Marketing OKRs: How to Stay Focused and Hit Your Targets

Marketers in this competitive and ever-changing landscape have got to stay focused.

With so much going on, it’s all too easy going off on a tangent… but not when solid and effective marketing OKRs are in place.

In this post, we’ll cover what OKRs in marketing look like, why they’re beneficial (/absolutely essential), and how to set them to make sure you and your team are on the right track to success.

What are marketing OKRs?

A marketing OKR is a goal-setting framework that helps marketing teams focus on what matters. Marketing OKRs are made up of two parts – O + KR:

• Objective: The ambitious, qualitative goal you want to achieve (eg. increase brand awareness)
• Key results: Measurable metrics that track progress towards the objective (eg. increase website traffic by 20%)

Marketing OKR examples

Okay, so now for some examples of digital marketing OKRs to give you a clear idea of what we’re talking about:

Objective 1: Increase brand awareness

• Key result: Grow social media followers by 15%
• Key result: Secure 2 media mentions in relevant publications

Objective 2: Improve lead generation

• Key result: Increase website conversion rate by 10%
• Key result: Reduce cost-per-lead by 5%

Objective 3: Boost customer engagement

• Key result: Increase email open rate by 3%
• Key result: Achieve a 90% satisfaction rating in customer surveys

Benefits of marketing OKRs in your strategy

By incorporating marketing OKRs in your marketing strategy and marketing plan, you’ll see a bunch of benefits, including:

1. Team alignment and focus: OKRs make sure your marketing efforts directly contribute to the company’s overall goals, ensuring everyone’s working towards the same goals.
2. Improved transparency: Because OKRs are clear and measurable, they foster transparency across the team and leadership.
3. Prioritization and efficiency: By detailing what truly matters to your business, OKRs help prioritize tasks and allocate your team’s resources efficiently.
4. Data-driven decisions: Measurable key results allow you to track progress, identify what’s working (and what’s not), and adjust your strategy based on data.
5. Stretch goals and motivation: Ambitious goals and objectives can inspire teams and drive innovation, motivation and – hopefully – results.

How to set OKRs for marketing

If you want effective marketing OKRs, you’re going to have to be strategic about it. Here’s a breakdown of the steps to get you started:

1) Determine organizational goals and OKRs

Start by understanding your company’s overall objectives. What are the big picture goals for growth, revenue, or brand recognition? These will guide your marketing efforts and lay the foundation for your OKRs.

2) Funnel it down to marketing

Now, it’s time to translate those organizational OKRs into marketing-specific objectives. How can your marketing team contribute to achieving those broader goals?

Think about the specific marketing channels you can use, and how to use them. Team that with thorough keyword research, audience analysis, and industry benchmarking? You’ll be in good hands.

3) Analyze your competitors’ strategies

Here’s something that we will forever be happy to scream from the rooftops…

🔊 You can’t be competitive, without knowing what your competitors are up to. 🔊

And to know what your competitors are up to with their marketing strategies, you need to run a competitor analysis.

With Similarweb data, you can reveal the channels your competitors are using, the pages or campaigns they’re promoting, the keywords they’re targeting, the ad copy they’re A/B testing, and more. This will help you understand what resonates with your shared target audience, but it will also identify opportunities to differentiate yourself.

Here, our data shows the traffic sources for TechCrunch and its competitors via marketing channels.

4) Benchmark against your competitors

Use the competitor data you’ve gathered to establish baselines for key metrics. This will help you set realistic – but still ambitious – goals for your own marketing initiatives. You don’t want to set yourself up for failure, do you?

With efficient marketing benchmarking, you’ll find how to best position yourself in the market and amongst your competitors, and find any opportunities you’re missing out on.

This is our Keyword Gap tool, capturing all the keywords used between selected competitors, including the ones you are missing out on.

In fact, you should check out our recent 2024 Marketing Benchmark Report, where we looked into 7 big industries, and how they use specific marketing channels for success.

5) Research your markets

Next up, it’s time to research the markets you’re selling into. This will help you understand your target audience, their needs, and trends they’re following, informing your messaging and marketing channel selection.

If you’re looking to break into a new market for example, you’ll want to establish specific OKRs tailored to brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition within that market.

Using our Market Analysis tool, you can gain insight into growing traffic and engagement across different geographies (as well as website visits, pages per visits, and more).

6) Start setting your OKRs for marketing

Once you’ve gained a clear understanding of your company’s goals, competitive landscape, and target markets, you’re ready to set your own marketing objectives and key results.

That means defining specific, measurable, achievable, relevant goals for your marketing initiatives… and overall company success.

Set the *right* OKRs with Similarweb

As we’ve already mentioned, to make sure you’ve got effective marketing OKRs, you need data – competitor data and industry data.

With our fresher-than-fresh data at Similarweb, you can make sure your marketing efforts are up to scratch with thorough:

• Keyword research
• Competitor analysis
• Industry benchmarks

But perhaps your marketing OKRs and general strategy are working fine? Then you definitely won’t want to try Similarweb for free today then, will you? 👀

(Go on, you know you want to).

FAQs

What are marketing OKRs?

Marketing OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a goal-setting framework that helps marketing teams focus on high-impact initiatives aligned with company goals.

What’s the difference between objectives and key results?

Objectives are the ambitious, qualitative goals you want to achieve (eg. increase brand awareness). Key results are measurable metrics that track progress towards those objectives (eg. increase website traffic by 20%).

How often should we set marketing OKRs?

OKRs are typically set quarterly, allowing for focused execution while maintaining flexibility to adapt to market changes.

What are some common marketing OKR examples?

Common examples include increasing brand awareness, improving lead generation, boosting customer engagement, or driving sales within a specific market segment.

How can we ensure our marketing OKRs are effective?

Aligning with company goals, setting clear and measurable results, and fostering team buy-in are all crucial for OKR effectiveness.

by Leah Messenger

Senior Content Marketing Manager

Leah is a Senior Content Marketing Manager with a passion for turning complex topics into engaging, educational content.