Author: Jenny Romanchuk

Here’s a real story. Upon writing this piece, I tried to set up a PPC campaign on a whim with no plan or clue (practicing on my friend’s small business—oops). I just set the budget and let it run. Was it good? I’ll leave it up to you.

So, I consulted with a bunch of PPC pros and watched a dozen webinars to provide you with practical and powerful stuff.

You’ll find seven tactics for managing your PPC budget and five tips for making smart adjustments.

Let’s dive right in.

Table of Contents

• What is a PPC budget?
• What is the PPC budget formula?
• How to Calculate Your PPC Budget
• How to Manage Your PPC Budget
• 5 PPC Budgeting Tips from Pros
• Key Takeaways from PPC Experts

What is a PPC budget?

A PPC (pay-per-click) budget is the amount of money you plan to spend on ads where you pay each time someone clicks on them.

A few terms you’ll run into here:

1. Daily budget – How much you spend each day. Ads stop showing until the next day if you reach this limit.
2. Campaign budget – The total amount you want to spend on a specific ad campaign.
3. Bid amount – How much you pay for each click on your ad. Higher bids can get your ad shown more but cost more.

Before setting up a PPC campaign, think about where your audience is most active.

For example, if your audience uses Facebook more than X, spend more of your budget on Facebook. Do some research to make sure your ad spend goes to the best channels.

Generally, prioritize Google PPC first, as Google has 90.48% of the global search engine market.

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What is the PPC budget formula?

From my chats with a bunch of PPC experts, most of them rely on this formula:

Where:

1. Target daily clicks: How many clicks you want to achieve each day. It depends on your campaign goals and the expected traffic.
2. Cost per click (CPC): The average amount you are willing to pay for each click. Estimate it based on historical data or industry benchmarks.
3. Number of days in a month: Typically 30 or 31 days, but you can adjust it for the specific month or campaign duration.

Example Calculation

Let’s say:

• You want to achieve 50 clicks per day.
• Your average Cost Per Click is $2.
• You are budgeting for a month with 30 days.

Now, let’s implement the formula:

50 clicks/day × $2 per click × 30 days= 50 × 2 × 30 = 3000

So, your monthly PPC budget would be $3,000.

How to Calculate Your PPC Budget

To calculate your PPC budget, you just need to note down a few formulas and make sure you do everything in this order:

1. Understand your target CAC.

Before you jump into the calculation, understand your CAC—the total cost to get a new customer. Roughly, it's all your marketing and sales costs divided by the number of new customers.

For example, if you spend $10,000 on marketing in a month and gain 100 new customers, your CAC is $100.

"I always start with the target cost to acquire a customer or CAC. If you don’t know that number, calculate one based on the average customer lifetime value and determine how much you can afford to spend on advertising while maintaining a healthy profit margin,” says Brooke Webber, head of marketing at Ninja Patches.

2. Calculate daily budget.

Daily budgeting helps in allocating funds to different days of the week based on performance patterns. For instance, you might find that weekends generate more conversions, allowing you to allocate more budget on those days.

Ed Stapleton from Clicks Geek suggests multiplying the average click cost by five.

So, if the click cost is $10, then $10 x 5 = $50. This $50 is your suggested minimum daily ad budget.

“I use this multiplier because most campaigns convert between 20% to 40% on the landing page. This means roughly 2 to 4 out of 10 clicks become leads. To be safe, I use a multiplier of five to ensure you get at least one lead per day,” says Stapleton.

3. Calculate weekly budget.

After calculating the daily budget, you can move forward to calculating the weekly costs. Ed advises multiplying the daily budget by the number of days you plan to run your ads each week.

If the daily budget is $50 and you run ads five days a week, the weekly budget would be $250 ($50 x 5).

4. Calculate monthly budget.

Finally, to calculate the monthly budget, multiply the weekly budget by 4 to get a basic monthly budget. However, Ed notes that for a more accurate estimate, you might use 4.3 weeks to account for variations in the number of weeks per month.

For example, with a weekly budget of $250, the monthly budget would be $1,000 ($250 x 4) or $1,075 ($250 x 4.3).

Here’s a breakdown for all three calculations:

Daily Budget:

Avg CPC x 5

Daily budget x 5 = weekly budget

Weekly budget x 4 weeks = monthly budget

Example:

Avg CPC is $10

$10 x 5 = $50

$50 x 5 = $250

$250 x 4 = $1,000

$1,000 is the monthly ad budget

How to Manage Your PPC Budget

Turns out that 72% of companies haven’t reviewed their ad campaigns in over a month, which is definitely not the way to manage your PPC campaign and its budget.

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Here’s how proper PPC budget management should look:

Establish a test budget to understand key metrics.

Allocate a small portion of your overall PPC budget as a “test amount.” This is a low-risk way to test different strategies without spending a lot of money.

I got this golden nugget from Jim Kreinbrink, CEO of Hyper Dog Media.

“Our preliminary budget approach often starts with a ‘test amount,’ which we deploy and analyze to understand key metric averages such as cost per click and conversion rates. These insights then help us to forge a more informed and result-oriented budget,” Kreinbrink says.

Determine the optimal budget.

After a short testing phase, it’s time to jump into the real thing.

I spoke with Nick Drewe, founder and CEO at Wethrift, who explained that at this point, you need to consider the overall marketing budget, industry benchmark data, and the desired CPA.

He recommends starting with a smaller budget and gradually increasing it as you begin to see a positive ROI. Newer businesses might find allocating around 5-10% of their gross revenue to PPC to be a good starting point.

Michael Nemeroff, co-founder & CEO at RushOrderTees, shared his take on this, too. He says you can’t calculate an exact budget, but you can get pretty close and adjust as performance metrics come in:

“I look at the website’s overall conversion rate and assume the PPC campaign will be slightly lower. So, if site conversion is 8%, I might assume the campaign’s conversions are at 5%,” Nemeroff says. “Then, I look at the average CPC in Google’s keyword planner and forecast different budgets.”

Nemeroff explains with an example.

“If the average CPC is $10, $1,000 per month yields around 100 clicks and, conservatively, five leads. If you spend $2K, that means 200 clicks and 10 leads, and so on. You forecast different scenarios, determine how many new clients or sales you can reasonably handle, and set your budget appropriately,” Nemeroff says.

Run ads for a week to determine CPC.

I also talked to Brandy Hastings from SmartSites, who told me that one of the best approaches is running ads for a week to get a clear picture of your CPC.

She points out, “Note the cost per click, and then set a budget to earn at least 150-200 clicks. Use that method for the first month to get a feel for the market, adapting to the patterns that start to emerge.”

This will give you enough data to see how your CPC is trending. After the week is up, review the results to understand your average CPC and adjust your budget and bids as needed.

Use Google Smart Bidding.

Many experts recommend using Google Smart Bidding to optimize ad spend and boost PPC results.

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Here’s how it works:

• It uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze tons of data and predicts how different bids will impact conversions.
• It factors in signals like device, location, and time of day during each auction.
• You can set specific goals like maximizing conversions or hitting a target CPA. Smart Bidding adjusts your bids to meet these targets efficiently.
• Detailed reports show exactly how your bidding strategies are performing and what to improve.

Use a layered budget strategy.

A layered budget strategy is a method of allocating your PPC budget across different types of campaigns to balance performance and experimentation.

It’s one of the best methods for managing the PPC budget, according to Jeffrey Zhou, CEO at Fig Tech.

