“PMM’s important, but it’s hard to measure.”

How many times have you heard that phrase from a boss, a colleague or a leader at your company? As much as it pains me to say this, PMM is still misunderstood.

We’re often seen as the “storytellers” or the “positioning people.” Important? Yes. But tied to revenue? That’s where things start to fall apart.

Because when budgets get tight or headcount is under review, that’s when that phrase pops up again: “PMM’s important, but it’s hard to measure.”

It’s one of the most frustrating phrases in our function. And I’d argue it’s not just wrong — it’s avoidable.

For today’s edition, I want to explore the real reason people think PMM is hard to measure, and share what great PMM leaders do differently (so we never have to hear this phrase again).

The Real Reason PMM is “Hard to Measure”

It is my humble opinion that PMM is not hard to measure. But, it is easy to measure poorly.

Most PMM teams get stuck reporting on outputs or activities:

• How many slides they made

• How many launches they supported

• How many enablement sessions they ran

The list goes on. Those are all real contributions, but they’re also real reasons PMM doesn’t get taken seriously — because they don’t tie back to real business outcomes.

PMMs end up measuring effort instead of impact.

And it’s not our fault. PMM sits in the middle of a lot of cross-functional work. We influence more than we own. But if we can’t find a way to make our impact visible and measurable, we stay stuck in support mode.

Activity-Based KPIs vs. Outcome-Based KPIs

There’s a trap I see over and over again, and my teams have even fallen into it too.

It goes like this: “We need to measure something… so let’s track what we can control.”

And then suddenly, your team’s KPIs are things like:

• number of customer interviews completed

• number of battlecards published

• number of assets created per quarter

These are useful to track, but not necessarily useful to measure. (If you’ve gone through the KPI guide or toolkit I just released, you’ll know this distinction matters a lot.)

Great PMM leaders push beyond this.

They ask:

→ What does success actually look like?
→ How does my team’s work map to real business outcomes?
→ Where can PMM influence those outcomes, even if we don’t fully own them?

It’s time to shift the narrative.

If you want to change how your org sees PMM, you have to change what you measure, and how you talk about it.

The first step? Build a KPI Map. Think of it like a tree:

• The company’s north star metric (like revenue or retention) sits at the top

• Beneath it are supporting metrics like pipeline, conversion, churn, etc.

• And from there, you branch down again, identifying where PMM plays a meaningful role

Keep breaking the metrics down until you hit a layer where your team actually has influence.

Let’s say one of your company’s goals is: “Increase revenue from self-serve customers.”

You probably can’t own that as a PMM team. But go one branch down and you might find:

• Trial-to-paid conversion

• In-app adoption of high-value features

• Plan ascension upgrade rate

Now we’re getting closer. Go another layer down and you might land on:

• Click-through rate of onboarding emails

• Completion rate of the first activation step

That’s something you can influence directly, and show your impact on over time. This kind of mapping helps you avoid two traps:

1. Reporting on tasks (like “we updated onboarding copy”)

2. Reporting on metrics you can’t move (like “monthly recurring revenue”)

The KPI Map gives you clarity. It shows you where you fit in the bigger picture and allows you to isolate the areas you can influence the most.

From there, the most important work happens in conversation:

→ With your team, as you define focus and share ownership
→ With leadership, as you connect your efforts to business outcomes
→ With yourself, as you get honest about where you're creating value

You don’t need to measure everything (in fact, you shouldn’t). You just need to measure what matters — and keep checking in to make sure it still does.

3 Prompts to Reset Your KPIs

Here are three questions to ask yourself:

1. If we hit every KPI on our list, would the business notice? (If not, you might be measuring the wrong things.)

2. Which business outcome am I trying to influence — and how do I prove we’re getting closer?

3. Where can I shift from tracking activity to reporting impact? (Sometimes it’s just a matter of how you frame it.)

CAMPER ESSENTIALS

🎧 Playlist: I just launched a new podcast mini-series with my bestie Daniel Murray and The Marketing Millennials. It’s called Go-to-Market Plays, and each week we’ll break down a new strategy in 10 minutes or less. Episode 1 is out now (and it’s all about pre-seeding launches).

Until next week,