How To Plan and Implement OKR Tracking for Your Marketing Agency

As an agency owner, you know how important it is to set goals. They provide a clear direction to work towards and help you share it with your team. 

 

All this sounds great in practice. 

 

But when you're busy ensuring projects stay on schedule, preparing customer pitches, and ensuring staff get paid on time, it's easy to set a goal and then lose sight of how you're doing. Or setting an OKR and struggling to either implement it effectively across the organization or stick with it for the entire year. 

 

This guide will show you a practical way to set and track goals using the objectives & key results (OKR) goal-setting framework, and how to simplify OKR progress tracking with DashThis.

 

Table of contents

• DashThis Explains: What is OKR tracking?
• Why set and track OKRs for your marketing agency? 
• How to create a specific OKR for your marketing agency
• OKRs vs. KPIs: what's the difference? Should you use both? 
• How to track OKRs with DashThis’s OKR software 
• Streamline goal setting with DashThis’s OKR tracking software

 

 

DashThis Explains: What is OKR tracking?

 

Developed by Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, and used by high-performing tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Dropbox, OKRs provide a structured framework for goal tracking and deciding what to prioritize for your business. 

 

Besides using company OKRs to communicate your agency's goals, you'll also need a system to measure OKR progress and guide your weekly check-ins. Typically, businesses use a combination of spreadsheets, project management tools, and weekly check-ins to track their performance and monitor OKR progress. 

 

Alternatively, an OKR tool is another way to track your goals. Besides goal-setting, these tools include visualization and collaboration features for easier data analysis and discussions.

Get this white-labeled agency dashboard with your own data! 

 

Why set and track OKRs for your marketing agency? 

 

Although tech companies may have popularized OKRs, they benefit individuals and organizations of all sizes. The right OKRs serve as an excellent goal-setting tool. It also provides a framework for communicating progress updates on key initiatives. Here are two reasons it can help your agency become a more efficient organization. 

Communicates business priorities and actions 

 

Well-defined OKRs shape your goal-setting process and ensure team alignment on objectives. For example, the right OKRs help everyone in the company work toward the same goals. Here’s how it might help you on three different levels.

 

Communicate organizational priorities:  The OKR process lets stakeholders and company leadership share business priorities with team members. When set correctly and shared company-wide, teams can always see the current priorities and what other teams are working on to achieve them.

 

Ensure team OKRs align with organizational priorities: If a business priority is to establish a go-to-market strategy in a new vertical, your business development team can use the OKR goal-setting method to discuss team priorities and work together to achieve a shared goal. This empowers teams and sets clear expectations for both leaders and team members.

 

Motivate individual team members: According to Gallup's research, only 32% of full- and part-time U.S. employees are engaged at work, while 18% are actively disengaged. OKRs can help team members keep the bigger picture in mind and promote employee engagement. By using OKRs, individual team members can align their priorities with the team's goals.

 

With OKRs as a structured approach, you have a proven framework to communicate what’s important to you and your stakeholders, becoming a better leader in the meantime. 

 

And research supports the effectiveness of well-executed OKRs. A Mooncamp study shows that top-performing businesses use more communication channels and communicate better and more often. These companies also use OKR check-ins more often than the comparison group. Furthermore, 83% of the surveyed companies agree that OKRs benefit their organization. 

Guide decision-making and task prioritization 

 

Prioritization is key for business success, but when tasks pile up and urgent issues demand your attention, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important.

 

OKRs remind you of what your business is trying to achieve. Let's say you're aiming for a company-wide revenue target. You can set specific OKRs for your sales and marketing teams to support this goal. For instance, OKRs for your marketing team might focus on increasing sales-qualified leads, while you can break down your revenue target to assign quarterly sales targets for your sales team. 

 

How to create a specific OKR for your marketing agency

 

OKRs break down a big, lofty goal into more tangible and measurable sub-goals. We call these sub-goal key results. But it isn’t only useful for more established tech companies. Let’s break the goal-setting process down step-by-step in this section. 

1. Define your objective

 

OKRs reflect your business and team priorities, so consider your company goals in the quarter or year ahead. These can be anywhere from growing client account revenue by a certain amount, to fine-tuning internal operations to be more sustainable. 

 

Let’s say you’re planning for the year ahead and want to improve your marketing agency’s operational efficiency. How do you translate the term ‘operational efficiency’ into tangible improvements or measure if you’re making progress? 

 

The OKR framework helps you break down your strategic goals into actionable steps. They guide your staff on what they should do to make progress toward a strategic goal. 

 

A good objective should be specific and actionable. Here's an example of how to frame a strategic objective with the OKR methodology.

 

Improve operational effectiveness to delight our customers and speed up project turnaround time. 

 

Next, decide whether this OKR is committed or aspirational. Lisa Shufro at the What Matters team defines this as: 

 

Committed OKRs: An ambitious goal a team must achieve at the end of the cycle. The team must meet all Key Results metrics fully and on time.

 

Aspirational OKRs: Goals that set a higher standard for success. By design, aspirational OKRs take more than one quarter to complete. Also known as ‘10x goals,’ these push a team to think bigger than a committed OKR.

 

Under these criteria, your objective to improve organizational efficiency goal might fit better as a committed OKR since it’s critical to your business.

2. Assign 3-4 measurable key results to track progress toward an objective

 

The second part of creating your OKR is 3-4 specific key results. These key results use a defined metric and target to measure progress toward your objective. 

 

Let’s go back to the objective we defined earlier. Here’s how you might define a few key results to measure progress.