“We implement a ‘layered budget’ strategy that prioritizes results and experimentation. We spend 60% on high-performing ads with steady returns, 30% on new campaigns or ad formats, and 10% on experimental initiatives,” says Zhou.

Zhou says that this segmentation saved his team from huge risks.

For example, when they launched a newly developed service, they spent 30% of their budget on testing video ads, which eventually outperformed static ads, prompting them to allocate additional resources to video.

Refine your audience through micro-targeting.

“Instead of broad targeting, use micro-segmentation to direct ad spend toward highly specific customer profiles,” continues Zhou.

When his team began using location-based targeting together with income data, they saw a 25% increase in conversions while maintaining the same budget.

To implement micro-targeting, define your audience first:

• Demographics: Target by age, gender, income, education, and job.
• Geographics: Focus on specific cities, neighborhoods, or areas.
• Behavioral data: Use browsing history and purchase behavior.
• Interests: Tailor ads to users' hobbies and preferences.

Then move to advanced features, such as:

• Custom audiences: Target your existing customers or website visitors.
• Lookalike audiences: Find new users similar to your current customers.
• Retargeting: Re-engage users who have interacted with your brand but haven’t converted.

Break down your budget by keyword performance.

Focus budget on top-performing keywords to improve overall campaign performance—higher CTR and lower CPA. This leads to better visibility and more effective targeting.

Shawn Plummer, CEO at The Annuity Expert, says that he had success spending 20-30% of the entire budget on high-converting, low-cost keywords, which greatly increased lead count without incurring additional costs.

“When I allocated a higher amount of our budget to branded search phrases, we witnessed a 40% decrease in cost per lead, boosting overall efficiency”, says Plummer.

Regularly review quality scores to gauge keyword effectiveness.

In Google Ads, you can find it under “Quality Scores,” which reflect the relevance of your keywords, ads, and landing pages. High-quality scores lead to lower CPC and better ad placement.

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Also, in Google Ads, use the Search Terms Report to see the actual queries that triggered your ads. It will help you see if your ads are shown for relevant searches and identify high-performing or irrelevant search terms.

Here's a simple breakdown to make it clearer:

Keyword vs. search term:

• Search Term: The actual words people type into the search box.
• Keyword: The terms you select in your Google Ads campaign to target those searches.

Match types: Indicates how closely the search terms match your keywords:

• Exact Match: The exact search term matches your keyword.
• Phrase Match: The search term contains your keyword.
• Broad Match: The search term is a variation of your keyword.

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5 PPC Budgeting Tips from Pros

And now for the cherry on top—five juicy expert tips to help you plan and allocate your budget better:

1. Regular performance reviews and reallocation.

Regular reviews help you spot trends and shifts in performance before they become significant issues.

When you assess data frequently, you can quickly adapt to changes in ad performance or market conditions.

Shawn Plummer suggests employing weekly A/B testing to determine which ad creatives perform the best. Then, he reallocates up to 40% of the budget to those that outperform.

“Recently, by cutting spend on underperforming ads, we freed up funds to push ads with higher click-through rates, which boosted conversions by 25% without raising overall spend,” Plummer says.

Casey Meraz, CEO of Juris Digital, recommends conducting checks even more frequently—on a daily basis:

“Adjust bids based on the performance of different keywords and ads. Utilize budget caps to avoid overspending. Regularly review and tweak your targeting criteria. This ensures you get the most out of each dollar spent while maintaining flexibility to shift resources as necessary,” Meraz says.

Create personalized, targeted ad campaigns while tracking which ads convert prospects into customers with HubSpot Marketing Software.

2. Reverse engineer from CPA.

Dominic Taguinod, HubSpot's PPC expert, suggests reverse engineering from CPA as a smart strategy worth trying.

First, define how much you're willing to spend to acquire a customer. From there, you set a target CPC that aligns with this CPA goal.

This approach helps you spend your ad budget efficiently and acquire customers at a cost that works for your business. If you focus on your CPA first, you can better allocate your budget and ROI and make more informed adjustments.

Watch the full video:

3. Don’t overspend or underspend.

Overspending can quickly deplete your budget and waste resources.

Underspending is not good either. It can lead to fewer clicks and conversions because your ads aren’t reaching enough people.

Chris Zangone from WebFX suggests always considering your campaign’s ROAS (return on ad spend).

Spending more than you’re earning from your campaigns? Reassess your budget and optimization strategies as soon as possible.

Use this formula:

Total Revenue / Total Cost = ROAS.

1. Suppose your PPC campaign generated $10,000 in sales.
2. Assume you spent $2,000 on the PPC ads.
3. Use the ROAS Formula:
   ROAS = $10,000 / $2,000 = 5

So, your ROAS is 5. This means that for every dollar you spent on ads, you earned $5 in revenue.

If you wanna dive deep into PPC budget management, save this super helpful tutorial:

4. Leverage ad scheduling to cut waste.

Ad scheduling, or dayparting, allows you to control when the audience will see your ads.

Run ads only during times when conversions are more likely to avoid wasting money on clicks that probably won’t convert.

Jeffrey Zhou from Fig Tech says that many of their clicks were during non-conversion hours. By running ads only during peak hours — like weekdays between 9 am and 6 pm — they improved their CPA by 15% while maintaining traffic quality.

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5. Micro-budget testing for new platforms.

Start with small, controlled budgets when testing new advertising platforms.

Using micro-budgets and internal data to predict potential ROI allows you to gauge effectiveness with minimal risk, according to Debbie Moran, marketing manager at RecurPost.

Instead of rolling out a large budget on untested channels, Debbie’s team started with micro-budgets and used their internal machine-learning models to predict potential ROI before scaling.

With this approach, they discovered LinkedIn as an effective platform for targeting their B2B customers, where an initial $500 test led to a 50% lower CPA than our usual channels.

Key Takeaways from PPC Experts

Managing a PPC budget seems chaotic at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's really not that bad. So, here are the three takeaways this non-PPC pro (a.k.a. me) has picked up as crucial to wrapping up this guide:

• Start small, test, and learn. Kick things off with a test budget to get a feel for metrics like cost per click and conversion rates.
• Make smart adjustments. Use tools like Google Smart Bidding to get the most out of your budget. Stay on top of performance, and use micro-targeting to make sure your ads are hitting the right people.
• Stay flexible. Regularly tweak your bids, budgets, and targeting based on how things are performing. Whether it’s checking in daily or working backward from your target CPA, be adaptable to get the best possible ROI.

The final piece of advice: Don’t dive into PPC haphazardly. Save this guide to walk you through each step and avoid skipping ahead, as missing even one step can lead to unnecessary setbacks and, even worse—wasted money.

Market research is the backbone of all marketing, and we can’t skip it.

After all, how can you promote any products and services if you haven’t dug deep into your market, audience, and competition?

Nevertheless, market research eats up a ton of time. So many marketers take it for granted and settle for superficial research.

To avoid this, make use of AI market research tools. Which?

I tested seven AI market analysis tools and broke down which ones are worth trying.

Let’s jump in.

Table of Contents

• What are AI market research tools?
• Why use AI tools for market research?
• 7 Best AI Market Research Tools

What are AI market research tools?

AI market research tools use artificial intelligence to gather and analyze market data. They pull in data from different sources, spot trends, predict future shifts, and break down complex info into simple insights.

These tools also help with audience segmentation, tracking competitors, and creating detailed reports, making it easier for marketers to make smart, data-driven decisions.

Machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) enable these tools to mimic human behavior.

My interest in AI and its impact on markets led me to explore notable success stories from big names who’ve harnessed AI in marketing. One such example is Spotify.

It implemented AI for research last year through its AI DJ feature.

The tool constantly collects feedback and analyzes your listening patterns, essentially conducting ongoing “market research” to fine-tune music choices and feed Spotify’s analysts with data on which songs to add to increase listening time, bring more subscriptions, etc.

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The AI DJ goes beyond basic recommendations and provides commentary on the songs and artists it plays, making the experience more engaging.

Why use AI tools for market research?

Many people still think that AI can’t understand human nuances like a real researcher can, but that’s just one of the misconceptions, says Ashley S., Ph.D. in Anthropology and Co-Founder of EmpathixAI.

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The truth is that AI has made huge strides in grasping these subtleties and can provide insights that are just as valuable, if not more so, than traditional methods.

Can I research the market without AI? Sure. How hard is it on a scale of 1 to 10? 11.

That’s why giving these tools a chance is more than a good idea. Here are the top three reasons why you should think about it:

Predictive Analysis

AI algorithms can track customer behavior and predict trends, giving marketers a chance to fine-tune their strategies.

For example, a broadcast company was losing market share to digital media, which was expected to dominate 50% of the market in five years.

The CFO wanted to improve content to win back viewers and boost ad revenue. Scios Market, an AI market research tool, helped analyze which show attributes, like content quality and cast, drove viewership and ad dollars.

Predictive analysis and what-if forecasting identified a show concept likely to achieve the highest ratings. This approach led to a new show with 42% higher ratings and allowed the company to double its ad rates.

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Personalization and Targeting

AI can segment audiences and personalize marketing strategies based on detailed customer data. This leads to more accurate targeting, better engagement, and higher ROI.

The best example is a Middle Eastern bank that saw a $3.4 million increase in cardholder spending within three months by using Personalization Breeze from Dynamic Yield and Mastercard.

AI-driven personalized offers led to a 60% boost in travel transactions, a 30% increase in premium card sign-ups, and a 15% rise in everyday spending.

This example shows how smart AI personalization can quickly drive significant growth and improve customer engagement.

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And, according to an Acxiom report, 47% of customers prefer personalized emails or ads because it helps them easily find relevant products and solutions.

Use HubSpot AI Email Writer to quickly generate and customize sales outreach emails and marketing campaigns. No more staring at a blank screen — let AI handle the heavy lifting and watch your email engagement increase.

Improved Efficiency

AI market research tools, like generative AI models, have significantly impacted productivity and efficiency in almost all kinds of tasks.

For instance, last year’s study by Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang from MIT examined the effects of ChatGPT on professionals' document writing efficiency.

The study involved 444 business professionals across different fields who were tasked with writing two business documents. One group used ChatGPT to assist in research writing, while the other wrote without AI support.

Key Findings:

1. Increased Productivity. Professionals who used the AI finished their documents in about 17 minutes, while those who didn't use AI took 27 minutes. This means a 59% increase in productivity. Essentially, professionals with ChatGPT could produce 59% more documents in an 8-hour workday compared to those working without it.

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2. Better Quality. Despite taking less time, AI-assisted documents were rated higher in quality. Documents created with ChatGPT had an average quality score of 4.5 out of 7, while those written without AI scored 3.8. This shows that AI not only saved time but also improved the quality of the work.

“AI is a tool to help you work faster, not a replacement for critical thinking and problem-solving,” says Alex Cattoni from How To Use A.I. For FAST Market Research. “AI tools like ChatGPT are not always connected to the internet by default, which means they can produce inaccurate or even harmful results.

This is known as an AI hallucination. Even tech researchers worry that people rely too heavily on these systems for important advice. Use it as a brainstorming tool instead.”

P.S. If you’re wondering which AI tool writes the best marketing copy, Erica Santiago has tested several different tools and shared her detailed opinions. I wholeheartedly recommend reading this article.

7 Best AI Market Research Tools

After studying lots of case studies and reviews and talking to specialists who use AI tools for market research, I pulled together a list of the seven best tools to try.

I'll walk you through their prominent features, pricing, and what I find exciting about them.

1. Gong for call insights and sales research.

Gong.io specializes in revenue intelligence and conversation analytics. It analyzes sales calls, meetings (both audio and video format), and customer interactions to provide insights into sales processes, customer behaviors, and market trends.

Features

• Analyzes sales conversations to identify trends, successful tactics, and areas for improvement.
• Provides visibility into the sales pipeline by tracking deal progress and identifying potential issues.
• Offers insights and recommendations for sales coaching based on real conversation data.
• Helps understand how competitors are being discussed in sales conversations and what strategies work.

Pricing: Gong prices each license per user. Reach out to them to settle on a customized quote.

Best for: Gong is equally great for researchers and marketers who frequently hold customer calls or audience interviews.

What I like: Gong provides both contextual and referential insights. Contextual insights analyze real-time conversation details like tone and sentiment, while referential insights compare these interactions to past data, identifying patterns and best practices to improve sales outcomes.

Try HubSpot’s Free AI Chatbot Builder to book meetings and provide round-the-clock customer support. Let it handle common queries, trigger email campaigns, and scale your interactions, freeing up your team’s time.

Testing It Out

I used Gong to analyze one of our company’s sales calls, and the insights were incredibly good.

For instance, its talk-to-listen ratio literally showed that the sales rep spent too much time talking and not enough listening, which Gong flagged as a potential issue based on successful past conversations.

Parts of the call were color-coded, indicating different topics, emotions, or levels of engagement. It was super easy to track key moments and see when important issues were discussed or when the customer’s interest dropped.

I haven’t run into many issues with Gong, but the speech-to-text feature can be a bit hit-or-miss sometimes. It usually gets the job done, but some parts require refinement. Even so, it’s still one of the top tools out there for this purpose.

2. YouScan for social media analysis.

YouScan uses AI to monitor social media and images, helping you track brand mentions, understand customer feelings, and spot trends. It provides real-time insights into how people view your brand.

For instance, YouScan shows whether people are generally positive, negative, or neutral about your brand based on their comments or post reactions.

Features

• Tracks mentions of your brand, products, or relevant topics across different SM platforms.
• Analyzes sentiment and trends to gauge public opinion.
• Identifies and analyzes visual content related to your brand or industry.
• Helps track logo usage, brand mentions in images, and user-generated content.
• Uses AI to assess the emotional tone of posts and conversations.
• Detects emerging trends and patterns in consumer behavior.
• Monitors competitors' social media presence and performance.
• Generates detailed reports and visualizations.

Pricing

• Starter 3 ($299 per month): 3 topics, unlimited users, and 30,000 monthly mentions.
• Unlimited Plans: Configured to your requirements.

Best for: Companies active on social media that want to track their brand's presence and impact across platforms.

What I like: It doesn’t rely on hashtags and captions only, but it identifies subjects and text in images as well.

Here’s a simple breakdown of how it works:

1. The AI identifies and tags visual elements in images, such as logos, objects, and scenes.

2. It extracts relevant information from these images, like how your brand’s logo is used or what products are featured.

3. The tool then analyzes this data to provide insights, such as how your brand is perceived or which products are the most popular.

4. You can use filters to narrow down the results and view detailed reports.

Testing It Out

I think every marketer, especially social media managers, will fall in love with this tool.

The analytics are in-depth and give a clear picture of mention volumes, engagement, and sentiment trends.

