Revenue Performance Management (RPM) Benchmark Report

Q1 2013
Gleansight
Revenue Performance Management
Business marketing has never been easy, but at least it used to be
Content simple: the job was to find good leads and hand them over to sales.
Part 1: Topic Overview Today, marketers stay involved with potential buyers throughout the
Part 2: Reasons to Implement purchase process and beyond. The main reason for the change is
Part 3: Value Drivers that buyers themselves now control the flow of information, using
Part 4: Challenges the Internet to research potential vendors on company sites, search
Part 5: Performance Metrics
engines, and social networks. Marketers, not sales people, are
Part 6: Success Story
Part 7: Vendor Landscape primarily responsible for managing these channels and using them
to build successful relationships with prospects and customers.
Sidebars
Survey Stats
Benchmark KPIs
Core Technologies
Gleanster Numbers
Vendor Quick Reference Guide

This broader scope of involvement has been accompanied by higher investment in
marketing technology, greater demands for proof of the value created by marketing
investments, and closer integration between marketing and sales activities.
Revenue Performance Management systems are designed to meet the needs of
this new, more demanding environment.

Specifically, RPM systems provide a unified view of the entire revenue cycle, from
initial lead generation through customer growth and retention. This distinguishes
them from earlier marketing automation products, which were primarily limited to
lead acquisition and nurture. The unified view lets marketers measure the net
impact of each marketing program on final results. They can use this information
to calculate the value of marketing investments and ultimately to optimize spending
across both marketing and sales departments.

Although RPM is a logical next step in marketing systems, its success is not
guaranteed. Marketers need to build complex new customer tracking models, work
more closely with sales, and correctly interpret ambiguous results. This requires
Note: This document is intended for individual new skills, management support, and disciplined execution. But the rewards – more
use. Electronic distribution via email or by
posting on a personal website is in violation of effective marketing and a clear picture of marketing’s contribution to the enterprise –
the terms of use.
are worth the effort.

Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited.

Gleansight: Revenue Performance Management 2

Survey Stats
The research findings featured in
Part 1: Topic Overview
this Gleansight benchmark report
are derived from the Q4 2012 Revenue Performance Management (RPM) can be defined as the
Gleanster survey on Revenue process of tracking and optimizing all marketing and sales contacts
Performance Management. through the customer life cycle. The term was originally introduced by
• Total survey responses: 219 leading marketing automation vendors Eloqua and Marketo, and has
since been used by some other marketing automation providers.
• Qualified survey responses: 178

The system features specifically associated with RPM include:
• Company size: <$1M (5%); $1
- 10M (22%); $10-100M (36%);
• Deep integration with CRM data. A of when an individual moved from
$100M - $1B (28%); >$1B (11%)
typical marketing automation system one RPM stage to another. These
captures profile data about leads movements will be correlated with
• Geography: North America
(90%); Europe (8%); Other (2%) and contacts, such as name and marketing and sales treatments
email address. RPM also captures to assess the impact of those
• Industries: Software and interaction history, such as campaign treatments.
Technology (33%); Business membership and messages sent.
Services (15%); Financial This is used to build a complete • Enhanced reporting and analytics
Services (9%); Education (5%); picture of marketing and sales to measure the impact of
Entertainment (4%); Other (34%) treatments. marketing and sales treatments.
Specific enhancements may include
• Job levels: C-level (10%); SVP/ • Tracking customer stages through more sophisticated testing, better
VP (31%); Director (22%); the entire relationship with measurement of incremental
Manager & Staff (37%) the company. Compared with a impact of treatment changes,
traditional sales funnel, the RPM advanced attribution that shares
stages begin earlier (with the first credit among multiple treatments,
marketing interactions) and extend and value calculations to calculate
Sample survey respondents:
further (past the full contribution

“
Director, Logitech the initial sale of marketing
to additional RPM systems investments. RPM
Manager, EMC purchases and systems also provide
provide a unified
Director, Comcast service). The dashboards and
RPM model may view of the entire forecasting to project
VP of Marketing, Cardinal Health also include revenue cycle, the size and timing of
stages for people from initial lead revenues expected
Manager, Intertek
who fall off from the current set
VP of Marketing, Sony the purchase generation through of prospects and
path, such as customer growth customers. This
Manager, Success Factors
prospects with and retention.” improved forecasting
CMO, Sesame Software no immediate is sometimes
purchase intent considered almost as
Director, Aptara and lapsed customers. important as optimizing the marketing
and sales programs.
SVP, Ez Systems • A history database that stores
snapshots of each relationship The broader scope of the RPM
over time. This is different from database, compared with traditional
standard marketing automation and marketing automation databases, is the
Note: This document is intended for individual sales databases, which keep only key to enabling marketers to use the
posting on a personal website is in violation of
current data about each customer. system to optimize treatments across
the terms of use. The history database allows analysis the entire customer relationship. RPM



systems may also provide additional Sales access to the RPM database is
execution capabilities, such as social probably the most important execution
Benchmark KPIs media messaging and sales access feature for RPM, since optimized
Gleanster uses 2-3 key performance to marketing automation features and treatments often require closer
indicators (KPIs) to distinguish “Top
data. These are valuable features but coordination of sales and marketing
Performers” from all other companies
(“Everyone Else”) within a given data
not specifically required for RPM itself. activities.
set, thereby establishing a basis
for benchmarking best practices.
By definition, Top Performers are
comprised of the top quartile of
qualified survey respondents (QSRs).

The KPIs used for distinguishing
Top Performers focus on
performance metrics that speak
to year-over-year improvement in
relevant, measurable areas. Not
all KPIs are weighted equally.

