StatusQuota

SURVEY FINDINGS

Making Metrics MatterAn investigation of “sales-aligned metrics” reporting among 31 HubSpot agency partners

Remen Okoruwa, Founder & CEO

March 2017

THE GAP BETWEEN MARKETING & SALES IS SHRINKING

OVERVIEW

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introducing Sales-Aligned Analytics For Marketers 3

Respondent Composition 4

Top Reporting Challenges 5

SAM Reporting Increases With Time Spent Reporting 6

SAM Reporting Increases With Tool Usage 7

SAM Reporting Increases With Agency Size 8

Scaling Reporting Is A Challenge 9

Key Takeaways 10

About StatusQuota 11

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Despite using marketing automation & reporting

technologies, agencies continue to struggle with

surfacing important metrics for clients. Major issues

include gathering data from disparate sources,

manually creating analyses, and challenges with

presenting data in way that is meaningful for clients.

SAM reporting is increasingly important for

agencies as they grow, yet agencies often lack the

processes in place to handle SAM reporting

efficiently, resulting in more time spent per client &

frustration.

ABOUT AUTHOR

Remen Okoruwa is the Co-Founder & CEO of

StatusQuota, a data analytics company helping

marketing & sales teams grow faster with data. He’s

passionate about helping revenue generators

optimize every step of the funnel.

INTRODUCING SALES-ALIGNED METRICS FOR MARKETERS

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Marketing and sales are increasingly seen as two sides of the same coin. Marketing is the tool for

generating demand at scale, while sales takes interested parties and brings the transaction to a close

(and revenue). Marketing does not exist in isolation. Instead, it is used to enable sales.

In this world of greater alignment, marketers are increasingly required to take responsibility for sales

outcomes. Some marketing teams are required to deliver a certain number of sales qualified lead (SQL)

each quarter. Some go so far as to be responsible for a direct revenue quota, just like the sales team.

Despite all of these changes, one truth remains: “You cannot change what you don’t track.” In a world

where marketing is expected to drive sales results, marketers must understand critical sales metrics that

their activities affect. More importantly, they must understand how they can change their activities to

improve sales outcomes. These critical sales-aligned metrics (SAMs) are the new benchmarks for

marketing success.

But marketing & sales data typically reside in separate systems (CRM, marketing automation, etc.). As

such, the modern marketer is tasked with not only analyzing data, but more importantly gathering the

relevant information, wherever it may be.

To better understand how marketers are dealing with these new expectations, we surveyed 31 HubSpot

agency partners to determine their success and struggles with delivering on the promise of sales

enablement & reporting sales-aligned metrics. This report documents our findings.

RESPONDENT COMPOSITION: 31 AGENCY PARTNERS

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5

19

4

3

Silver

Gold

Platinum

Diamond

3

3

12

10

3

0 5 10 15

51+ FTEs

26-50 FTEs

11-25 FTEs

6-10 FTEs

1-5 FTEs

Distribution of Partners by TierCount of respondents

Distribution of Partners by SizeCount of respondents

TOP REPORTING CHALLENGES

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0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Time spent

and/or

difficulty of

creating

reports

Data accuracy

and/or

availability

Helping clients

understand the

metrics

Reporting on

meaningful

metrics vs.

vanity metrics

Across the partners surveyed, the time spent reporting was the most frequently cited

challenge. Many executives commented on the

lack of automation in their processes as a

major impediment to improved efficiency.

The next most common challenge cited were

concerns about client data quality and availability.

The final two common issues were related, yet

distinct. Improving client understanding of

what metrics mean was tied with reporting on vanity metrics. In both cases, agencies

indicated that driving strategic, value added

conversations with clients is challenging

without compelling data and a clear story

explaining why the data matters.

Partner’s Biggest Issue With Reporting TodayPercentage of respondents

SAM REPORTING INCREASES WITH TIME SPENT REPORTING

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61%

83%

100%

39%

17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1-3 hours 4-6 hours 7+ hours

Report on SAM Do Not Report on SAM

Reporting on SAM by Monthly Reporting Hours (per client)Percentage of respondents

One of the first results to emerge is that as

agencies spend more time on reporting,

they increasingly report on sales-aligned

metrics.