For example, if your posts receive a lot of happy or positive comments, YouScan will generally reflect a positive sentiment. On the flip side, if the posts show negative reactions or dissatisfaction, the sentiment will be negative as well.

The Insights Copilot, powered by ChatGPT, is my favorite part. It makes data analysis much easier by generating quick summaries and actionable insights.

For example, you can ask what customers like about your product, and it will give you a quick summary based on social media mentions.

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I also enjoyed the ability to make custom dashboards in 1,000 different ways.

3. Consensus for quick and reliable scientific insights.

Consensus is an AI market analysis tool that digs into scientific studies to give you clear, actionable insights.

But instead of just giving you a list of academic papers like traditional search engines, Consensus scans these papers and summarizes the key findings.

It uses advanced NLP and machine learning to understand the content and present the most relevant information in a simple, easy-to-read format.

Features

• Provides direct answers to specific questions by analyzing scientific papers.
• Highlights the scientific consensus and evidence supporting the findings.
• Summarizes key points from multiple papers, saving users time in reviewing literature.
• Offers links to original papers, allowing users to verify information and explore further.

Pricing

• Free: Unlimited AI filters, searches, and research indicators. Limited Copilot, GPT-4 summaries, and Consensus Meter.
• Premium ($11.99/month): Full access to Consensus Meter, bookmarks, GPT-4 summaries, and Copilot.
• Teams ($12.99 per seat/month): Central billing, discounts for 200+ seats, account management.
• Enterprise (custom quote): Library integration, dedicated support, large-scale user management.

Best for: Academics, marketers, and anyone seeking reliable scientific information. It can help marketers reveal what factors influence purchasing decisions, how different demographics respond to various marketing strategies, and what trends are emerging in the market.

What I like: The Collaboration Hub feature is great for working in real-time with your team members.

Testing It Out

I typed in something about mindfulness and sleep, and within seconds, I had a concise summary of the relevant research.

It pulled together key points from multiple papers into one clear overview.

Then there's the Copilot feature, which adds even deeper insights using GPT-style summaries, complete with clickable citations for easy access to the sources.

The Consensus Meter is a great feature, too. I asked a yes/no question, and it broke down the research findings with percentages — giving me a quick snapshot of where the science stands.

The ability to save searches, export citations, and integrate with tools like Zotero makes it a must-have for serious research.

And who can benefit from such research?

Concretely, all these findings can boost market research for sleep-related products.

For example, research shows that mindfulness improves sleep, which can lead to the development of supplements or apps that help with relaxation. Data on sleep patterns can also help create better sleep trackers or more comfortable mattresses.

Moreover, marketers can use this information to create targeted ads and content. Understanding sleep patterns can help in designing promotional campaigns for sleep-related products.

You see? Everything is connected. 🙂

4. Lexalytics for advanced text analytics and sentiment analysis.

Lexalytics is a text analysis tool that helps businesses understand large amounts of written data. It can determine if people are feeling positive or negative, identify key names and places, and determine what main topics are being discussed.

Let's say a company is preparing to launch a new smartwatch.

Lexalytics scans social media and reviews to see if people are excited about smartwatches. Then, the tool tracks real-time discussions to identify what people are talking about most.

Is it battery life or design? The answer helps the company highlight these trends in their product launch.

By identifying key names (e.g., industry influencers, competitors) and places (e.g., tech hubs, major cities) mentioned in the data, the company can tailor their marketing campaigns to target specific audiences or regions.

For example, if some popular tech influencer is buzzing around in conversations, the company could reach out to them and offer an exclusive review or endorsement, turning that buzz into brand hype.

Features

• Identifies and categorizes emotions in text, such as positive, negative, or neutral.
• Detects important names, places, organizations, and products mentioned in the text.
• Allows users to tailor text analysis models and solutions to fit specific industries or needs.
• Provides immediate insights by analyzing text data as it is received.
• Sorts and categorizes text into predefined categories for easier analysis.
• Handles text in multiple languages, making it suitable for global applications.
• Offers detailed visualizations and reports.

Pricing: Request a demo to get more info about pricing.

Best for: Marketing teams, product managers, customer support, data analysts, and researchers who need to analyze and understand sentiment trends in feedback and data.

What I like: The tool effectively handles nuances like negations and intensifiers, which makes results more accurate.

Testing It Out

I decided to focus on sentiment analysis to see how the tool handles this aspect.

First, I created a chart widget in the dashboard and selected the sentiment polarity option.

For my test, I zeroed in on the top 10 topics, which gave me a good range of data to analyze. I started by viewing the total number of documents to understand how sentiment was distributed — positive, negative, and neutral — across these topics.

Next, I adjusted the widget to show the percentages of documents rather than raw counts.

This change provided a clearer picture of what fraction of the documents were positive, negative, or neutral for each topic. It was interesting to compare these percentages and see how sentiment varied by topic.

5. Crayon for tracking and analyzing competitor activity.

Crayon allows you to track what your competitors are cooking. It provides competitive intelligence and market research insights through AI-driven analytics.

Crayon continuously tracks competitor activities across various channels — websites, social media, and news sources.

With this inside scoop, you can see all their moves and make savvy, well-informed decisions.

Features

• Tracks competitors’ activities in real time to keep you informed about their latest moves and strategies.
• Analyzes competitors’ marketing tactics and business decisions.
• Benchmarks your performance against competitors to highlight areas for improvement.
• Detects emerging market trends and informs you about them.
• Provides detailed industry reports to give you a clear picture of market conditions and opportunities.
• Processes large volumes of data efficiently.
• Forecasts future market trends based on current and historical data.
• Sends custom alerts to keep you updated on important events.
• Visualizes complex data with clear charts and graphs.

Pricing: Pricing depends on your needs and team size. Reach out for a demo to get your quote.

Best for: Individuals and teams who want to track multiple competitors, manage detailed battle cards, and organize insights across various topics.

What I like: Compete Hub, which acts as a newsfeed for my latest announcements and helps me stay on top of industry developments.

Testing It Out

Previously, I struggled with the tedious task of sifting through Google Alerts, which took time away from more important tasks.

Crayon AI changed that by providing really good insights with just a click. The platform’s machine learning algorithm prioritizes critical updates, such as significant changes to competitors' homepages over minor social media posts.

I particularly love the daily email summaries, which deliver a curated list of the most important insights right to my inbox, saving me from endless alert checking.

Try HubSpot AI Summarization to easily generate business reports, summarize customer interactions, and boost productivity with AI-driven insights.

6. Poll The People for crowdsourced decision-making powered by AI.

Poll The People helps you have a global conversation with your target audience. The platform offers more than just polls — it also incorporates public opinions and deeper surveys.

With Poll The People, businesses can find the collective thoughts of a large group and make informed decisions based on widespread feedback — curated and analyzed with Open AI to prevent biases and human-prone errors.

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Features

• Creates quick and easy polls to gather feedback fast.
• Generates real-time results to help you make swift decisions.
• Targets specific demographics to get relevant feedback.
• Offers both public and private poll options for various needs.
• Provides diverse question formats, including multiple-choice and text input.
• Customizes polls with branding and specific questions.
• Delivers instant analysis for immediate insights.
• Exports poll results in various formats for detailed analysis.
• Ensures anonymous responses for honest feedback.

