Every Monday morning, your VP of Marketing asks: "How's product marketing performing?"
You pull up a dashboard showing: blog traffic, social engagement, content downloads, webinar registrations.
Your VP nods, says "looks good," and moves on.
But here's the question nobody asks: Are any of those metrics correlated with revenue?
Most PMM dashboards track activity, not business impact. You're reporting on outputs (blog posts published, campaigns launched) instead of outcomes (pipeline generated, deals closed, revenue influenced).
After building PMM dashboards at three companies, here's what you should actually measure—and how to build a dashboard that shows business impact, not just activity.
The PMM Metrics Hierarchy
Not all metrics matter equally. Organize them into three tiers, where tier one gets most of your attention and tier three barely makes it into leadership conversations.
Tier 1: Business Impact Metrics (What Leadership Cares About)
These metrics directly impact revenue and tie to strategic priorities. For revenue impact, track pipeline influenced by PMM activities, win rate in deals where PMM was involved, sales cycle length to see if your content accelerates deals, and product adoption rate for new launches. These numbers tell the CFO whether product marketing is worth the investment.
For strategic priorities, measure market awareness through brand lift and analyst coverage, competitive win rate to show PMM positioning impact, and customer expansion driven by your messaging for upsell and cross-sell. These connect product marketing to the CEO's board presentation.
Report these monthly to leadership. They're the metrics that determine whether PMM gets more budget or gets questioned during the next planning cycle.
Tier 2: Program Performance Metrics (What PMM Owns)
These metrics show whether your programs are working. For launch effectiveness, track launch milestone hit rate, sales enablement completion rate, and time to first deal post-launch. These tell you if your launch process needs fixing.
Content effectiveness metrics include pipeline sourced from content, conversion rate by asset type, and sales usage rate of PMM content. If sales isn't using what you're creating, you're wasting time building things nobody wants.
Competitive effectiveness covers battle card usage in deals, competitive win rate trends, and sales confidence in competitive situations. Low usage or declining confidence means your competitive intel isn't helping reps win.
Report these weekly or biweekly to your team and stakeholders. They're leading indicators that predict whether your tier one metrics will look good next month.
Tier 3: Activity Metrics (Inputs, Not Outcomes)
These measure what you did, not what it achieved. Content production includes blog posts published, case studies created, and battle cards updated. Campaign execution tracks webinars hosted, events attended, and email campaigns sent.
These are inputs that should lead to tier one and tier two outcomes. Track them for your own planning, but don't feature them in leadership dashboards. Your VP doesn't care that you published fifteen blog posts—they care whether those posts generated pipeline.
The Core PMM Dashboard (What to Track Weekly)
Build a dashboard with 4 sections: Launches, Competitive, Content, and Sales Enablement.
Section 1: Product Launch Performance
Launch milestone hit rate measures the percentage of launches that hit key milestones on time—messaging complete, sales trained, content ready. Target eighty-five percent or better of launches hitting all milestones. Late launches delay revenue, and this metric tells you whether PMM is the bottleneck or if delays are coming from elsewhere. Track it in your project management tool like Asana, Monday, or a custom tracker.
Time to first deal post-launch counts the days from launch to the first closed deal featuring the new product or feature. Aim for under thirty days for major launches, under sixty days for new products. This measures how quickly sales can sell new products, which is the ultimate test of enablement effectiveness. Track it in your CRM by tagging deals with launch-related products.
Product adoption rate shows the percentage of customers using newly launched features within ninety days. Targets depend on feature criticality—shoot for thirty percent or higher for major features, ten percent or higher for niche capabilities. Launch success isn't just sales, it's adoption. If nobody uses what you launched, you didn't actually ship value. Track this in product analytics tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel, or internal tools.
Sales enablement completion rate tracks the percentage of sales reps who completed launch training and certification. Target ninety percent or better completion within two weeks of launch. Reps can't sell what they don't understand, and incomplete enablement means you're launching with half your sales force unprepared. Track this in your LMS or manually if you don't have learning management software yet.
Section 2: Competitive Performance
Competitive win rate measures the percentage of deals won when competing against specific competitors. Don't fixate on a static number—the competitive landscape changes constantly. Instead, target an improving trend over time. This metric tells you whether your PMM positioning and battle cards are actually working or just taking up space in the sales enablement portal. Track it in your CRM by tagging deals with competitors identified during the sales process.
