Marketo Measure Reporting Guide marketo-measure-reporting-guide

Before building a Marketo Measure report, it’s most crucial to confirm your Marketo Measure Account Settings have been reviewed and configured to ensure the data within the reports is accurate and reflects the specificities of your business. In addition to this, reporting projects work best when they follow a structured process. Justin Norris, a Marketo Measure power-user, advocate and partner from Perkuto expertly summarized how to approach reporting in Marketo Measure:

Establish Goals: "The first question to ask is ‘why do we measure?’ Lori Wizdo of Forrester Research summed it up nicely in a Marketo webinar. According to her, ‘we measure to prove or validate a decision or the value of marketing or to get better (process improvement).’ We would add that the insights from good measurement also provide input and guidance into the marketing planning process.

So before you begin, it’s essential to be crystal clear on your goals, the questions you are trying to answer, or the problems you are attempting to solve. What story do you want to tell? What decisions will be made as a result? Too often these fundamentals are poorly thought out, leading to frustration for all involved."

Report Design: “Next, you need to design the report and determine the specific dimensions, metrics, and dataset it will contain. A common experience is to provide a business user with exactly what they ask for, only for them to still feel that their needs are unmet. This is because the insight a business user is actually looking for is not always contained in the report they request. A good analyst (or a MOPS person with an analyst hat on) will ask clarifying questions, establish common definitions (“so, what do you really mean by lead?”), and even sketch out a visual of the final report to make sure there’s alignment. Only then do you build the report, knowing you have a solid set of requirements.”

Report Build: “Once you go to build, it’s not uncommon to run into roadblocks or dead-ends. For example, you might discover that you lack an essential data point or that your objects don’t link in the way that you need. To solve these problems, I also think it’s critical to understand what’s happening “under the hood” in your reporting “machine.” This fluency will allow you to quickly size up a reporting request and evaluate whether it’s achievable (and more easily devise creative solutions when it’s not).”

Let’s take a look “under the hood” to better understand what makes the Marketo Measure attribution reporting machine run.

Buyer Touchpoint Objects (CRM) buyer-touchpoint-objects-crm

At the highest level, there are two reporting categories based on the two different Buyer Touchpoint objects: These categories determine which type of Marketo Measure data you would like to report on: data related to an individual, or data related to an opportunity.

Support Article: Difference Between Buyer Touchpoints and Buyer Attribution Touchpoints

Buyer Touchpoint (BT) buyer-touchpoint-bt

The Buyer Touchpoint (BT) is the object used to track every marketing interaction someone has with your marketing materials. Each individual’s (Lead/Contact/Marketo Measure Person) journey would be represented by their related BTs. In Marketo Measure, an individual’s journey consists of:

Buyer Touchpoints are used to answer questions related to people (“people” are represented by either Leads or Contacts within a CRM), such as Lead/Contact generation or acquisition metrics, rather than Opportunity related metrics. For example:

Primarily, companies need to know, “where are my Leads/Contacts coming from?”. Historically, this was answered with a single, one dimensional value (Lead Source for example). However, as outlined in #1 and #2 above, we know that Leads can have multiple touchpoints during their journey of becoming a Lead. The Buyer Touchpoint allows us to get insight into the two most crucial interactions that represent how a Lead was generated: their First Touch and their Lead Creation Touch. Buyer Touchpoints are also multi-dimensional meaning they carry loads of marketing data, primarily where the person came from (Marketing Channel) and what the person engaged with (Content).

The attribution models providing the best insight into people-based metrics are:

These models place heavy emphasis on early-stage interactions and top of funnel engagement. U-Shaped attribution is the recommended model as it factors in both the FT and LC touchpoints ensuring credit is given to any touch that influenced the Lead into creation. However, additional insight can be gained from the First Touch and Lead Creation Touch models if you are looking to understand those specific parts of the Lead journey in more detail.