Pricing

• Lite (Free): 20+ templates, 250 responses per study, 3 tests per month, and more.
• Plus ($50/month): Everything in Lite, 500 responses per study, 7-day free trial, and 10 tests per month.
• Premium ($100/month): Everything in Plus, support, 2,000 responses per study, and unlimited tests.
• Enterprise (from $10,000/month): Everything in Premium, plus expert consultation, unlimited responses, and additional support.

Best for: Marketers, product developers, UX/UI designers, business owners, and researchers who need quick, targeted feedback to make informed decisions.

What I like: It’s not just a text-based tool. Upload images and get feedback on specific designs or logos.

Testing It Out

I used it to get feedback on potential titles for my book. I set up a quick poll asking for opinions on which title resonated best with readers.

Within a short period, I received 100 responses that provided valuable insights into what my audience likes.

The process was incredibly straightforward.

I created the poll with two-choice options and targeted the responses to make sure they came from my intended audience.

Note: I don’t recommend the free version because you pay per response; for example, one response costs $1, so 100 responses would cost $100. It’s more cost-effective to opt for a monthly plan if you need a larger number of responses.

7. ChatSpot for smarter research and data analysis.

ChatSpot by HubSpot is an AI-powered assistant that simplifies market research. It combines the capabilities of ChatGPT to give you powerful insights and personalized responses.

You can quickly spot trends, track customer needs, and get valuable data using pre-made templates and real-time information. It integrates with your HubSpot CRM, letting you connect with your data.

Scouting sales leads or digging into company details like funding rounds and tech stacks? ChatSpot makes research easy and gets the most out of it.

Features

• Leverages data to track and interpret market trends.
• Uses prompt templates and unique data sources for smarter insights.
• Drafts blog posts, writes X posts, and creates AI-generated images.
• Identifies key opportunities quickly with prospecting templates.
• Integrates with HubSpot CRM to interact with your data in real time.
• Provides deep insights into company details like funding rounds and technologies.
• Offers intuitive answers designed to help you take action.
• Allows you to manage contacts, tasks, and notes using natural language commands.

Pricing: ChatSpot is free to use and automatically connects to your HubSpot account.

Best for: Marketers, sales teams, customer service reps, business analysts, content creators, small business owners, and project managers who want actionable insights and improved efficiency.

What I like: The accuracy of the data it provides. I also love ChatSpot’s Image Generator, which creates a variety of stunning visuals.

Pro tip: Interview AI as if it were your ideal client. Provide it with demographic details and ask it to respond with motivations and struggles using the language of your target audience.

With just a few clicks, you can generate blogs, social posts, and emails. HubSpot Content Writer is perfect for saving time, overcoming writer's block, and scaling your content without extra costs.

Testing It Out

First, I tested ChatSpot’s primary chat feature by asking it a question about current ecommerce trends:

As you can see, it provided a brief but clear response, with bolded words that highlight key ecommerce trends.

Then, I asked about what influences clients when choosing between Google Drive and Dropbox for cloud storage:

ChatSpot delivered a crisp answer in a brief paragraph, highlighting the key points with bold text again.

But ChatSpot offers more than just a question-answer feature, and that’s what I love most about it — quickly prospecting for sales with handy templates, drafting blog posts and social media updates, and generating AI images. It also lets you dig into company data like funding and tech used.

Plus, you can manage your HubSpot CRM tasks — like adding contacts and creating notes — using natural language commands, making everything more intuitive and efficient.

From Spending Days on Analysis to Getting Results in Seconds

If someone had told us a few years ago that everything we used to spend hours on — creating detailed analyses, charts, and struggling with Excel — could be done in just a few clicks, with results sorted in seconds, we wouldn’t have believed it.

But, that‘s our reality today, and it’s only getting better.

That’s why I hate when people say, “AI takes jobs.” No, it makes them easier.

We’re still the ones setting tasks and making final decisions. But AI market research tools help us track trends, analyze competitors, and compare data more quickly and efficiently.

Just as we no longer use carriages to travel from point A to point B, there’s no need to manually do tasks when a faster, smarter solution is right at our fingertips.

The most important thing is to find high-quality solutions that meet our needs and budget. That’s it. Don’t be afraid of AI. Let’s keep up with the times.

When I started applying SMART marketing objectives to organize my workflow and then for two teams of 20 people each, my entire perception of success changed.

As long as I didn‘t set clear goals with reasonable deadlines, I was bogged down in mountains of work, seeming to have no light at the end of the tunnel.

I was extra-achieving, but I didn’t feel it was enough, which led to wrong priorities and piling up tasks in a backlog.

Only after reading books on SMART goals did I realize how amazing clear objectives could be for soaring productivity in less time.

So in this article, I will explain the five dos and don’ts of making a SMART goal, complete with examples and hands-on experience.

In this article:

• What are SMART goals?
• SMART Goal Acronym
• Why are SMART goals important?
• Benefits of SMART Goals
• SMART Goal Examples
• How to Make a SMART Goal

What are SMART goals?

SMART goals are concrete targets that you aim to hit over a certain period.

These goals should be carefully drafted by a manager and their direct report to set them up for success. “SMART” is an acronym that describes the most important characteristics of each goal.

“SMART” stands for “specific,” “measurable,” “attainable,” “relevant,” and “time-bound.” Each SMART goal should have these five characteristics to ensure the goal can be reached and benefits the employee.

Find out what each characteristic means below and how to write a SMART goal that exemplifies them.

In the working world, the influence of SMART goals continues to grow. The reason why successful marketing teams always hit their numbers is that they also set and write SMART goals.

Research shows that 48% of people who set goals always write them down. It can help you get clear on what you want, stay focused, and track your progress.

Writing goals down turns vague ideas into concrete plans, and, of course, makes them easier to achieve.

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Use this template to follow along and create your own SMART goals.

SMART Goal Acronym

Most trace the SMART acronym back to a 1981 paper by George Doran, "There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management goals and objectives."

His colleagues Arthur Miller and James Cunningham are also credited for their work on this paper.

The “Objectives” section of this paper asks, “How do you write meaningful objectives?” Then goes on to define the SMART acronym as the following:

• Specific — target a specific area for improvement.
• Measurable — quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
• Assignable — specify who will do it.
• Realistic — state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
• Time-related — specify when the result(s) can be achieved.

The meaning of each letter in this acronym can shift based on the user and how they want to apply this framework to their business. You can see the most popular terms and their best-known alternatives below:

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The paper also states that not every goal needs to meet all five criteria. Instead, the goal was to use this acronym to create a benchmark for management excellence.

But today, the SMART acronym usually looks like this:

SMART goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

This framework continues to be useful because it's easy to remember and can help streamline the goal-setting process.

I’ll now talk more about each part of the SMART acronym and how you can apply this as you create measurable goals for yourself and your team.

S — Specific

Specific goals are clear and include precise details. Specificity makes your goal easy to understand and carry out.

To check if your goal is specific, I recommend you ask more than one person to review your goal and rephrase what you are trying to do. If your proofreaders come up with more than one idea of your final goal, it isn't specific enough.

M — Measurable

Measurable goals are targets that you can calculate and track over time. Goals that include a set measurement or metric are more concrete than anecdotal goals or plans based on someone’s opinion.

Measurable goals give you and your team a chance to track progress toward a goal and make changes over time. It also gives you a clear and specific picture of success.

To figure out how to make your goal measurable, look closely at your ultimate goal. Ask yourself:

• How can we control this goal?
• Is this goal clear and actionable?
• Is there anything subjective about this goal?