Battle card usage rate shows the percentage of competitive deals where sales actually used your battle cards. Target seventy percent or higher usage in competitive deals. If sales isn't using your battle cards, they're not helpful—no matter how much time you spent creating them. Track this through sales surveys or CRM activity tracking if your system captures when reps access enablement content.
Sales confidence in competitive situations captures the sales team's confidence score when facing specific competitors on a one to ten scale. Target a seven or higher average score. This is subjective but important—confident reps close more deals, and if your team is afraid to compete against certain vendors, you have a positioning problem. Track this through monthly sales surveys with three simple questions about which competitors they're seeing and how confident they feel.
Section 3: Content Performance
Pipeline sourced from content tracks pipeline directly attributed to PMM content like blogs, case studies, and whitepapers. Target depends on company size, but aim for ten to twenty percent of total pipeline influenced by your content. This ties content creation to revenue instead of vanity metrics like impressions or downloads. Track it in your CRM with UTM parameters and multi-touch attribution so you can see which pieces actually drive deals.
Conversion rate by asset type measures the percentage of people who download or view content and then convert through trial signup, demo request, or becoming a sales qualified lead. Targets vary by content type—case studies should convert five to ten percent, whitepapers two to five percent, blog posts under one percent. This shows which content types drive action versus which just generate downloads that go nowhere. Track it through marketing automation platforms like HubSpot or Marketo connected to your CRM.
Sales usage of PMM content shows the percentage of active deals where sales shares PMM content like decks, one-pagers, or case studies. Target sixty percent or higher of deals using your content. Content only helps if sales actually uses it, and low usage means you're creating things that don't solve real sales problems. Track this through CRM activity tracking or content analytics tools like Highspot or Seismic.
Section 4: Sales Enablement Effectiveness
Time to first deal for new reps measures days from hire to first closed deal for new sales reps. Targets vary by segment—under ninety days for enterprise, under sixty days for mid-market, under thirty days for SMB. PMM onboarding and enablement should accelerate ramp time, and if new reps take forever to close their first deal, your enablement isn't working. Track this by combining CRM data with HR data on hire dates.
Pitch deck usage and win rate tracks two things: percentage of deals using the PMM pitch deck, and win rate for those deals versus deals without the deck. Target eighty percent or higher usage with a ten to twenty percent higher win rate when reps use the deck. This validates that PMM sales materials actually improve outcomes instead of just cluttering the shared drive. Track it through CRM activity tracking combined with win/loss analysis.
Messaging consistency score measures how consistently sales uses approved messaging by auditing discovery calls and demos. Target seventy percent or higher consistency with core value props. Inconsistent messaging confuses buyers and reduces win rates because different reps are telling different stories about what you do and why it matters. Track this through call recording analysis tools like Gong or Chorus, or through manual audits if you don't have conversation intelligence software yet.
How to Build the Dashboard
You have three options for building your metrics dashboard, each with tradeoffs.
Option one is manual tracking with Google Sheets. Pull data monthly from your CRM, analytics tools, and surveys. Build charts and graphs yourself. Share via link or PDF. This approach is free, flexible, and gives you full control over what you show and how. The downside is that it's time-consuming and requires manual updates every time you want fresh data.
Option two is using a BI tool like Looker, Tableau, or Mode. Connect these to your CRM, analytics platforms, and product data. Build automated dashboards that refresh on their own. The upside is real-time updates and professional visualizations that impress leadership. The downside is cost and the reality that you'll need data team support to set it up and maintain it.
Option three is using all-in-one dashboards built into your marketing and sales stack like HubSpot or Salesforce. These are integrated and easy to set up since the data already lives there. But you'll hit limitations quickly—limited customization and missing any data that doesn't live in your CRM, like product analytics or survey results.
The recommended approach is starting with Google Sheets and migrating to a BI tool when you have dedicated ops support. Don't wait for perfect infrastructure before you start measuring.
The Monthly Business Review Format
Don't just share the dashboard. Tell the story behind the numbers.
Structure your monthly PMM review with six slides over thirty minutes with VP Marketing, Sales Leadership, and Product Leadership in the room.
