Track return on objectives

Overview

Brands and rights holders enter into partnerships to achieve real business objectives. Too often, those objectives go untracked while all the focus is on meeting the deal's contractual terms. With Activate's Objectives feature, you can capture those goals at the beginning of a partnership. Additionally, you can use key results to measure progress throughout the season. This gives you insight into whether your partner is getting what they want out of the deal—and if they aren't, you can proactively re-evaluate and adjust the strategy. Focusing on the real objectives leads to stronger and longer-lasting partnerships.

An objective is a broad description of what the sponsor wants to accomplish, such as increasing brand awareness or sales. Key results are indicators used to measure progress toward the objective, such as a percentage increase in sales. Each deal may have up to seven objectives per season, and each objective can contain up to five key results.

Create an objective

Begin by opening a deal and selecting the Objectives tab. Next, use the Manage OKRs button to open the editor. There, click the New Objective button to create an objective. Each deal may have up to 20 objectives.

In the editor, provide a unique title for the objective which summarizes its purpose. Optionally use the description box to add more details. Then use the weight percentage field to indicate the relative importance of this objective compared to the others you’ll add. The weights of all objectives must add up to exactly 100%. You cannot edit this field if there is only one objective.

Next, fill in the date range when you or your partners will try to meet this objective. You can optionally use the category selector to group your OKRs. (Org admins can configure the list in Setup > System Configurations > OKRs.)

In the key results section, provide a name for each result you’ll measure. Next, provide a weight to indicate this result’s importance. The weights of all key results associated with the same objective must add up to exactly 100%.

Optionally use the category selector to group key results together. Then use the data type selector to choose a unit to measure: number, percentage, or currency. Lastly, input the target value. You can also use the New Key Result button to add additional key results, up to the maximum of 50.

Use the New Objective button to create another, and click each objective in the left column to switch between them for weighting. When finished, click the Save button and then the x to close the full-page slider.

To delete a key result, use the trash icon. Note that an objective must always have at least one key result. To delete an objective, click the ellipsis button (…) to access the Delete button.

If any of the weights don't add up correctly when you click Save, an error will be displayed when you try to save. Close the error box, make corrections, and try again.

Update an objective

To update progress, return to the Objectives tab and select the Manage OKRs button or click an objective. Here, review each objective’s key results and enter the current values in the “performance” fields. When finished, click the Save button.

Now, the Objectives tab will show the progress toward each objective based on the weighting of its key results. You’ll also be able to see the performance measure and target of each key result.

Weight and deal score

The Objectives tab shows progress toward each objective as a percentage. Additionally, an overall deal score provides a big picture indicator.

In practice, some objectives will be more important than others. You can assign a weight to each one, which will affect the deal score calculation. For example, suppose there are three objectives. If they all have the same weight, then the deal score would be a simple average. But by assigning different weights, the deal score won't be influenced too heavily by a less important objective:

Within an objective, the weighting of key results works the same way. Each key result's weight is taken into account when calculating progress on the objective.

If an objective or key result is weighted at 0%, that OKR will not factor into the deal score.

If you beat the targets set, an objective's progress can be over 100. The deal score can also exceed 100, indicating that the deal is exceeding expectations.

Example OKRs