Measuring the Impact of Ops
Measuring the Impact of Ops
The shortest path to career growth is showing your impact. What's the best way to do that?
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Ironically, the teams responsible for measuring the work of others often struggle to measure their own impact.
The focus of many roles on the GTM team makes them easy to measure.
Demand Gen? How much qualified pipeline did you generate?
SDR? How many meetings did you set?
Field Marketing? How many badges did you scan? (Kidding… 😀)
CSM? What was your net revenue retention rate?
The work Operations teams do has an impact. This impact is often one step removed from the activity that generates the desired outcome, introducing variability that challenges measurement.
Your team routes the leads, but doesn't make the calls. Your team implemented the Marketing Automation system, but doesn't write the emails.
Taking control of how your team is measured is more important than Ops leaders realize. There are direct downstream implications, including:
The perception of your team, both in overall efficiency and contributions to objectives
Decisions made by your team on what work will get done and how it will get done - what gets measured gets managed
Variable compensation achievement for you and your team, which can impact the continuity of your team moving forward
Taking control of how your team is measured is a key skill. It's important to understand the effectiveness and impact of your efforts, especially when compensation or bonus is tied to performance.
The stakes are high, and it’s important to get them right. Many teams have just entered a new quarter, and the work you and your team will do over the next three months will have an impact on your business.
Will it be the right one?
Anyone in Operations knows how quickly timelines and priorities can change. As the saying goes, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
There are various measurement methods for Operations teams. I’ve highlighted some used in my career and recommendations on their effectiveness and structuring variable compensation.
Approach 1: Work Efficiency - how much work did you get done?
This is my least favorite method - it assumes all tasks are equal, or requires a lot of work on the front end to scope and size projects for proper measurement.
Tracking the completion rate of tasks by an Operations team works on and completes in a month or quarter is a great way to measure how “not strategic” the team is.
If most of your requests aren't similar in scope and accurately prioritized, this only measures your average level of busyness during the quarter.
This approach incentivizes bad behavior - you’ll always work on the task that can be completed quickly, regardless of its impact.
It reinforces the idea that the Marketing Operations team is primarily a support organization and doesn’t offer strategic value.
If you’re measured this way, I'd strongly recommend pushing for an alternative.
Variable compensation for this approach is simple - once you hit a completion threshold, your bonus kicks in and increases according to the percentage.
So, with a 60% threshold for example, if you get 55% done, you don’t get a bonus. If you get 66% done, you get a 66% bonus, and so on.
Approach 2: Project completion - did you get planned work done?
This is a common approach, as it’s usually the easiest to measure and aligns well with the maturity level of many Marketing Operations teams.
At the beginning of the quarter or year, you decide on specific projects that need to be completed. It’s best if they support broader initiatives or company goals (more on this later), but at least this approach has some strategy included in the decision making.
This method of measuring your work may seem ideal, as it ties to an overall strategy, but it doesn’t factor in measurable changes. It's not inherently quantifiable, other than a yes/no on project completion.
If you have compensation tied to project completion, it's beneficial to define project milestones and bonus percentages for completed parts.
I was the first Operations hire at a small startup, and almost everything I did was project-based because there weren’t any processes or systems when I started. My compensation was structured like this:
Project: Evaluate Marketing Automation Vendors, Purchase, and Implement the Tool
Milestone 1: Evaluate vendors and complete the purchase
Milestone 2: Basic implementation complete (65% paid out)
Milestone 3: Salesforce integration complete (75% paid out)
Milestone 4: Lead Nurture Campaign Live (85% paid out)
Milestone 5: Q3 Roadmap Defined (100% paid out)
I had to reach the second project milestone to qualify for the bonus, and each subsequent milestone added to the amount I'd receive.
An approach like this lets you structure the bonus to match the work and avoid an all-or-nothing situation.
Approach 3: Metrics - Did your work move the needle?
This approach is the opposite of Approach 2 and focuses on measurable changes in your GTM team's metrics.
Ops teams being measured on the same metrics as the rest of the team can be validating and help create a sense of “being in it together” with other teams, which is a positive.
I see the strategy behind this approach. I believe the line of thinking is:
“If the Ops team is measured on improving the MQL-SQL conversion rate, the bulk of their work should focus on projects that will help achieve that goal.”
That's a logical thought, but it raises some questions:
Does the Ops team know how and what they can do to improve the goal?
Can the Ops team make goal-impacting changes?
