How to set realistic marketing objectives that actually deliver
- Ruth Harvey
- Oct 8
- 4 min read
Objective and goal setting is an intrinsic part of the marketing strategy process. As the famous saying goes ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it’.
Importantly, strategy is as much about being clear on what you’re not doing, as what you’re going to do. It’s about making a choice: who are you targeting, what’s your position to them, and what do you want to achieve. In marketing terms, that’s Targeting, Positioning, and Objectives, which should be managed as part of a single strategic process.
When the strategy isn’t clear and goals are vague, too numerous, or disconnected from business objectives, marketing quickly loses focus and credibility. But with the right approach, objectives are the driving force of your strategy, helping to guide decision-making, and make your marketing accountable.
Step 1: Start at the beginning
Before you jump into being busy with tactics, make sure you have clearly defined:
Who you want to reach
What you want them to think or feel about you/your product or service?
Taking the time and effort to establish your target audience and create a clear position will give you a much stronger and focused sense of what your objectives are likely to be.
Step 2: Build your custom marketing funnel
'A funnel - for objectives?!' I hear you ask... Your goals should be based on how your market really converts - to help the business grow. This is where a funnel comes in - it must be specific to your industry, product, and customers - not just a generic framework. A custom funnel helps you visualise your performance and identify the opportunities.
The trick is to keep it simple, not an in-depth step-by-step process, as a way of mapping how potential customers move from awareness through to purchase and beyond. You can use a model like AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) as the basis for your funnel to ensure you’ve captured steps from each area. You can also build extended funnels that include repeat purchase or advocacy.
At its simplest, a funnel has three stages:
Top of funnel – your total potential market (Tip: be very clear and careful here!)
Middle of funnel – prospects engaging or evaluating
Bottom of funnel – converting to customers
Your funnel should start with external data and then move into internal data, so at the top, you’ll typically rely on data such as category entry points or market research, to define the size and nature of your market. As people move further down the funnel, you migrate to internal data, such as website visits and number of leads, to measure how well you’re moving prospects through to customers.
An idea customer funnel should:
Reflect your market and product
Capture the steps your customers actually take – simplified!
Move from external data to internal data
Step 3: Choose where to focus
With your custom funnel in place, populated with the latest data, you should be able to clearly identify the opportunities. But this is where a lot of marketers fall into another strategy trap – trying to do everything. This is where marketing needs to align with the wider corporate strategy and objectives and utilise your deep market insight.
Look at your funnel data and ask:
Where are the biggest opportunities for growth?
Where are we losing the most customers?
What’s easiest to influence quickly vs. what needs longer-term investment?
Not every stage of the funnel deserves attention.
Step 4: Define your objectives clearly
Strong marketing objectives sit in the middle of three levels:
Corporate objectives – what the business needs to achieve overall
Marketing objectives – how marketing contributes to those goals
Tactical goals – the specific actions and campaigns to get there
A good marketing objective includes:
A clear focus
The target market
A benchmark or starting point
A measurable goal
A delivery period or timeframe
Use the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to keep yourself accountable. And remember: three to five objectives is optimum. More than that and you risk spreading yourself too thin.
Step 5: Measure and continuously improve
Once your objectives are clear, the final step is to incorporate the funnel into your regular reporting process to monitor progress and be able to adjust or improve activity as required.
Use your funnel as the framework for reporting – set it up as part of your dashboard, tracking progress at each stage so you can see what’s working, what isn’t, and where to re-focus effort.
Look for patterns, not spikes. Real improvement comes from consistent tracking over time, not one-off peaks.
Build feedback loops. Incorporate customer and sales insight alongside performance data so you’re measuring impact, not just activity.
Link data to decisions. Metrics only matter if they shape your activity, whether that’s reallocating budget, shifting channel mix, or refining messaging.
Continuous improvement isn’t about chasing perfection, it’s about building a marketing function that tests, learns, adapts, and proves its value through data-based decisions.
5 key takeaways about objective setting
Create a custom funnel to understand how your market really buys
Use data to choose where to focus—don’t try to do everything
Decide on a handful of objectives (3–5) across your portfolio
Make them SMART and aligned with corporate goals
Remember: it’s not strategy without objectives
Marketing goals aren’t just numbers on a dashboard. Done right, they’re the bridge between customer insight, business strategy, and practical action.
Set too many, or set them without focus, and you’ll end up falling into a trap where marketing loses accountability and trust in the organisation. But set realistic, focused goals and you’ll have a roadmap that drives results and proves marketing’s value as an investment, not a cost.
