How to Conduct a Meaningful Marketing Leader Performance Review

The Metrics That Actually Matter in a CMO Review

The role of marketing continues to evolve, with marketing leaders taking on broader and more critical responsibilities than ever before. Your marketing leader has mastered the market, deeply understands positioning, segmentation, and pricing, and creates and executes strategies that promote the business, drive inbound interest, and build brand equity. They are collaborative business partners—fluent in data and ROI, skilled at leading teams, and focused on delivering results. More than ever, they are instrumental in shaping company strategy and positioning for long-term success.

Yet, while CEOs often define the marketing leader’s role during hiring, many fail to establish a structured framework for evaluating their performance. As a result, CMOs are frequently assessed based on the last 90 days, the latest shiny object, or a single revenue metric. And while revenue is critically important, it’s not the only thing that should be reviewed and considered while your marketing leader is evaluated because that would be an incomplete picture. A marketing leader’s true impact extends beyond short-term numbers.

So, how should you measure the effectiveness of your marketing leader?

The Right Way to Evaluate Your Marketing Leader

A comprehensive review of your CMO requires a mix of quantitative metrics, qualitative assessments, and strategic impact evaluations. Here’s how to build a well-rounded performance evaluation:

1. Revenue Impact & Pipeline Influence

• Marketing-Sourced Pipeline & Revenue: Yes, attribution is messy (don’t come at me for recommending it). But at the start of the year, your marketing leader commits to a pipeline and revenue goal. How much revenue is directly attributed to marketing efforts? What percentage of revenue had marketing touchpoints? (Pro tip: Clarify attribution rules at the start of the year, not during the performance review.)

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) & Return on Marketing Investment: Is the marketing leader driving growth efficiently? Sometimes it can be difficult for the marketing leader to measure this without a finance partner. If CAC isn’t formally tracked, use the metric you and the CMO agreed to at the beginning of the year. If they don’t have an efficiency metric in place, that’s a red flag. Many companies look at Pipe-to-Spend (pipeline generated per dollar spent) or Close-to-Spend (revenue closed per dollar spent) in the absence of CAC.

2. Demand Generation & Lead Quality

• SQL (Sales Qualified Leads) Volume & Quality: In most companies, SQLs = opportunities. If this isn’t true for your organization, use wherever an opportunity is noted in your lead-to-close process. Is marketing delivering the right volume and quality of leads?

• Funnel Conversion Rates: Every marketing and sales organization should have an agreed-upon funnel or bowtie model that clearly articulates stages and expected results. What are the conversion rates across the funnel/bowtie and how do those compare historically or against benchmarks? Does marketing understand how leads move through the funnel?

3. Brand & Market Positioning Strength

• Share of Voice (SOV) & Brand Awareness: Demand generation without brand investment is an efficiency killer. Is your company gaining recognition in the market? Is web traffic growing? Are you perceived as a leader?

• Competitive Differentiation: Can the marketing leader articulate a clear, compelling positioning strategy? Your differentiation should come through in every message the public sees. Is this competitive differentiation present in your messaging and all touchpoints?

4. Alignment with Sales & C-Suite

• Sales & Marketing Alignment: I always advocate that sales and marketing should be tied at the hip, singing from the same book, and be considered true partners in crime. Are they working together seamlessly, and is that alignment driving results?

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Is the marketing leader effectively partnering with product, finance, and customer success? Or are they operating in a silo?

5. Operational Excellence & Scalability

• Marketing Efficiency & Budget Allocation: Marketing leaders should have clear quarterly budgets. Is the budget being allocated to high-impact areas? Are spend decisions guided by clear ROI analysis?

• Technology & Data Optimization: Technology is a critical element in the marketing toolkit. Is your marketing leader leveraging analytics, automation, and AI to optimize performance?

6. Team Leadership & Culture

• Retention & Performance of the Marketing Team: Is the marketing leader attracting and retaining top talent? If turnover is high, that’s a flag that should be explored.

• Innovation & Experimentation: The market is rapidly changing and tools leveraged effectively as part of your GTM strategy are as well. Does the marketing leader foster a culture of innovation? Does the team continuously test and optimize based on a testing strategy?

7. CEO & Board Communication

• Clear & Actionable Reporting: It is often said that you can spot a new CMO in the boardroom because they over-index to include too much information in the deck (read way too many slides). Can they clearly articulate the results and next steps? Do they provide the appropriate amount of information and is it actionable?

• Strategic Influence: Is the marketing leader shaping company strategy or stuck in a tactical execution role?

Request the CMO Scorecard

Evaluating your marketing leader shouldn’t be a guessing game. I’ve created a CMO Performance Scorecard that provides a structured way to assess impact—complete with weighted scoring across revenue contribution, brand, demand generation, team leadership, and more.

Want to make performance reviews easier (and fairer)? Comment below to request the scorecard.

Final Thoughts

A performance review should never be the first time your marketing leader hears feedback. If anything in the review comes as a surprise, that’s a leadership failure. The best marketing leaders are strategic growth partners—not just demand generators. They drive revenue, align with sales, shape company strategy, elevate the brand, and lead high-performing teams.

If your marketing leader isn’t delivering on those fronts, it’s time to dig in and figure out why. The performance review should be one part of an ongoing, strategic conversation—because your marketing leader’s success is directly tied to your company’s success.