Then, choose the metrics that most directly connect to your final goal. If you're not sure which metrics to choose, I think this is a useful guide to KPIs to help you get started.

A — Attainable

Attainable goals are challenging but achievable. This aspect of goal-setting should consider your team's unique qualities as well as the problems and blockers you work on together.

To set ambitious but attainable goals, start by thinking big. Create a list where you imagine the best possible outcomes.

Take a break for a day or two, then come back and edit your list with every question, challenge, and critique you can think of.

Goals that are too easy to meet won‘t motivate your team or lead to growth. But goals that are unrealistic can demoralize your team and strain resources. It’s important to find the right balance.

“Make your goal ambitious but achievable. Your goal should feel like a little bit of a stretch for you, so you stay motivated. If you set a goal that‘s too easy, you won’t feel inspired to do the work. On the other hand, the goal can't be impossible, or you will get frustrated.

To find the balance, take into account where you are today and what’s reasonable for you. Given the time and resources available to you, what is a goal that feels like a little bit of a stretch?” – Bernard Marr, CEO and Founder of Bernard Marr's Wine Cellar.

R — Relevant

Relevant goals support the mission, vision, and priorities of your business.

Start the goal and objective-setting process with a quick review to ensure that your SMART goals connect to your business goals.

I suggest reading through your company's mission and vision statements, or print and post them on the wall in a shared space. Then review quarterly business reports, recent memos, or any recent communication about business goals.

This will mean you start the process with what's relevant at the top of your mind.

After you draft your SMART goals, do another quick scan of these documents and review your goals for relevance.

It‘s easy to get excited about a new idea, even if it doesn’t align with company priorities. But the best ideas will support your most essential business goals.

T — Time-Bound

Time-bound goals have a specific deadline or timeframe. In my experience, without deadlines, assignments are uncompleted, and processes stagnate.

Human nature always seeks comfort and procrastination. Deadlines hold us accountable and pinpoint the lack of resources, knowledge, or other hurdles in a timely manner.

Also, adding a time constraint to your goal creates a sense of urgency.

Urgency combines importance with a need for action. This is sometimes because there‘s a fear of consequences. Other times employees feel it because they’re eager to prepare for the future or meet an exciting goal.

Time constraints are important to your goal-setting process. Tasks that are time-sensitive often feel more important than tasks without a timeframe attached.

This means that, no matter how essential a project is, it will drop in priority without a deadline.

Luckily, it's easy to create a feeling of urgency. Just add a realistic timeframe to your goal. I find that time-bound goals also set clear expectations for stakeholders, which improves communication.

Why are SMART goals important?

SMART goals are important to set as they:

• Help you work with clear intentions, not broad or vague goals.
• Provide a method to gauge your success by setting benchmarks to meet.
• Give sensible objectives that are realistic and achievable.
• Cut out unnecessary or irrelevant work that could take away from what’s important.
• Set a clear beginning and end to adhere to in reaching your goals.

When you set specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals, you increase your odds of success by verifying that the goal is achievable, identifying the metrics that define success, and creating a roadmap to reach those metrics.

If your goals are abstract, if you don‘t know what it will take to achieve success, or if you don’t give yourself a deadline to complete steps, you may lose focus and fall short of what you want to accomplish.

Do SMART goals actually work?

In short — yes, if done correctly.

I polled roughly 300 participants in the U.S. and found that 52% believe SMART goals help them achieve their goals more often than if they didn't use a SMART framework.

Setting unrealistic goals and trying to measure them without consideration of previous performance, overly short time frames, or including too many variables will lead you off course.

My experience shows how it works (and fails) in practice.

Prior to starting work with the District #1 Charitable Foundation, I drafted a consultant proposal that outlined services by priority, timeframe, and OKRs.

The purpose was to find and attract new donors for livelihood and development projects for people affected by the war in Ukraine.

Having extensive experience in cold and outbound sales for tech startups, I considered it possible to engage 15 new partners in the conversation in under three months from the database I'd built.

I misjudged the resources needed and the time required to build genuine relationships. As a result, I couldn’t finish all the work within the planned hours.

However, I did manage to establish connections with seven new partners, sign one contract, and attain several memorandums.

That said, I fell short of the desired 15 meetings but succeeded in building long-lasting partnerships.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, even if your SMART goal doesn’t work out to the fullest, it will bring other positive outcomes or at least valuable lessons for the future. If you encounter failure, don’t give up on this approach just because of one setback.

And here’s how I set realistic goals.

First, I start from the top down, where I state my final and biggest goal. Then, I break down the process to achieve the goal through subsequent steps and tasks. Once I get to the bottom and my first task, I run it through the SMART methodology. Taking that, I do the following:

• I rely on my past experience and lessons learned.
• I estimate the time spent on a specific action item and record the actual time spent on a task.
• If I have no relevant experience, I try to find benchmarks and speak to colleagues.
• If there's no data on the web, I rely on the first two steps and my gut feeling and make tweaks on the go.
• I also try to lay out roadblocks that might appear during the task and the time or resources it will take to resolve.

Let’s now discuss the data-backed benefits of SMART goals.

Benefits of SMART Goals

Offer Focus and Clarity

The process of goal completion is often more complicated than it seems. Distractions, side tasks, and other projects can all steer you away from completing your projects.

But SMART goals improve focus because they simplify the to-do list and offer an immediate reminder of why those specific tasks are important.

Boost Motivation

It's not unusual to experience stress or be overwhelmed in the workplace. One contributor is often a lack of clear goals. And that combination can make a serious impact on your motivation.

But a SMART goal can boost energy, improve direction, and motivate you and your team because:

• It gets everyone more involved in the process.
• It helps employees understand why their work is important.
• It offers a new challenge and direction for people who are feeling stuck.

But, even with SMART goals, motivation levels can drop — sometimes really low. And it’s completely normal. We’re only humans after all. 🙂

Blending freelance writing with part-time work at a charitable fund can be draining. When this happens, here’s how I handle it — I focus on what I enjoy, excel at, and learn from.

When I feel overwhelmed, I pause to remind myself why I do it and what I gain. If I stepped back, would I pivot? The answer is no.

Motivation drives me, so I rely on precise goal setting and tracking to reach new heights, improve the quality of my work, and open more doors.

Improve Accountability

Fear of failure often stops people from doing their best work. To avoid this stressor, you might avoid making a commitment in the workplace.

But accountability is essential for high-growth teams. It helps you and your team engage, take ownership of your work, and take responsibility for progress.

In my experience, SMART goals improve accountability because they give teams and managers a simple way to track progress toward shared objectives.

This makes it easier for teams to understand the learning, coaching, and feedback they need to optimize performance.

According to Persuasion Nation research, people who submit weekly accountability reports tend to achieve 40% more than those who don’t.

Committing to your goals with these reports can really boost your chances of success. Weekly reports help you build a routine and reflect on your progress.

That’s how you get a clear view of what’s working and where you might need to adjust.

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Strengthen Communication

According to 2023 data from Project.co, 68% of businesspeople have wasted time due to communication issues.

And only 7% of businesses rate their communication as “excellent.”

Clearly, effective communication is both difficult and essential to any business.

SMART goals help with effective communication. This is because they're goals that multiple coworkers, teams, and departments can quickly understand. This improves knowledge-sharing, collaborative efforts, and communication.

Help Manage Resources

Proper resource management can reduce costs, make processes more efficient, and increase productivity. But managing resources is tough.