Recommended Reports using the Buyer Touchpoint (BT) recommended-reports-using-the-buyer-touchpoint-bt

1.1 | New Leads by Marketing Channel

Summarizing your Lead’s Buyer Touchpoint data by the field ‘Marketing Channel’ is the highest-level view that represents what channels/tactics are influencing new Leads into creation. Structuring this report around a ‘Date Type’ = “Created Date” ensures a cohort of ‘net new Leads’ (when the Lead was created in your CRM) is established in the report.

1.2 | New Leads by Campaign (or more granular insights)

For more granular insight into the data summarized in the ‘New Leads by Marketing Channel’ report (1.1), add an additional summary at the campaign level. This will allow you to not only understand what ‘Marketing Channels’ are driving new Leads into creation, but more specifically, what campaigns within those channels are performing the best:

The level of granularity may vary by channel. The recommended approach would be to ask yourself, “what about ‘channel X’ am I looking to understand in more detail?”. Paid Search Managers may also be interested in additional dimensions such as:

Events Managers however may be more interested in which specific Events or which types of Events influenced the most Leads into creation:

REMINDER: Additional filters may need to be added to any of the report variations outlined above or below. These filters would be specific to your organization and would be something that your Marketing Ops or Sales Ops teams could help advise. It’s not uncommon for an organization to run the same filters across all reports to ensure the report is as clean and accurate as possible. Common examples could be:

1.3 | New Leads by Content (CRM reports only)

REMINDER: The two primary fields for reporting on digital content/assets are ‘Landing Page’ and ‘Form URL’. These two values may be the same if the Lead converts (submits a form) on the same page in which they “landed” (Landing Page), however, sometimes these values are different. For example, the Lead may click a link on Facebook that takes them to a page of your website (this would be the ‘Landing Page’ value). The Lead may then navigate away from that page, continue their session on the site, and end up submitting a form on another page (Form URL). This would be summarized in a single touchpoint that represents where the Lead came from (Marketing Channel), what content brought them to the site (Landing Page), and what content they ended up downloading (Form URL). ‘Form URL’ is also the go-to field for reporting on other forms not associated with downloadable content such as ‘Contact Us’ or ‘Demo Request’ forms.

‘Content’ based reports provide great value when reporting on any part of the funnel, however they are most commonly used at the top of the funnel to provide additional insight into a Leads initial engagement. Considering “Organic Search” tends to be the strongest channel at driving initial engagement (FT), there is not as much ‘Campaign’ level data.

‘Content’ based reports are great for gaining insight into what’s driving Leads more specifically within the higher-level Marketing Channel, in this case “Organic Search”.

1.4 | Total Lead Engagement in a given Date Range

REMINDER: Basing your reports around ‘Touchpoint Date’ is the most reflective way of understanding marketing performance during a certain date range. ‘Touchpoint Date’ structures the report in a way where the attribution is not only related to the channel, campaign, or content, but also shows when the touchpoint occured. This is the most effective way at understanding what marketing engagement was happening at a certain point in time and also the recommended way of measuring marketing’s impact as it compares to marketing spend invested during the same time. It is recommended when doing any marketing spend or ROI analysis (see 5.1).

2. MARKETING QUALIFIED LEADS with BUYER TOUCHPOINTS

One of the most common reports is focused not just on new Leads or Lead level engagement, but more specifically ‘marketing qualified leads’ (MQLs). There are a couple of different approaches when it comes to reporting on MQLs depending on what Marketo Measure features and functionality you have access to.

2.1 | Marketing Qualified Leads by Channel (multi-touch)

This approach towards measuring marketing’s impact on influencing MQLs is essentially a continuation of the ‘New Leads by Marketing Channel’ (1.1) report but with the additional criteria that the Leads being measured are more specifically MQLs. The U-Shaped attribution model is still recommended here to identify what marketing channels and content are generating Leads that are then likely to become an MQL:

2.2 | Marketing Qualified Leads by Channel (single touch, CRM only)

This approach towards measuring marketing’s impact on influencing MQLs is focused more on identifying which single touchpoint was the last touch before the Lead reached MQL.