Slide one is your executive summary. Open with three key wins this month—specific achievements with numbers attached. Follow with two areas of concern where you need help or things aren't working. Close with one ask or decision needed from leadership. This format ensures you lead with wins but don't hide problems.
Slide two covers launch performance. Show launches completed versus planned. Share time to first deal trends to demonstrate whether launches are gaining traction. Highlight product adoption wins where customers are actually using what you shipped.
Slide three presents competitive performance. Break down win rate by competitor to show where you're winning and losing. Display battle card usage trends to prove sales is actually using your competitive intel. Share the sales confidence score to surface where reps feel strong versus where they need help.
Slide four demonstrates content impact. Show pipeline sourced or influenced by your content. Feature top-performing assets that are driving results. Identify content gaps where you're losing deals because you don't have the right materials.
Slide five covers sales enablement. Report enablement completion rates to show whether reps are actually getting trained. Synthesize sales feedback themes from surveys and conversations. Preview upcoming training to show you're responsive to what they need.
Slide six outlines next month's priorities. Preview upcoming launches so sales knows what's coming. Detail enablement initiatives you're planning. Share the content roadmap so stakeholders can give input before you build the wrong thing.
Common PMM Metrics Mistakes
Mistake 1: Reporting only on activity
You track blog posts published, webinars held, content pieces created.
Problem: Leadership doesn't care about outputs if they don't impact business.
Fix: Lead with business impact (pipeline, win rate), support with activity metrics.
Mistake 2: Measuring everything
Your dashboard has 50 metrics across 10 tabs.
Problem: Nobody reads it, and you can't see signal through noise.
Fix: 10-15 metrics max. Everything else is supporting detail.
Mistake 3: No baseline or targets
You report: "Competitive win rate is 62%."
Problem: Is that good? Improving? Nobody knows.
Fix: Show trends (vs. last month/quarter) and targets.
Mistake 4: Attribution confusion
You claim credit for all pipeline where PMM touched the deal.
Problem: Inflated numbers lose credibility.
Fix: Use clear attribution models (first-touch, last-touch, multi-touch). Be transparent about methodology.
Mistake 5: Dashboard exists in a vacuum
You build a dashboard, share it, but don't act on insights.
Problem: Metrics without action are just numbers.
Fix: Every metric should have an owner and action plan when off-target.
The Quick Start: Build This Dashboard in 2 Hours
Week one is setup. Tag deals in your CRM with PMM campaigns, competitors, and content used so you can start tracking attribution. Set up UTM parameters for all PMM content so you know what's driving traffic and conversions. Create a monthly sales survey with three questions: confidence level by competitor, which content they're using, and competitive feedback on what's working or not.
Week two is pulling baseline data. Export the last three months of deal data from your CRM. Calculate baseline win rates, average sales cycle length, and content usage patterns. Survey sales on current confidence levels and pain points so you have a starting benchmark.
Week three is building dashboard version one. Create a Google Sheet with ten core metrics: pipeline influenced, win rate, launch milestone hit rate, time to first deal for new launches, competitive win rate, battle card usage, content conversion rate, sales enablement completion, time to first deal for new reps, and sales content usage. Add trend charts showing the last three months of data. Set targets for each metric based on your baseline and where you need to be.
Week four is sharing and iterating. Present the dashboard to stakeholders. Get feedback on what's useful versus noise. Iterate based on what questions leadership actually asks instead of what you think they want to see.
Timeline: four weeks from zero to a functional dashboard that shows business impact.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Most PMMs avoid measurement because they're afraid the metrics won't look good.
"We're doing so much that's hard to measure!" (Translation: "I'm not sure our work drives revenue.")
The reality: If you can't measure impact, you can't prove value. And if you can't prove value, your budget will get cut when the next downturn hits.
The best PMMs obsess over measurement for four reasons. First, it shows business impact through pipeline, revenue, and win rate instead of vague claims about brand awareness. Second, it identifies what's working so you can double down and what's not so you can kill it. Third, it builds credibility with sales and leadership because you're speaking their language of numbers and outcomes. Fourth, it protects PMM budget when times get tough because you can prove your value.
Start with imperfect measurement. Improve over time. But don't avoid measurement because it's hard.
The companies where PMM has a seat at the table are the ones where PMM can clearly articulate business impact with data.
Build the dashboard. Track the metrics. Tell the story.
That's how product marketing becomes strategic, not just tactical.