Thanks for the post. I really like the hierarchical way that you've broken down the route from mission to target. Very informative. Talking to Matthias point above, I experiencing a similar kind of thing. Too many KPIs have in the past de-valued them. In this post I'm reading KPIs as performance metrics. I need a KPI to inform me how well the company is doing against it goals because those are where the key decisions are made. Maybe there are different levels, but KPIs bring hard numbers to goals, rather than SMART objectives. Does that make sense?

Whoa Scott, easy :) That's a pretty comprehensive list you got going there. I don't think I want to add anything to it or my brain will explode... However, the e-commerce aspect is becoming an increasing important part of the puzzle. Thus far, through content marketing the focus has been to blast open top part of the funnel to drive traffic and widen the middle to convert these opportunities in leads. But the 'closing of deal' means that marketing technologists need to make it ridiculously easy to effect a purchase, thus requiring some pretty clever integration strategies with e-commerce systems. Thanks for the post Scott. Very informative.

Hi Scott, To be honest I'm enjoying the open debate. We're a digital agency that often takes on the responsibility of marketing technologists for our clients, sitting firmly between the marketing and technology functions. When we screw up, we're accountable. Now i'd like get your thoughts on accountability. I always come back to that. If you take us out of the picture and you have an IT savvy marketing department that runs a damaging promotion owing to a technical glitch, who's ultimately accountable when the CEO comes knocking? IT for not bringing (making) its solutions available in a digestible format or Marketing for not having the right level of technical expertise? Or something else? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for the post Scott. A great article that has resulted in even more thoughts from community. I think the earlier comments pick up the issues around data and software. I feel that a company's data is a snapshot of your business at any moment in time. SaaS (software) is just a means to move it from one state to another. With that in mind, companies do get a little edgy around someone else managing that data on their behalf. I've heard of companies that realise that they have so much data in the cloud that it does not make sense to store it anywhere else - i heard the term 'cloud bound' somewhere. Others, periodically test that they data can be managed by other SaaS providers, just it case their current provider disappears for one reason or another. The stumbling block I have is always around SaaS vendors provide adequate integration strategies and/or the means to import/export data they manage. Scott, is this something that you have come across? PS: I'm a SaaS fan, but as always its a easier sell to marketing but an uphill struggle at times for IT.