The KPIs used for this Gleansight are:

• Year-over-year increase in revenue

• Increase in customer
acquisition rate

• Volume of marketing qualified leads

To learn more about Gleanster’s
research methodology,
please click here or email
research@gleanster.com.

Note: This document is intended for individual
the terms of use.



Part 2: Reasons to Implement
Revenue Performance Management solves one of marketers oldest
challenges: proving the value of their efforts. The challenge has existed
because, until recently, it was often impossible to know which customers
had received which marketing treatments. Online marketing methods
largely solve that problem because they track interactions with each
individual. For outbound treatments, such as email, the system keeps a
record of each recipient and how she responded. For inbound treatments,
such as banner ads or social media posts, the system can’t identify
everyone who saw the message but does capture the messages seen by
responders. This information can be combined with data from the CRM
system about sales treatments and purchases, also tied to individuals.
The resulting database provides a foundation for testing and analysis
to estimate the ultimate revenue impact of each marketing effort.

But RPM does more than simply achieve more refined goals, such as
measure the value of marketing efforts. improving lead quality or increasing
RPM systems break the buying process penetration of targeted customer
into stages and track customers’ segments.
movement through those stages. This
allows marketers to identify bottlenecks The process model also allows RPM
in the process, determine which stages systems to estimate future revenue
are affected by specific marketing more precisely, by projecting movement
programs, and calculate the cost of of current customers and prospects
moving customers from one stage to through remaining process stages.
the next. Marketers can then start These projections rely on historical data
to optimize their efforts by focusing that shows how many people move
on poorly-performing stages and by from each stage to the next and how
moving funds to the most effective long these movements take. They also
programs within each stage. Depending take into account delays when some
on business goals, this optimization people move into holding stages such
can either create more revenue with as nurture programs. The resulting
the same marketing budget or allow a projections show anticipated results
smaller budget to generate the same by time period, giving marketers a
revenue. The same methods can also clear picture of expected over- or

58%38% 65% 77%
**

Most
Compelling
Reasons to
Implement*
More insight into marketing Measuring marketing ROI Increase revenue
Note: This document is intended for individual and sales activities
the terms of use. * *According to Top Performers, based on 178 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q3 2011 Gleanster survey
According to Top Performers, based on 135 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q4 2012 survey on RPM.
**According to Everyone Else shown only when aa notabledisparity occurs relative to Top Performers
** According to Everyone Else, shown only when notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers



under-production and allowing other prospect. Although marketers still need
departments to plan for future volumes. to check for long-term impacts as well,
Core Technologies Reports that compare actual to expected stage movements provide an alternative
performance also give a clear picture measure for identifying the most
The basic components and core
of trends in results, showing whether productive marketing expenditures.
capabilities required for a marketing
marketing programs are becoming more
automation system include: Measure marketing ROI. RPM systems
or less effective. Some RPM systems
go even further to show the expected provide a repository for marketing
Outbound email. Users must
be able to create templates to results from scenarios such as adding program costs as well as results.
generate personalized emails from or removing marketing programs or These can be combined in Return on
the system database. They must Investment calculations to show the
also be able to import email lists changes in program effectiveness.
relative performance of each marketing
from trade shows, print advertising,
CRM and other sources. Emails Increase Revenue. RPM systems expense. Accurate ROI calculations
must contain trackable links to enable marketers to increase revenue require measuring the incremental
system-generated landing pages. without adding more budget. For impact of each program. This is difficult,
each marketing program, the system since some responses would often have
Social media. Users can post content captures both immediate impact, such been received through another program
to social media, track social media-
as response rates, and long-term or channel if the original program had
generated traffic, help recipients share
impact on revenue. The long-term view not existed.
content to their own social media
is critical because short term results
accounts, and monitor social media The best way to measure incremental
conversations. More sophisticated can be misleading: some promotions
may increase response but only add impact is formal split testing, which
features include forms and personalized
non-buyers; in extreme cases, a divides a set of customers into two
ads within social platforms, using
high-responding promotion may actually similar groups, includes only one
social sign-on to capture more data,
and building more detailed profiles reduce future revenue by annoying group in the program being tested, and
based on activities, consumption, prospects or attracting the wrong types compares the two groups’ results. Any
connections and influence. of people. difference in performance is attributed
to the test program. RPM systems
Landing pages and Web forms. Users In practice, it can be difficult to directly include features to support this sort of
must be able to create Web forms and measure the revenue impact of specific testing, although it can still be difficult to
landing pages that can capture leads marketing programs because many execute and track. At most companies,
from system-generated emails and other factors affect the final result. the amount of testing is limited by the
other sources. Forms are designed to RPM systems address this difficulty number of prospects available: test
collect prospect information and marry by letting marketers measure the groups must be large enough to produce
this with cross -channel behavioral impact of the programs on movements statistically significant results. Tests are
response patterns allowing the
from one stage to another within the also limited by the amount of staff effort
organization to identify which prospects
larger process. These movements are available to create and analyze them
are ready to talk to sales. These pages
more easily tied to specific marketing
are hosted by the marketing automation More insight into marketing and
system and post data directly to the programs because they occur soon
after the program touches an individual sales activities. The history databases
marketing automation database.
that RPM systems use to track customer

42% 63% 42% 46%
**

Compelling
Reasons to
Implement*
Unified view of marketing Optimize marketing spend Better alignment
Note: This document is intended for individual
and sales pipeline across channels with sales
posting on a personal website is in violation of * According to Top Performers, based on 135 Qualified Survey Responses toto the Q4 2012 survey on RPM.
* According to Top Performers, based on 178 Qualified Survey Responses the Q3 2011 Gleanster survey
the terms of use. **According to Everyone Else shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers
** According to Everyone Else, shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers


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