Funnel Stages Goals
To report on the efficiency of marketing activities, you need to know what you want to impact. For example, you want more Leads, more Pipeline, and more Closed Won. Those are all Funnel Stages goals.
Defining Funnel Structure
Before you build goals, you need to figure out what funnel stages your company reports on. It's very important to follow the existing reporting structure rather than creating a new one.
How do you measure the customer journey, from top of the funnel to the bottom? An example funnel could be: Lead -> MQL -> Opportunity -> SQO -> Closed Won (Closed Lost)
If you want to know more about our view on the funnel, the Data Categorization doc may be helpful.
Understanding the Construction of a Goal
When you know what goals you plan to build, you need to understand a few important notes about how HockeyStack interprets them.
Each goal is a combination of:
an object (e.g. Lead, Opportunity)
a date field (e.g. CreatedDate, CloseDate)
[optional] filters (e.g. 'lead_email' doesn't contain 'test')
The date field needs to time stamp the moment when a lead (opportunity) entered the stage. You want to build a goal that will catch all of the opportunities that have ever been in that stage and not those that currently are in that stage.
For this reason, goal definitions can't contain filters like 'deal stage' = 'SQO'. The stage is determined by the date stamp, that's why each goal in HockeyStack is built on a different date field. For example, Lead - CreatedDate can define Lead, and Lead - QualifiedDate can define MQL.
Encoding Funnel Stages in HockeyStack
When you know what goals you need to build and how they need to be structured, go to Definitions -> Goals -> New Goal and pick "Object Based". This means you'll be building a goal based on an object from your CRM.
First, you need to pick your CRM system (integration). Second, pick an object on which your goal is constructed. Then, you need to specify what date field you're using to time-stamp this goal.
The date field may either be a field on the same object as you're building the goal (then it's a property), or it may come from a different object (it's a relation property, only applicable to Salesforce). Usually, date fields are on the primary goal object. But not always: an example of a relation property date field can be a goal on Campaign Member object, using Contact MQL_Date__c as a timestamp.
When the foundation of the goal is ready, you can start adding filters. Make sure to replicate everything exactly as defined in CRM. Similarly as with date fields, a filter can be either a property on the base object or a relation property from a different goal.
It's absolutely crucial to match your goals exactly with Salesforce/HubSpot to ensure the metrics in HockeyStack align with your CRM.
Validating Your Goals
When you're setting up your instance for the first time, we recommend validating your goal as you go. This means, while defining them, click "Preview" to check the number for the last month and compare it against the number in Salesforce.
You need to look at a closed time range (we recommend using 'last month') so you can be sure the data is not being changed anymore.
When you need to validate your goals when they're already defined, go to Definitions -> Goals, set the time range to Last Month, and validate the numbers against your CRM.
What if Numbers Don't Match?
If your numbers don't match, don't worry!
Triple-check the definitions
Are you using exactly the same object as in CRM (for example, some goals are built on Lead and Contact, then you need to create two mappings and combine them with"or", same with Task and Event)
Did you add all the filters exactly as they are in CRM?
Are you using the right date field?
Are you validating on a close date range?
Keep in mind that time zone differences
After checking all of the above, go to Definitions -> Reports -> New Report (it's unavailable during the onboarding, but it's ok to complete the onboarding process and then finish validating your goals), and build a report as below:
In the column dropdown, go to Goals, pick the goal you're validating -> Times Done
Date Range: Last Month
Breakdown by: scroll down to Action Properties and pick the identifier of your opportunity/lead, e.g. Deal Name or Lead id.
Click Preview
You'll see a list of all the items that HockeyStack pulls from your CRM for the specific goal in the given date range
If a record missing on this list is from the first/last day of the month, add a breakdown by date. It might be due to time zone differences - you might find a March 31st deal on Apr 1st
If you still can't figure out the reason - submit a ticket to support@hockeystack.com with a screenshot of the CRM reports that define goals. It's ok to proceed with definitions that have slight discrepancies temporarily, but getting them right is crucial for valuable insights.
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