3. MARKETO MEASURE PERSONS with BUYER TOUCHPOINTS

There’s a third custom Marketo Measure object in Salesforce that can be very useful when reporting on people related metrics: the Marketo Measure Person (BP). The BP solves the age-old problem of how to represent both Leads and Contacts information in the same report. It unites all BTs related to a “person” (a Marketo Measure Person’s ID is their email address). Whether they exist as a Lead or a Contact, the BP acts as a bridge object, to help reports span across Lead and Contact, and is very useful in producing more sophisticated reports on people.

The Marketo Measure Person relates to only one of the touchpoint objects, the Buyer Touchpoint (BT). This means that it can’t be used for an Opportunity or revenue related metrics. A ‘Marketo Measure Person and Buyer Touchpoints’ report type is great for understanding total engagement as it surfaces all BTs whether the BT relates to a Lead or Contact more specifically. For example - if you have a Salesforce Campaign being used to track an Event, you may have campaign members within the CRM Campaign that exist either as Leads OR Contacts. Marketo Measure will create touchpoints for the campaign members regardless, but without the Marketo Measure Person, standard Salesforce reporting would require two separate reports to understand how many total touchpoints you have from the Event: one that’s ‘Leads with Buyer Touchpoints’ and one that’s ‘Contacts with Buyer Touchpoints’. A few other Marketo Measure Person based reporting use cases are listed below:

3.1 Marketo Measure Persons who have Downloaded ‘ebooks’ or ‘whitepapers’ (total downloads)

This report would be the same as a ‘Content’ based report at the Lead level. However, rather than looking to measure the number of attributable Leads to each piece of content, using a Marketo Measure Persons report will be helpful in understanding the total number of downloads if the asset is gated (the total number of touchpoints would represent the total number of downloads/form submissions).

3.2 Marketo Measure Persons who have Registered for an Event (CRM only)

This report is only applicable if registration forms are hosted on your website(s) that Marketo Measure is able to track digitally.

The key takeaway from this report is that the Buyer Touchpoint data will also provide Marketing Channel data. While you may already have insight around the number of people who have registered for your events, this report will also provide insight into what digital Marketing Channels, Sources, and/or Campaigns are bringing people to your website to then register for the event.

3.3 Marketo Measure Persons with Buyer Touchpoints (Touchpoint Validation)

Considering the Marketo Measure Person allows us to report on all touchpoints in a single report, it is the ideal report type to use when looking to validate your data. We want to ensure we’re not overlooking any touchpoints that may reveal where, for example, there is an issue in the configuration of your ‘Marketing Channels’ (see the support articles linked below for more information about configuring your ‘Marketing Channels’).

Essentially, the touchpoint data will reflect what’s been tracked by Marketo Measure and can be audited to ensure your configuration matches inputs based on things like: UTM parameter values, Referring Pages, or Campaign Types. If the touchpoint data doesn’t match your configuration, something most likely needs to be adjusted. Beyond the ‘Marketing Channel’ setup, you can look at touchpoint data to determine what touchpoints may need to be suppressed or segmented. It is recommended to audit your touchpoint data within a ‘Marketo Measure Persons and Buyer Touchpoints’ report at the end of each month or quarter if possible. This will ensure your attribution is as accurate as possible. The ‘Marketo Measure 101 | Leads/Contacts by Channel’ report available out-of-the-box is a great place to start. Include the following fields if they’re not already included to review some of the most crucial pieces of configuration:

BUYER ATTRIBUTION TOUCHPOINT (BAT)

Buyer Attribution Touchpoints (BATs) represent the relevant touchpoints of all the Contacts connected to the Opportunity (either via Opportunity Contact Roles or via a shared Account ID, depending on your settings). Unlike BTs (which are mainly connected to people) BATs can be associated with revenue. As such, you will use BATs to answer questions related to opportunities, primarily open Opportunities/Pipeline Revenue and closed won Opportunities/Deals/Revenue. A BAT is created via a Contact’s BT records as soon as an Opportunity is created under the same Account as the Contact (the BT is not converted into a BAT. The BT data is simply referenced to create an additional record - the BAT that then relates to the Opportunity).

