1.
KPI Myopia: Why Do
Marketers Focus On
Conversions And Ignore
Revenue?
SEMETRICAL
January 2021

2.
WHO WE ARE
A Little Bit About Us
Rory possesses a track record in delivering SEO growth that supports multi-
million-pound revenues; Rory regularly attends digital marketing events
across the globe to discuss SEO, user intent and content marketing strategy.
Rory has worked with Reach PLC, American Express, Arkadin, Flexioffices,
DueDil and Cloudflare.
Josh Hatfield
Senior Growth Hacker
Rory Hope
Head of Inbound Marketing
Former Paid Media Manager working in lead gen environments delivering results
for large B2C and B2B clients with aggressive performance targets.
Our agencies experience of KPI Myopia in these environments helped to shape
the development of S.A.M. Semetricals solution to Myopia.
He is currently the lead developer for S.A.M and a number of other tools
.

3.
We’ve Won
Multiple Awards
UK BIDDABLE AWARDS WINNER:
Best Small Biddable Agency
EU CONTENT AWARDS WINNER:
Best Integrated Content Campaign
UK SEARCH AWARDS WINNER:
Best Small SEO Agency
EU SEARCH AWARDS WINNER:
Best Use of SEO - B2B
EU SEARCH AWARDS WINNER
Best Small SEO Agency &
Best Small PPC Agency
2020
2019
2017
AWARDS

4.
Topics of discovery
Listener
Understand how ‘S.A.M Technology’ or ‘Systematic Attribution Marketing Technology’
can help your business to:
1. Harness KPI myopia for good
2. Focus on actual pipeline metrics
3. Drive actions which improve ROI & profit.
SEMETRICAL

5.
Does your organisation have any of
these symptoms?
SEMETRICAL
Defensive
Marketeers
Irritated clients
or bosses
Weak sales
pipelines
Spiralling
therapy bills

6.
WHAT CAN CAUSE KPI
MYOPIA?
WHAT CAN CAUSE KPI
MYOPIA?

7.
What can cause KPI Myopia?
SEMETRICAL
1. Teams cannot see
offline behaviour
2. Teams act on metrics
they can see and ignore
those they can’t
3. Algorithms
exacerbate KPI Myopia

8.
Teams cannot see offsite behaviour
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
Unclear link between digital actions and ROI in the lead generation environment, as revenue is generated
weeks, or months after the lead is generated.
Sales are progressed by different departments and tracked and reported on by different systems and
stakeholders.
Someone in the marketing department of a B2B firm may never even see actual revenue data, despite
playing a key role in the generation of those leads.

9.
How does a lead generation lead to a
lack of visibility?
SEMETRICAL
Visitor Enters Site
Visitor Enters Site
Browse
Browse
Form
Submission
Online
Purchase
On-Site Behaviour Tracked In GA Off-Site Behaviour Tracked In CRM
Lead Scoring
Sales
Qualification
Face To
Face Pitch
Sale
Marketers Have Full Visibility
Marketers Can Optimise + Influence
Rich Data Is Available
Marketers Have Limited Visibility
Data Available Is Sparse And Low Quality
Marketers Cannot Optimise + Influence
E-Comm Env
Lead Gen Env

10.
S.A.M Technology
SEMETRICAL
The cure for KPI Myopia…

11.
Teams do not want to be accountable
for results they cannot see
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
Data that is visible is often sparse and poor quality due to single last click revenue figure per channel,
rather than detailed breakdown of user journey in ecommerce marketing,
The insights digital teams can take from this data is limited and so is their ability to take meaningful
actions.
No sane manager wants to be held accountable for results they can’t measure or influence.

12.
Which environment would you rather be
accountable in?
SEMETRICAL
Things That
You Can See
& Control
Things You Can’t
Things You
Can See &
Control
Things You Can’t
E-Commerce Environment Lead Generation Environment

13.
Teams end up focused on the metrics
they can see
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
Efforts are made to associate “success” for digital teams with the metrics they have full visibility on and
have the most control over.
Communication of success, failure and opportunities with other teams and stakeholders is framed in
terms of these metrics.
Everyone accepts that form subs/traffic = “Success” and everyone focuses on these metrics

14.
Teams act on metrics they can see and
ignore those they can’t
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
Form submissions are now the main KPI and the main focus of digital teams (both human and robotic)
Clients and bosses are happy working towards form submissions and the agencies and in-house teams
responsible for this are happy to perpetuate this narrative.

