Inbound Marketing KPIs Come Third

Inbound marketing methodologies are more understood and more common.

It’s easy to see why.

Companies that do inbound well, sometimes well enough to pause paid ads and still generate quality leads, are sharing their wins.

This surge of success stories entices others to go all?in on inbound. Because the category is hot, the failures get drowned out by the triumphs.

As with any shift in business, behind every headline sits a pile of attempts that did not pan out.

So it is with inbound marketing.

Where inbound marketing typically fails

Take it from someone who has spectacularly failed at inbound marketing, but who has also achieved a few things in the field:

Inbound marketing fails when the pursuit of results comes before the establishment of process.

It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement and set sail toward your key performance indicators before preparing the ship.

I’ve come to believe, through experience, that inbound marketing KPIs should come third.

The first two stages of inbound marketing

Before establishing your best inbound marketing KPIs, spend time on two less?flashy foundations:

1. Assessing resources and capacity
2. Understanding the searcher’s intent

1. Assessing resources and capacity

Before thinking about KPIs, take stock of resources. Look honestly at the talent on the team and the capacity to execute.

Performance depends as much on project management as on roles and priorities.

A marketing team may have everything needed to build an inbound engine, yet each member might spend significant time on other initiatives.

The person who could serve as an executive editor might be the only person capable of maintaining technical documentation.

Skipping this step often stems from a persistent myth that “inbound marketing is free.” It is not.

It costs real money in salaries and time. It also requires patience, which many fast?moving companies lack or choose not to embrace.

So before setting ambitious KPIs, map the resources and capacity leadership is prepared to allocate.

2. Understanding the searcher’s intent

Once you’ve assessed capabilities, it’s tempting to jump straight into KPI selection.

The common pattern: a quick dip into keyword research, then a full inbound plan built on thin context.

It’s not enough to know the keywords; you must know why a searcher used them.

Here are two tools that help uncover the why:

1. Bloomberry
2. Answer The Public

Using Bloomberry for inbound marketing

Bloomberry, a tool from the team at BuzzSumo, lets you search a keyword and find real questions people ask on communities like Quora and Reddit.

Using Answer The Public for inbound marketing

As Jonathan Taylor noted at WordStream, Answer The Public is a strong way to grasp intent.

Similar to Bloomberry, Answer The Public surfaces common questions around a keyword and groups them by question type.

Pairing these tools, or similar question?mining tools, helps an inbound team see the why behind audience searches.

The result is a strategy built on research and empathy, not guesses.

Final thoughts

If you’ve worked through the first two phases, you’re ready to set appropriate and achievable inbound KPIs.

Be patient as you choose and commit to the metrics your team will pursue.

Here are two articles to help you get started:

1. How to set actionable KPI targets
2. Content metrics for content marketing and journalism

Next step: Put your inbound KPIs on a dashboard your team sees every day. Try Klips free today.