IBM recently released a report on “The State of Marketing 2013,” comprised of survey results from 500 leading marketing professionals around the world and across different industries. While the survey uncovered some interesting habits of top marketers – such as being cross-company brand stewards and targeting customers where they are – we especially agreed with one such finding: that the best marketers rely on Big Data and measure everything.

According to the survey, approximately 39% of leading marketers capitalize on the accessibility to Big Data. This group of marketers was being ever more efficient in terms of their marketing efforts, capitalizing on customer insights and delivering robust ROI. Additionally, this group of top marketers was 2x more likely than their underperforming peers to act systematically on insights derived from data.

That right there – not merely having more information and access to more data but gaining meaningful and actionable insights from them – is what separates the best and brightest marketers from the rest. For instance, if your job as a Marketing VP is to generate great leads that can then be converted into opportunities for the sales team to close, you have to be able to measure how you’re doing your job. Do you know which of your marketing efforts are generating the most pipeline opportunities? Are you operating with optimal efficiency? Monitoring, analyzing and acting upon key marketing metrics can help you answer those questions, and so many more.

Here are three key marketing metrics to get started with on your journey to becoming a top marketer.

Lead Submissions

Quite simply, how many leads has your team created over time and how many of those leads were actually high-quality leads that converted into opportunities? This historical trending report can provide a clearer understanding of how many Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) your team has contributed to the sales pipeline.

Use this report to diagnose if the current marketing campaigns you are putting forth are generating both the quantity and quality of leads that you are looking for. If the quantity is not there, look to implement greater efforts. If the quality of leads is not there, perhaps some of these campaigns should be ceased, making way for more efficient marketing campaigns that produce a higher ROI in terms of leads created and high-quality leads converted into opportunities.

Lead Sources

Creating leads is great, but opportunities and deals are really what’s important. This Lead Sources report and table provide that information, offering marketers a better understanding of which of their marketing initiatives are generating the most deals and value for your company. With this information, you can then prioritize your marketing initiatives to focus on the top-performing channels and invest in those for a better ROI.

Once you have identified that certain lead sources are especially effective at creating opportunities (not just leads) and leading to deals, focus on that source. Show your team how to improve certain poorly performing channels and abandon your misguided efforts accordingly.

Pipeline Inflow / Outflow

At the end of the day, most marketers are responsible for not only ensuring that the sales pipeline remains well-stocked but is actually growing over time as well. The Pipeline Inflow / Outflow report takes stock of this growth (or lack-thereof) by tracking the inflow of pipeline (by count) over time compared to the outflow of pipeline, or the net pipeline flow.

The inflow naturally consists of all newly created opportunities in the sales pipeline. The outflow meanwhile includes both opportunities that were won as well as ones that were lost. In this case, some outflow is good – of course companies want to see their opportunities being won. However, the outflow of lost opportunities will always be greater than the outflow of won opportunities. This continues to place the onus on the Marketing VP to continue his efforts at growing the opportunity pipeline.

This is but a small handful of marketing and sales metrics available to Marketing VPs to help them become the best marketers. However, just like the IBM survey suggested, simply having access to a wider breadth of more nuanced data is not enough – it’s all about the meaningful, actionable insights derived from that information that is then acted upon that separates the best Marketing VPs from the rest.