15.
Algorithms exacerbate KPI myopia
SEMETRICAL
Over time it becomes increasingly harder (and less desirable) to think outside of
these metrics and re-educate others to focus on the bigger picture…
Teams are now using metrics which ignore the majority of the customer journey!
So too are our “intelligent” tools

16.
Algorithms exacerbate KPI myopia
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
The increasing empowerment of algorithms in marketing teams exacerbates KPI Myopia
Algorithms have no concept of your organization & its goals. They will optimize towards one specific KPI
and will do so blindly at the expense of everything else.
Algorithms control more marketing responsibilities each year. This means over time, more and more of the
marketing work is then conducted with a blind focus on form submissions.

17.
Myopia sets in & mistakes are made
SEMETRICAL
Clients and bosses are happy working towards form submissions
and the agencies and in-house teams responsible for this are happy
to perpetuate this narrative…
Our brains and the actions have now become myopic!

18.
What can myopic mistakes look like?
SEMETRICAL

19.
WHAT CAN MYOPIC
MISTAKES LOOK LIKE?
WHAT CAN MYOPIC
MISTAKES LOOK LIKE?

20.
Assuming that a lower CPA always
means a higher ROI
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
3-4 month sales pipeline was focusing on generating web form submissions. There was no visibility over
revenue generated from digital activity.
Facebook saw a lower cost per lead (last click – GA) vs. paid search
Significant budget allocated to Facebook as a result under the assumption that this would increase
revenue and that more form submissions was always a good thing.

21.
Assuming that a lower CPA always
means a higher ROI
SEMETRICAL
Later investigation revealed that Paid Search was a significantly
more profitable channel on an ROI basis…
Facebook leads are rarely converted to Sales and the decision which
looked beneficial at first glance turned out to be harmful!

22.
S.A.M feature > Revenue by
source/medium report
SEMETRICAL
One of many reports
This view shows revenue and lead
quality by source/medium
First touch/ last touch/ linear touch
attribution models provided
Custom reports available on request!

23.
Focusing on form subs and ignoring lead
quality
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
A growth team for a company with a 6 month sales pipeline was focused on web form submission
A significant amount of marketing spend was allocated to Google Smart Display campaigns (ml to the
nth degree)
This decision was made on the basis of the high volume of forms submissions generated

24.
Focusing on lead quantity and ignoring
quality
SEMETRICAL
Later investigation revealed that many of the leads generated were
from bots and the true cost per lead was much higher…
Form submission metrics failed to reflect lead quality and because
the data needed to prove this was not visible, money, time &
influence were wasted!

25.
S.A.M feature > Spam report & GA
audiences
SEMETRICAL
• Create audiences in GA containing low quality leads
• Use these audiences as negative filters in your Google Ads
campaign
• Create goals in GA to track valid leads
• Uses these goals to power Google Ads Smart Bidding
• Feed your algos the right data!
• New Feature Underway: Do the same with other platforms
like Facebook

26.
Making big investments off on-site
metrics
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
A digital team for a B2B company was focused on form submission generation. Digital activity was
established and measured against this.
After positive on-site performance, significant budget was invested into digital activity
A couple of months later the sales team began to complain about the quality of leads.
4. Eventually after investigation it was discovered that the majority of leads generated were either spam or
from users without purchase intent.

27.
Don’t wait until things go wrong before
sorting your analytics setup
SEMETRICAL
• Teams tried to pull source/medium/campaign data into CRM form
submissions
• However, team lacked technical expertise and the integration
floundered
• The resources required had already been allocated elsewhere
• The insights required where never surfaced
• Activity goes on
• At this point stakeholder expectations were not met, the growth
strategy was cancelled, and the marketing team was re-structured.

28.
S.A.M feature > It’s a managed service
SEMETRICAL
• SAM makes CRM -> GA integrations easy
• We will handle the tracking setup and integration of your CRM
system with your GA account
• Our experts will also help you identify valuable CRM data and
potential use cases for your business
• We will build you a tailored dashboard and can guide your
channel teams on how to best use the data within GA + your CRM

29.
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT
KPI MYOPIA?
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT
KPI MYOPIA?

30.
What can we do about KPI myopia?
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
Organisational cultures and structures do not change overnight and the time required to do so is in jarring
opposition with the expectations of immediate results
Algorithms are here to stay, processes are never perfect and humans are always going to be human
Why not learn to love the bomb. Harness this myopia for your own good!

31.
What can we do about KPI myopia?
SEMETRICAL
1.
2.
3.
Get backend metrics (revenue/lead score etc) into the analytics platforms digital teams use (e.g. Google
Analytics)
Redefine “Success” around these new metrics but maintain existing processes
Take actions which actually lead to value generation

32.
What can we do about KPI Myopia?
SEMETRICAL
The cure for KPI Myopia…

33.
Call Us:
020 3198 9963
Email Us:
rh@semetrical.com
Follow Us:
Facebook.com/semetrical
twitter.com/semetrical
Get in touch if you have
any questions, comments
or feedback.
GET IN TOUCH
ANY QUESTIONS?