Put simply, a business is a group of people, each with distinct knowledge and experience, working toward individual goals.

These individual goals eventually come together to meet common goals, but in the process, things can get a little wonky.

But SMART goals are great for resource management. This is because they offer a structure that makes it easier for teams to see where a process is creating blocks or challenges.

I’ve found this helps teams understand when priorities and resources are out of sync. It also creates a shared purpose that can inspire people to make necessary but difficult changes.

Increase Innovation

Innovation is a process that combines creativity and problem-solving skills to get original ideas. You may have heard the common belief that creativity requires a lack of boundaries.

And some critiques of SMART goals say that they can have negative impacts if goal-setting is too rigid or narrowly defined.

But there's extensive data, including this research from Harvard Business Review, that says constraints often positively impact innovation. SMART goals boost innovation because they create motivational challenges.

The motivation comes in part from the constraints teams need to work within.

Planning to create goals for the week, month, quarter, or year? Use this template to simplify the process of setting, calculating, and evaluating your SMART goals.

Enhance Performance

For managers, SMART goals offer a useful framework for improving employee performance. They make progress toward project goals clear.

This goal-setting framework can also apply to long-term personal goals for each member of your team.

For individuals, SMART goals can make it easier to balance and track work projects. I’ve found they can boost performance because they help you:

• Measure progress.
• Identify strengths and weaknesses.
• Build positive momentum.

Setting and working toward SMART goals can also help you develop new behaviors that can improve performance.

So now, it’s time to examine some realistic examples of SMART goals to better understand them.

1. Blog Traffic Goal

• Specific I want to boost our blog's traffic by increasing our weekly publishing frequency from five to eight times a week. Our two bloggers will increase their workload from writing two posts a week to three posts a week, and our editor will increase her workload from writing one post a week to two posts a week.
• Measurable: Our goal is an 8% increase in traffic.
• Attainable: Our blog traffic increased by 5% last month when we increased our weekly publishing frequency from three to five times a week.
• Relevant: By increasing blog traffic, we'll boost brand awareness and generate more leads, giving sales more opportunities to close.
• Time-Bound: End of this month.
• SMART Goal: By increasing our weekly publishing frequency from five posts to eight posts, our blog will see an 8% lift in traffic by the end of this month.

2. Facebook Video Views Goal

• Specific: I want to boost our average views per native video by cutting our video content mix from eight topics to our five most popular topics.
• Measurable: Our goal is a 25% increase in views.
• Attainable: When we cut down our video content mix on Facebook from 10 topics to our eight most popular topics, our average views per native video increased by 20%.
• Relevant: By increasing the average views per native video on Facebook, we'll boost our social media following and brand awareness, reaching more potential customers with our video content.
• Time-Bound: In six months.
• SMART Goal: In six months, we'll see a 25% increase in average video views per native video on Facebook by cutting our video content mix from eight topics to our five most popular topics.

3. Email Subscription Goal

• Specific: I want to boost the number of email blog subscribers by increasing our Facebook advertising budget on blog posts that historically acquire the most email subscribers.
• Measurable: Our goal is a 50% increase in subscribers.
• Attainable: Since we started using this tactic three months ago, our email blog subscriptions have increased by 40%.
• Relevant: By increasing the number of email blog subscribers, our blog will drive more traffic, boost brand awareness, and drive more leads to our sales team.
• Time-Bound: In three months.
• SMART Goal: In three months, we'll see a 50% increase in the number of email blog subscribers by increasing our Facebook advertising budget on posts that historically acquire the most blog subscribers.

4. Webinar Sign-Up Goal

• Specific: I want to increase the number of sign-ups for our Facebook Messenger webinar by promoting it through social, email, our blog, and Facebook Messenger.
• Measurable: Our goal is a 15% increase in sign-ups.
• Attainable: Our last Facebook Messenger webinar saw a 10% increase in sign-ups when we only promoted it through social, email, and our blog.
• Relevant: When our webinars generate more leads, sales have more opportunities to close.
• Time-Bound: By June 1, the day of the webinar.
• SMART Goal: By June 1, the day of our webinar, we'll see a 15% increase in sign-ups by promoting it through social, email, our blog, and Facebook Messenger.

5. Landing Page Performance Goal

• Specific: I want our landing pages to generate more leads by switching from a one-column form to a two-column form.
• Measurable: My goal is a 30% increase in lead generation.
• Attainable: When we A/B tested our traditional one-column form versus a two-column form on our highest-traffic landing pages, we discovered that two-column forms convert 27% better than our traditional one-column forms, at a 99% significance level.
• Relevant: If we generate more content leads, sales can close more customers.
• Time-Bound: One year from now.
• SMART Goal: One year from now, our landing pages will generate 30% more leads by switching their forms from one column to two columns.

6. Link-Building Strategy Goal

• Specific: I want to increase our website's organic traffic by developing a link-building strategy that gets other publishers to link to our website. This increases our ranking in search engine results, allowing us to generate more organic traffic.
• Measurable: Our goal is 40 backlinks to our company homepage.
• Attainable: According to our SEO analysis tool, there are currently 500 low-quality links directing to our homepage from elsewhere on the internet. Given the number of partnerships we currently have with other businesses, and that we generate 10 new inbound links per month without any outreach on our part, an additional 40 inbound links from a single link-building campaign is a significant but feasible target.
• Relevant: Organic traffic is our top source of new leads, and backlinks are one of the biggest ranking factors on search engines like Google. If we build links from high-quality publications, our organic ranking increases, boosting our traffic and leads as a result.
• Time-Bound: Four months from now.
• SMART Goal: Over the next four months, I will build 40 additional backlinks that direct to www.ourcompany.com. To do so, I will collaborate with Ellie and Andrew from our PR department to connect with publishers and develop an effective outreach strategy.

7. Reducing Churn Rate Goal

• Specific: I want to reduce customer churn by 5% for my company because every customer loss is a reflection of our service’s quality and perception.
• Measurable: Contact 30 at-risk customers per week and provide customer support daily for five new customers during their onboarding process.
• Attainable: Our product offering has just improved and we have the means to invest more into our customer support team, and could potentially have five at-risk customers upscale monthly.
• Relevant: We can set up a customer knowledge base to track customers’ progression in the buyer’s journey and prevent churn by contacting them before they lose interest.
• Time-Bound: In 24 weeks.

• SMART Goal: In 24 weeks, I will reduce the churn rate by 5% for my company. To do so, we will contact 30 at-risk customers per week and provide/invest in customer support to assist five new customers during onboarding daily and track their progress through a customer knowledge base.

8. Brand Affinity Goal

• Specific: I want to increase our podcast listener count as we are trying to establish ourselves as thought leaders in our market.
• Measurable: A 40% increase in listeners is our goal.
• Attainable: We can increase our current budget and level our podcaster’s cadence to have the means to hold insightful conversations for our listeners to tune into.
• Relevant: We created a podcast and have dedicated a team to source interesting guests, sound mixing, and eye-catching thumbnails to get it started.
• Time-Bound: In four months.
• SMART Goal: In four months, we'll see a 40% increase in average listener count in Apple Podcasts by providing our team the budget and cadence to make insightful podcasts with quality sound mixing and eye-catching thumbnails.

