To really be on your game as a marketer, you should be aware of the most common pitfalls when it comes to measuring your lead-generation-program efforts:
Focusing only on vanity metrics: Many marketers track things like Facebook Likes, blog post shares, and the number of names gathered at a tradeshow. Now, these are all things to track internally on your teams, but be aware that your highest-level senior executives likely won't care that your most recent Facebook post received 500 Likes.
Instead of focusing only on empty metrics, look at analytics that focus on business outcomes and revenue. Your goal as a marketer is to contribute to the bottom line, and you can't do that if you're only counting Likes.
Focusing on quantity: A ton of leads doesn't necessarily amount to a ton of good leads. If you're only focusing on how many leads you can get from an ebook download, you're not focusing on the lead quality. It may sound great to report that you got 400 leads from your new ebook, but how good are those leads? Are they 400 students who will never buy your product? If so, you need to work on targeting and optimizing your campaigns.
Sticking to the easy measurements: Metrics are hard to garner. If you're taking the easy way out and not measuring based on some of the more advanced metrics — such as the cost of investment, quantity of sales-qualified leads (SQLs), and cost per lead — you're not proving your value in a way that ties your team to financial outcomes.
Looking only at activity: It's great that you publish a blog each day, and you can certainly report on that, but how is that affecting the business's bottom line? How many leads are those blogs generating, and how much revenue can you attribute to those blogs? Focus on outcomes rather than activities.