The Buyer Attribution Touchpoint allows us to measure marketing’s impact deeper in the funnel. The depth of the funnel at which you want to measure can be represented by the various multi-touch attribution models.

Considering BATs primary relationship is with the Opportunity, they are used to answer questions such as:

The attribution models providing best insight into Opportunity-based metrics are:

W-Shaped - The ‘Pipeline Model’. Three milestone touchpoints are included in the W-Shaped model. In this model, the FT, LC, and OC touchpoints are each attributed 30% of the attribution credit. The remaining 10% is attributed equally to any intermediary touchpoints that occur between the three milestone touchpoints.

Full Path - The ‘Closed Won Model’. This model includes the four milestone touchpoints: FT, LC, OC and Closed. Each is given 22.5% of the Opportunity credit, and the remaining 10% is distributed equally among the intermediary touches.

This model essentially summarizes the journey of a closed won Deal which is typically synonymous with closed won Revenue/bookings.

When looking to measure marketing’s impact on closed won Deals or closed won Revenue, the Full Path Model is recommended.

Custom - Marketo Measure also offers a Custom Attribution model that allows users to choose which touchpoints or custom stages to include in their model. Additionally, users can control the percentage of attribution credit attributed to these touchpoints and stages. Depending on the setup of your custom model, it may be used most appropriately to measure either Opportunities and Pipeline OR, Deals and Closed Won Revenue. Keep this in mind when using it in your reporting.

Commonly, marketers need to know, “where are my Opportunities coming from?”. Similar to Lead level reporting, this question was historically answered with a single, one-dimensional value (Primary Campaign Source for example). However, we know that much more goes into the development of an Opportunity than a single touchpoint from a single Contact. There are typically several touchpoints from various channels and by multiple stakeholders that influence an Opportunity into creation. With Marketo Measure, we can surface all the touchpoints from an Account to best understand where an Opportunity came from. Beyond that however, we can continue to surface any touchpoint that occurred after the Opportunity was created and up to the point the Opportunity is closed. This allows us to not only take a multi-touch approach into understanding where an Opportunity came from, but also what influenced it to close and ultimately to represent closed won revenue. This gives insight into different questions such as, “what is marketing’s impact on influencing Deals to close?”, “what marketing is driving closed won Revenue?” and ultimately, “which of my marketing efforts are seeing the greatest ROI?”

RECOMMENDED REPORTS USING THE BUYER ATTRIBUTION TOUCHPOINT (BAT) recommended-reports-using-the-buyer-attribution-touchpoint

4.1 | New Opportunities by Marketing Channel

Summarizing your Opportunities’ Buyer Attribution Touchpoint data by the field ‘Marketing Channel’ is the highest-level view that represents what channels/tactics are influencing new Opportunities into creation. Structuring this report around a ‘Date Type’ = “Opportunity Created Date” ensures that we’re also summarizing the report based on when the Opportunity was actually created in your CRM. The touchpoints may have been from sometime prior, but they will still relate to the Opportunities that have been created within the defined Date Range and thus receive attribution credit as they are recognized as influencing the Opportunity.

4.2 | Deals by Marketing Channel

This report would essentially be the same as the first Buyer Attribution Touchpoint example (4.1) except the metric has now changed from open Opportunities to closed won Deals. The metric should always be what informs which attribution model to use. Considering we’re now looking at closed won Deals and their related BATs, we should use a model that represents the entire buyer’s journey (Deal). This ensures any marketing touch track during the buyer’s journey receives attribution credit:

REMINDER: It’s crucial to remember to filter for the specific Opportunities you want to include in BAT based reporting, especially when it comes ‘Open Opportunities and Pipeline Revenue’ vs. ‘Deals and Closed Won Revenue’. This is typically done via an ‘Opportunity Stage’ filter (the ‘Opportunity Won’ = true/false filter can also be very helpful here).