only contributor to growth. Relying too much on revenue growth as a KPI for product marketing managers may attribute undo accolades or reproval.

Revenue Growth (%) = (Current Period Revenue – Previous Period Revenue) / Previous Period Revenue × 100

2. Asset Usage

External (and internal) asset utilization rates are a good measurement for product marketers. Since product marketing typically creates many customer-facing assets, audience engagement is an excellent measure of effectiveness. For example, if a whitepaper or webinar generates much interest, consider it an effective asset.

Not only will measuring asset usage rates demonstrate how well a product marketer is doing overall, but it will also help spark improvements. For example, if a particular asset is underperforming, the marketing team knows to evaluate it. From there, they can identify the problem, improve the asset, or scrap it altogether.

3. Win/Loss Ratio

What sales team doesn’t like to celebrate a win? As it turns out, an impressive win rate is so much more than just a reason to boast. It may also indicate that your sales enablement efforts have contributed to increasing the success of closing opportunities. This implies collaboration between sales and marketing teams. That is a win in and of itself!

Win/Loss Ratio = Number of Deals Won / Number of Deals Lost

4. Awareness

Does your audience know who you are? Increasing brand awareness is a constant battle. Though difficult to measure, surveys, website traffic, brand name search volume, and social engagement indicate brand awareness. Growing the number of potential customers who recognize your brand is a big win for PMM.

Website Traffic Growth Rate (%) = (Current Period Visitors – Previous Period Visitors) / Previous Period Visitors × 100

Social Media Engagement Rate (%) = (Total Engagements / Total Followers) × 100

5. Deal Cycles

This important metric requires you to consider how long the entire sales process takes – from when a prospect discovers your product and takes interest to when they give you an official ‘yes.’ By identifying and smoothing over any bottlenecks with collateral, enablement, or customer engagement, you can shorten your deal cycle and close deals more quickly.

Average Deal Cycle Time = Total Time from Initial Contact to Close / Number of Closed Deals

6. Market Share

Market share measures a product’s influence within its industry. A higher market share indicates successful marketing and brand strength compared to competitors. Tracking this number helps gauge overall market performance and provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of your marketing strategies.

Market Share (%) = (Company’s Sales in the Market / Total Market Sales) × 100

7. Campaign Performance

A strong message should accompany every marketing campaign. However, the most important is how your message resonates with your target audience. You can measure this in a few ways. First, you can A/B test your old vs. new messaging in emails, collateral, and other assets. Tests can also take place using social media. What social media posts have received the most engagement? What links are clicked most frequently?

Conversion Rate (%) = (Number of Conversions / Total Campaign Impressions) × 100

Click-Through Rate (CTR) (%) = (Number of Clicks / Total Impressions) × 100

8. Product Adoption

Product adoption measures how many users adopt your product and then go on to use it loyally. It reflects growth and customer satisfaction. For a product adoption to truly “count,” a user must engage with the product regularly – it must be sticky. A signup that simply logs in once and then never checks in again is at risk of eventually scrapping the product altogether.

You can find your product adoption rate with the following data:

1. New Active Users: These users sign up and engage with your product meaningfully.
2. New Total Users: This is the total number of users who sign up, whether they stick around or not.
3. A Specific Period of Time: Whether you are counting the number of signups over the past month or for the entire year, this number should be consistent every time.

You will then divide your New Active Users by New Total Users and multiply that by 100. From there, you should get a specific percentage.

Product Adoption Rate = (New Active Users / New Total Users) x 100

9. Product Launch Metrics

A product launch in and of itself can make or break a product marketer’s performance reputation. Was the launch on time, did it achieve the desired attention, and are prospects interested? Even if you meet your launch date, the quantitative data doesn’t simply stop mattering. In fact, there will likely be new numbers that you will want to observe closely.

Essential product launch metrics include:

• Demo requests: This number indicates how many prospects are asking to see your product in action. A high number of demo requests suggest notable interest in your product.
• Content views: This metric will likely transcend platforms, especially if you use multiple digital channels to discuss your product. Of course, how many people engage with that content is most important. For example, how many views those LinkedIn posts are netting and how many reads the latest blog post on your website has scored.
• Press coverage: Media outlets love the latest and greatest stories, especially when a product launch is tied to a hot industry trend or newsworthy event. This generates views, reads, and other forms of engagement for you. Consider how much press hype your latest product launch received and the number of feature write-ups and interview requests from local and national journals, periodicals, and news outlets.
• New customer and upgrade revenue: This number will show how much revenue you generate from new or current customers opting into add-ons or upgrades. A high volume of new and add-on deals indicates that your product launch hit the mark.
• Customer Retention: Even after the hype dies down, you want to retain your customers long-term. Unfortunately, customers’ needs change, and budgets shrink. In these cases, you may not be able to do much. However, if customers consistently leave in droves, then that may suggest something is amiss somewhere. It could be a decrease in product/service delivery quality. It could be poor customer service or communication. In any case, if this number decreases, you will want to investigate.

Customer Retention Rate (%) = (Customers at End of Period – New Customers Acquired) / Customers at Start of Period × 100

• Net promoter score: A net promoter score is achieved by giving your customers a survey that asks them to rate, usually on a scale from 1 to 10, how likely they would be to recommend your product or service to somebody else. The survey then separates respondents into three categories: promoters, passives, and detractors. Promoters (9-10) will likely have good things to say and recommend your product without hesitation. Passives (7-8) are usually ambivalent and probably won’t be recommending your product any time soon, but won’t have anything particularly scathing to say about it either. Detractors (anything below 6) are dissatisfied and unlikely to recommend your product, but they are also more likely to review it poorly if given the opportunity.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) = (Promoters (%) – Detractors (%)) × 100

Find the Right Product Marketing Consultant to Drive Success

Product marketing will always be complex, so measuring its performance is similarly complicated. It’s a hybrid role, changing daily. You never know where your skills will be needed. In fact, today, you might be the critical element in closing a deal when you jump on a big sales call. Tomorrow, you might outline the use cases for a new feature for the product team, and later this week, you might build a marketing program that will attract hundreds of new leads and nurture them along their sales journey.

Given the complexity and multifaceted nature, partnering with a skilled product marketing consultant can help you align your go-to-market strategy with the right metrics to make data-driven decisions. A strong product marketing team, guided by expert insights, can drive your success by maximizing customer lifetime value, reducing bounce rate, and providing valuable insights on engaging both new and existing customers. Contact Launch Product Marketing today to talk about your product marketing strategy!