9. Podcast Listener Count Goal

• Specific: I want to boost our podcast's listener count by promoting our podcast across social channels. We will post four quotes related to new podcast episodes throughout the month on our X account, and we will post six short videos of our podcast conversations with guests on our Instagram account throughout the month.
• Measurable: Our goal is a 20% increase in podcast listeners.
• Attainable: Our podcast listener count increased by 5% last month when we published two short videos of our podcast conversation on Instagram.
• Relevant: By increasing podcast listener count, we'll boost brand awareness and generate more leads, giving sales more opportunities to close.
• Time-Bound: End of this month.
• SMART Goal: At the end of this month, our podcast will see a 20% increase in listeners by increasing our promotions from two Instagram posts to four X posts and six Instagram posts. So, if we achieve these numbers, we can say that we have met our SMART social media goals.

10. In-Person Event Attendee Goal

• Specific: I want to boost attendance at our upcoming in-person event by 50% by sending out three email reminders to our subscriber lists each week before the event.
• Measurable: Our goal is a 50% increase in attendees.
• Attainable: Our attendee number increased by 20% last year when we sent out one email reminder to our subscriber lists.
• Relevant: By increasing attendee count, we'll increase brand loyalty by providing value to our existing customers and generate more leads.
• Time-Bound: August 30.
• SMART Goal: By the time of our event on August 30th, our attendee number will increase by 50% from where it's at now (250 attendees), by sending out three email reminders to our subscriber lists.

Now that you’ve seen examples of SMART goals, let’s dive into how to make your own.

1. Use specific wording.

When writing SMART goals, keep in mind that they are “specific” in that there‘s a hard and fast destination the employee is trying to reach.

"Get better at my job" isn’t a SMART goal because it isn't specific.

Instead, I suggest you ask yourself: What are you getting better at? How much better do you want to get?

If you're a marketing professional, your job probably revolves around key performance indicators (KPIs). Therefore, you might choose a particular KPI or metric that you want to improve on — like visitors, leads, or customers.

You should also identify the team members working toward this goal, the resources they have, and their plan of action.

In practice, a specific SMART goal might say, “Clifford and Braden will increase the blog's traffic from email...” You know exactly who‘s involved and what you’re trying to improve on.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: Vagueness

While you may need to keep some goals more open-ended, you should avoid vagueness that could confuse your team later on.

For example, instead of saying, “Clifford will boost email marketing experiences,” say “Clifford will boost email marketing click rates by 10%.”

2. Include measurable goals.

SMART goals should be “measurable” in that you can track and quantify the goal‘s progress. "Increase the blog’s traffic from email," by itself, isn‘t a SMART goal because you can’t measure the increase.

Instead, ask yourself: How much email marketing traffic should you strive for?

In my experience, if you want to gauge your team's progress, you need to quantify your goals, like achieving an X-percentage increase in visitors, leads, or customers.

Let‘s build on the SMART goal we stated above. Now, our measurable SMART goal might say, "Clifford and Braden will increase the blog’s traffic from email by 25% more sessions per month... " You know what you're increasing, and by how much.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: No KPIs

This is in the same vein as avoiding vagueness. While you might need qualitative or open-ended evidence to prove your success, you should still come up with a quantifiable KPI.

For example, instead of saying, “Customer service will improve customer happiness,” say, “We want the average call satisfaction score from customers to be a seven out of ten or higher.”

3. Aim for realistically attainable goals.

An “attainable” SMART goal considers the employee's ability to achieve it. Make sure that the X-percentage increase is rooted in reality.

If your blog traffic increased by 5% last month, try to increase it by 8-10% this month, rather than a lofty 25%.

I think it‘s crucial to base your goals on your own analytics, not industry benchmarks, or else you might bite off more than you can chew.

So, let’s add some “attainability” to the SMART goal we created earlier in this blog post: “Clifford and Braden will increase the blog's traffic from email by 8-10% more sessions per month... ” This way, you're not setting yourself up to fail.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: Unattainable Goals

Yes. You should always aim to improve. But reaching for completely unattainable goals may knock you off course and make it harder to track progress.

Rather than saying, “We want to make 10,000% of what we made in 2022,” consider something more attainable, like, “We want to increase sales by 150% this year,” or “We have a quarterly goal to reach a 20% year-over-year sales increase.”

4. Pick relevant goals that relate to your business.

SMART goals that are “relevant” relate to your company‘s overall business goals and account for current trends in your industry.

For instance, will growing your traffic from email lead to more revenue?

And, is it actually possible for you to significantly boost your blog’s email traffic, given your current email marketing campaigns?

If you're aware of these factors, you’re more likely to set goals that benefit your company — not just you or your department.

So, what does that do to our SMART goal? It might encourage you to adjust the metric you‘re using to track the goal’s progress.

For example, maybe your business has historically relied on organic traffic to generate leads and revenue, and research suggests you can generate more qualified leads this way.

Our SMART goal might instead say, “Clifford and Braden will increase the blog's organic traffic by 8-10% more sessions per month.” This way, your traffic increase is aligned with the business's revenue stream.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: Losing Sight of the Company

When your company is doing well, I know it can be easy to say you want to pivot or grow in another direction. While companies can successfully do this, you don't want your team to lose sight of how the core of your business works.

Rather than saying, “We want to start a new B2B business on top of our B2C business,” say something like, “We want to continue increasing B2C sales while researching the impact our products could have on the B2B space in the next year.”

5. Make goals time-bound by including a timeframe and deadline information.

A “time-bound” SMART goal keeps you on schedule.

Improving on a goal is great, but not if it takes too long. Attaching deadlines to your goals puts a healthy dose of pressure on your team to accomplish them.

I’ve found this helps me make consistent and significant progress in the long term.

For example, which would you prefer: increasing organic traffic by 5% every month, leading to a 30-35% increase in half a year? Or trying to increase traffic by 15% with no deadline and achieving that goal in the same timeframe?

If you picked the former, you're right.

So, what does our SMART goal look like once we bind it to a timeframe?

“Over the next three months, Clifford and Braden will work to increase the blog's organic traffic by 8-10%, reaching a total of 50,000 organic sessions by the end of August.”

As Frederik Binow, CEO at Walor, says, achieving goals is most effective when you set ambitious deadlines for yourself and your team. Without deadlines, tasks often lack specificity, leading to a decrease in motivation and urgency.

Deadlines serve as a motivating force and push individuals to overcome personal barriers through teamwork and determination.

And by consistently raising the bar, we foster a mindset where more goals seem attainable. In short, deadlines drive action and personal growth.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: No Time Frame

Having no timeframe or a really broad span of time noted in your goal will cause the effort to get reprioritized or make it hard for you to see if your team is on track.

Rather than saying, “This year, we want to launch a major campaign,” say, “In quarter one, we will focus on campaign production in order to launch the campaign in quarter two.”

Make Your SMART Goals SMART-er

Now that you know what a SMART goal is, why it‘s important, and the framework to create one, it’s time to put that information into practice.

Whether you‘re setting goals for a personal achievement or as part of hitting important marketing milestones, it’s good to start with what you want to achieve and then reverse-engineer it into a concrete SMART goal.

What I consider very important about setting goals is not to push yourself too hard. Don’t set limits beyond your capabilities.

Yes, we want to step out of our comfort zones, but that doesn’t mean we should destroy ourselves mentally and physically.

And worst of all, if you don’t achieve that goal in the end, it will eat you up inside.

This happened to me, and that’s why I’m trying to explain it to everyone now. Set your goals step by step. Don’t look for shortcuts. It doesn’t work that way.

Step by step. Realistic goals. Smart expectations. And, if things don’t go as planned, see it as a chance to learn from your mistakes.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.