When I was working to reduce weight, I did a lot of things. On the first consulting call, my dietician told me to update my weight on the app every morning. I had never used a weight scale before that call (part reason why I got myself into the problem in first place)
She was very clear — how are we supposed to monitor your progress if you don't have a weight scale? It's non negotiable.
Fast forward to 2025. There has been amazing content on social media about how habits are formed. We know that habits and systems are better than goals. Atomic habits is already a huge hit. We know that the crucial item to develop habits — is to have an environment where you can engage in those habits easily. I could immediately relate this concept of environments shaping our habits — to how a weight scale was so important to lose weight.
I realize that just having a weight scale in your room will ultimately result in weight loss. If you have a goal to chase a healthy weight, looking at how much you weigh everyday is going to change your choices. If you see your weight increase due to a couple of drinks you had yesterday, you're going to limit that. If walking helped you maintain healthy weight, you're going to try and walk more. You would try to incorporate feedback and iterate your next actions.
I learnt about this concept last year and even applied it in one of my projects. It's called cybernetics. You are exposed to some feedback and based on the nature of feedback (bad/good) — you change how you behave, in an expectation of a better outcome next time.
Analytics (measurement) is all about feedback in this cybernetic system. It's a fundamental principle of how we can improve and build upon things - including marketing. By measurement we can see the feedback of our actions (marketing) and adjust our next actions (campaigns and operations) to improve the outcomes, and hence improve the measurement metrics. For example, if you're having less open rates, you may try AB testing subject lines, or scrutinize your audience data. Changing your actions will change the outcomes.
This is why having analytics in your Marketo environment is so critical. If you don't have it, you won't know how much you weigh. It's not the complexity of report, or the cosmetics of a dashboard. It's the ability of getting feedback of your actions (marketing performance insights) in your Marketo environment which matters.
When you include reports and analytics within the Marketo environment, and you have a goal to improve marketing — it becomes a habit to look at feedback. And as a result, you take steps to improve this feedback by adjusting course.
So what kind of feedback requires iterations? And what to aim for? Sometimes, we can look at industry benchmarks about click rates and open rates to be at par with the industry. We could also compare against our own past performance. Both have their own arguments and I have a bias to compare against our own past performance.
Let's take the example of a low open rate. It could be a data relevance problem — your email addresses exist and deliver but they aren't valid prospects. They don't have the problem you solve, or they are just not your ICP. It could be a data quality problem — your email addresses don't exist anymore and bounce. It could be a content problem — your subject line did not catch the attention of valid, marketable leads.
Other metrics can mean different things. If your click rate is low, you may want to work on the relevance of the message, the language of the message, the CTA words, placement of CTA and a lot more about the content of the email. Or, you may want to review user experience, whether your CTA takes the user to a right landing page with right content which aligns with the email message? If your unsubscribe rate is high, you want to work on your data quality and relevance of the audience criteria for your campaigns.
All Marketo Operations originate from looking at what works and what doesn't. Reporting and analytics, or simply measurement about marketing performance is how you are exposed to this feedback. This feedback alone is the weight scale you want to have in your room.
What are your measuring this year?
.png)
Adchoices