This result makes sense intuitively, as

increased reporting time & complexity

indicates going above and beyond the easily

gathered data points.

It also may be a reflection of increased client expectations for what is to be

included in regular reports. As internal

marketers are increasingly responsible for

sales outcomes, they will expect the

agencies they work with to bear those same

priorities.

SAM REPORTING INCREASES WITH TOOL USAGE

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67%

75%

33%

25%

1-3 tools

used

4-6 tools

used

Report on SAM Do Not Report on SAM

Reporting on SAM by Tool UsagePercentage of respondents

Tools Used:

SAM reporting also increased as agencies

used more tools to generate their reports.

While unsurprising, what was interesting

was how reliant agencies are on analyzing data manually using Excel & visualization

within PowerPoint & Word.

One agency cited investing heavily in their

own suite of custom dashboards using the

Klipfolio tool to reduce the manual work.

=100%

=100%

SAM REPORTING INCREASES WITH AGENCY SIZE

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67% 33%51+ FTEs

Report on SAMDo Not

Report on SAM

Reporting on SAM by Agency SizePercentage of respondents

100% -26-50 FTEs

70% 30%11-25 FTEs

60% 40%6-10 FTEs

33% 67%1-5 FTEs

Another interesting result from the survey

was that larger agencies were more likely to

report on sales-aligned metrics.

This could be viewed in a few different ways:

1. Larger agencies work with more sophisticated clients who demand SAMs

2. Larger agencies choose to differentiate themselves from competitors by focusing

on mission critical SAMs

3. Larger agencies have more resources to invest in better reporting (note the

difficulty of gathering and compiling

analyses in Excel).

=100%

=100%

=100%

=100%

=100%

SCALING REPORTING IS A CHALLENGE

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Perhaps the most interesting finding is the

presence of a “reporting maturity” distribution.

Agencies can be grouped into 3 buckets:

1. Small agencies that spend less time on

reporting (likely due to fewer client demands)

2. Larger agencies that spend less time on

reporting (likely due to improved processes &

technology)

3. Medium-sized agencies who are stuck

between a rock and hard place: more demanding clients and less infrastructure in place to report efficiently, resulting in massive time invested in reporting each month.

The big takeaway here is that the opportunity for

enhanced reporting is greatest for agencies in the

process of scaling their processes & clients.

67% 80% 67% 67% 100%

1-5

FTEs

6-10

FTEs

11-25

FTEs

26-50

FTEs

51+

FTEs

33% 10% 25% 33%

10%

8%

1-3 hours

4-6 hours

7-10 hours

10+ hours

Monthly Reporting Hours (per client) by Agency SizePercentage of respondents

-

- -

- -

- -

-

-

=100% =100% =100% =100% =100%

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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Agencies are frustrated with the time & manual effort required to

create client reports 1

Agencies with sophisticated reporting processes are focusing their

clients on sales-aligned metrics 2

Smaller agencies are most likely to be impacted by inefficient

reporting processes as client expectations increase3

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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Thanks to all of the executives whose contributions made this report possible, including:

ABOUT STATUSQUOTA

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For More Information

To find out how StatusQuota can help you report faster on the metrics that

matter to clients, contact us at:

Web: www.statusquota.co

Me: remen@statusquota.co

StatusQuota works with agencies and high growth

companies to help them grow faster with data. We help

them surface insights from data to enable smarter

decision-making and optimization at each stage of the

revenue funnel.

WE DO THIS BY OFFERING:

1. Dashboard Software: Our dashboard tools reveal

how marketing activity drives sales results. By

integrating marketing automation and CRM data, we

enable marketers to track all the ways they influence

the sales process and prove the ROI of their work to

the organization.

2. Data Science Consulting & Custom Development:

Our team of sales/marketing strategists & data

scientists help clients unlock the value of their data

sets. By creating custom machine learning

algorithms, we build predictive models that help

marketers maximize conversions and allow sales

people to focus their efforts on the highest quality

opportunities.

67%

Snapshot from StatusQuota Dashboard Platform