Will the team's changes affect the conversion rate, or are they relying on other teams to follow a new process or use a new tool?
The biggest caution when using specific metrics to measure an Operations team's performance is that the metric needs to be something the team or individual can influence independently. Because of the supporting role Operations teams play, it can be hard to find a suitable metric.
You need to look high-level (like CAC to LTV ratio, where Ops has multiple opportunities to influence it), or get granular. Anything else isn’t accurate.
It might be simple to say, “Ops teams should be able to influence speed to lead - they own the web form, the routing, the record creation in Salesforce, and the SDR alerts.” While all of these things may be true, there’s one major variable that the team cannot completely control, and that is the SDR.
Note: Early on, metrics goals are subjective. Without data, everything is just directional.
Ideally, you’d set a goal to build on over months and quarters. In month one, you adjust something to see its impact, establishing a baseline for future changes. In month two, if the change in month one resulted in a 1% increase, so in month 2, you’ll change two more things, aiming for a 2% increase. So, set a 2% goal.
There is some science to say that setting a slight stretch goal can be motivating and teams often push to achieve it, but don’t overdo it. It’s easy to put a 10% m/m increase in the spreadsheet, it’s an entirely different thing to achieve.
In terms of compensation, I’ve seen it directly tied to the metric, even aligning with other teams.
It starts at a baseline, then you get X% of your bonus based on the change in the specific metric.
Approach 4: Projects in support of a metric change + metric change - Did you do the right work to move the needle, and did it work?
A blend of approaches 2 and 3, this approach may be the closest to capturing the trifecta of Ops team measurement:
It acknowledges that Ops work is likely project-based
It acknowledges that the project should positively impact a specific metric
It includes a portion of the variable compensation tied to something the Ops team has much more control over (the work getting done) but also includes a connection to the change in the metric (a layer removed from Ops work, but still tied to it)
If you're measured this way, consider yourself lucky.
If you’re being comped on this, one idea could be:
75% of your bonus is paid if you complete the project
25% of your bonus paid if the metric change goal is achieved
I like this approach because it does three things:
It compensates you well for completing the work you control.
It motivates you to ensure that your work is focused on moving the metric in the right direction
You’re rewarded even more if your project impacts the metric as expected
Having a stake in the metric change also makes you more of a partner with the other team(s) trying to impact the metric.
What's the future of Ops team measurement?
I believe measuring Ops teams will become more nuanced and specific as technology and data allow. Mature teams may already use other approaches to demonstrate their impact on the business and in compensation conversations.
I wouldn’t recommend jumping straight to any of these ideas unless your Ops team and the broader organization are ready for it, but there are various measurement options to consider for the future.
1. Agility and Flexibility Metrics
Speed to Market: Time taken from concept to launch for new campaigns or responses to market changes.
Adaptation Index: A measure of how quickly and effectively a team can shift strategies in response to external changes, such as consumer trends or competitive actions.
2. Technology and Automation Utilization
Automation Impact Score: Evaluates the effectiveness of automation tools and technologies in improving efficiency and productivity, measured by time saved or increase in output.
Innovation Adoption Rate: Measures how quickly the team adopts and implements new technologies or marketing tools relative to industry benchmarks.
3. Data-Driven Decision Making
Data Utilization Score: Assesses the extent to which decisions are backed by data analysis, including the use of A/B testing, customer insights, and predictive analytics.
Insight Impact Factor: Measures the impact of insights gained from data analytics on campaign outcomes or strategic decisions.
4. Customer-Centric Metrics
Customer Engagement Score: Beyond traditional engagement metrics, this could involve depth of interaction, sentiment analysis, and customer lifecycle engagement.
Customer Journey Improvement Index: Quantifies improvements in the customer journey based on feedback loops, customer satisfaction surveys, and conversion rates at various stages.
While there are some interesting ideas here, these approaches should be a means to an end and would likely require ongoing maintenance to set up and manage, so be sure you know what you’re getting into before you sign up for one of these methods.
Wrap Up
In my experience, many Operations teams often don't take charge of how they will be measured, which I think is shortsighted.
Be proactive in engaging with your leaders and stakeholders to define how they'll evaluate the performance of your team and individual performance, and bring ideas to the table.
From what I have seen, many leaders are unsure how to measure Ops and are open to discussing options and recommendations.
If you’re being measured using the first 3 methods, know their pros and cons, and push for a more mature method. Approach 4 is great if you can get it, but moving from #1 or #2 or #3 would help your team be more strategic.