 

Key results:

1. Speed up project turnaround time by 20% by implementing standardized operating procedures and workflow automation tools like Zapier in Q1 2025 
2. Cut the time spent on client reports by implementing and training staff on automated reporting software by 50% by Q2 2025
3. Achieve a client satisfaction score (CSAT) of at least 90% because of these changes by Q2 2025

 

To make key results effective and easy to track, include a specific metric (like decreasing time spent on client reports), and a timeframe (Q2 2025).

3. Define your OKR check-in process and frequency 

 

Next, create an agenda outlining how and when you'll review your team OKRs. In these performance review meetings, you'll:

• Review the current status of your OKRs
• Discover any obstacles blocking OKR progress
• Determine concrete steps to overcome these issues

 

These check-ins can be brief 15-30 minute team discussions or part of your weekly 1:1s with team leads. All-hands or town hall meetings can feature discussions of company-wide OKRs.

 

OKRs vs. KPIs: what's the difference? Should you use both? 

 

OKRs and KPIs share many similarities, but note these differences between the two performance management tools.

 

We typically set OKRs quarterly, focusing on strategic, ambitious goals. For example, using the goal of improving operational effectiveness across the organization, an OKR helps align multiple departments toward a specific direction. 

 

To meet an OKR of improving operational awareness, for instance, teams can decide how to meet the objective. Customer service teams can aim to reduce the time to first response, while marketing teams can explore automation for repetitive tasks to make their internal processes more efficient. 

 

KPIs provide ongoing metric tracking 

 

KPIs measure how well you're doing now and how close you are to reaching a specific goal. They're usually tracked regularly. For instance, if you want to improve your agency's internal operations, you can track KPIs like the proportion of billable to non-billable hours and the percentage of projects finished on time to see how well your agency is running.

 

Think of both methods as complementary tools as you set goals for your business. OKRs provide a structure to align team members and set a broader strategic direction. They can serve as aspirational targets for teams to strive for. 

 

KPIs‌ serve a more practical purpose. They track daily operations and measure output. By using KPIs, teams can pinpoint what’s doing well and what needs improvement with tangible data. 

 

How to track OKRs with DashThis’s OKR software 

 

So now that you’ve set up your OKRs, how do you ensure they’re a tool for sustainable change instead of a short-lived initiative you’ll abandon after three months? 

 

You need a system to track your OKR progress. And not just any old system, you need one that’s easily accessible and simple for your entire team to use and reference for the months ahead. 

 

If you're still using Excel spreadsheets for OKRs, project management software for tasks, and messaging apps for discussions, automated reporting, and OKR dashboards could significantly improve your workflow. Here’s how you can use DashThis to simplify your OKR management process. 

Step 1: Create your OKR template

 

First, let’s create your OKR reporting template in DashThis.

1.  Click +New Dashboard
2.  Select a reporting template
3.  Name it and click Next

Step 2: Connect your data sources

 

DashThis integrates with 34+ marketing tools, including social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and paid advertising tools like Google Ads. Besides a dashboard to monitor client campaign results, you can set up a dashboard to track OKRs within your marketing agency. 

 

So, let DashThis’s integrations handle the manual data import and export for you. For example, if you’re creating a dashboard to track internal social media OKRs, you can simply use the Connect button to connect your social media accounts to DashThis. 

Once you permit DashThis to access your marketing data in each tool, DashThis will automatically import your latest data from your selected social media platforms. You’ll also be able to update your data in real-time without resorting to tedious data exports. 

Step 3: Set up your OKR tracking dashboard 

 

Now it’s time to put your OKR dashboard together. 

 

First, specify the functionalities required in your dashboard. Suppose your goal is to track your email marketing efforts for lead generation and client engagement without referring to multiple tools. Here, an OKR dashboard to track email engagement and subscriber growth rate might help.

 

Setting this up in DashThis is simple! Use DashThis’s drag-and-drop interface to select the metrics you're tracking. Place these in a dedicated section for easy monitoring.

Get this email performance report template with your own data! 

 

Pro tip: Visuals are effective at visualizing overall progress toward an OKR or progress toward individual key results. For example, gauge charts help show overall progress, while line and bar graphs are handy for tracking individual key results.

Step 4: Automate and share your marketing agency's OKR tracking process 

 

With your OKR tool in hand, it’s time to ensure it reaches your team members on time when it’s time to review your quarterly OKRs. 

 

We can also automate this to save time in DashThis. 

 

Click Sharing Options > Share by Email > Frequency to schedule your reports. 

 

DashThis also offers options to download your report as a PDF for offline viewing. If you’re preparing for an in-person meeting, you could share a specific URL link to meeting attendees. Team members can click on the URL to review your comments and hover over specific data points for more detail. 

 

Besides getting your reports sent out on schedule, you can also use DashThis to ensure you've updated the OKR tracking dashboard with the latest data before your meeting. DashThis updates your data daily, and you can also update it manually by clicking Refresh Data in your widget.

 

Streamline goal setting with DashThis’s OKR tracking software

 

Whether you're planning for the next quarter or setting yearly goals, the OKR method can help your agency achieve its objectives while helping you become a more effective communicator and leader.

 

This week, reflect on your business goals. Is the OKR method right for you? Also, think about how you'll track them. For a comprehensive reporting solution that covers client reports and internal business reporting, try DashThis to meet your reporting and OKR tracking needs.

 

Sign up for your free 15-day trial of DashThis today to give reporting automation a try.