The GitLab Digital Strategy team works directly with our digital agency PMG to execute all paid digital campaigns. PMG fees are a percentage of the paid digital advertising spend, so total budgets will include the effective spend + PMG fee. For GitLab digital initiatives, PMG contributions & activities include:
GitLab & PMG communicate mainly through the GitLab Digital Advertising project. Both teams also share a Slack workspace to connect on quick questions & general updates.
Digital Advertising Project - The Digital Marketing team works directly with PMG within the GitLab Digital Advertising project, which is strictly for Digital Marketing & PMG communication only. In special cases, members of GitLab's Marketing Campaigns or Marketing Operations teams will communicate within this project for technical troubleshooting.
PMG Issues within the Digital Advertising project cover campaign requests, changes, budgeting, planning, optimizations, and logging of any technical issues.
It's important for team members (both PMG and GitLab) update assignees, milestones, and labels to indicate responsibility for next steps in the handoff (see labels and milestones below)
| Label | Category | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| todo:pmg | Todo | Label to notate the next step is in the hands of PMG Digital |
| todo:gitlab | Todo | Label to notate the next step is in the hands of GitLab |
| DG-PMG-priority::TBD | Priority | Priority of the issue is TBD |
| DG-PMG-priority::Low | Priority | Priority of the issue is Low |
| DG-PMG-priority::Medium | Priority | Priority of the issue is Medium |
| DG-PMG-priority::High | Priority | Priority of the issue is High |
| pmg-abmktg | Team | Label for all issue related to the campaigns for Account Based Marketing department |
| pmg-demandgen | Team | Label for all issue related to the demand generation team |
| pmg-fieldmktg | Team | Label for all issue related to the field marketing campaigns |
| dg-pmg-info | Informational | Label for issues that is only informational. No action items |
| dg-pmg: Admin | Informational | Label for issues that are administrative (process, budgeting, etc.) |
| dg-pmg: Reporting | Todo | Label for issues that execution is complete but reporting is needed |
| pmg-meeting | Informational | For issues that are recaps from meetings |
| paid social | Channel | For campaigns that include paid social |
| paid search | Channel | For campaigns that include paid search |
| display advertising | Channel | For campaigns that include paid display |
| sponsorships | Channel | For campaigns that include paid sponsorships |
PMG Milestones contain issues based on one week iterations, from Mondays to the following Sunday. Issue owners will add to the current week's milestone (DG-PMG: [Monday date] - [following Sunday date]) or the next week's milestone (DG-PMG: [next Monday date] - [following Sunday date]) depending on priority and if the issue requires immediate action. The DG-PMG: Backlog milestone contains issues that are either not ready to be actioned on or currently blocked, as well as issues that are technically completed but still open for monitoring. The DG-PMG: Backlog Follow Up milestone contains issues that have been moved out of general backlog and are ready for follow up analysis.
PMG Triage Board is assembled to track issues within the current & next week milestones. Layering on the todo:pmg and todo:gitlab labels will display which issues are currently being handled by which team. Each week, the Digital Marketing team and PMG meet to review the current status for each issue & initiative within these milestones.
While GitLab & PMG communicate mainly through the GitLab Digital Advertising project, both teams also share a Slack workspace to connect on quick questions & general updates.
PMG and GitLab meet weekly to review issues from the milestone triage board in the Digital Advertising project to determine the current status, blockers and immediate action items needed to advance issues further. Issues are reviewed based on todo labels and moved into the appropriate milestone based on priority and timing of next steps.
The Digital Marketing and (optional) Marketing Campaigns team members meet with PMG weekly to cover one of the following sessions on a rotating basis:
Digital Demand Gen QBRs are typically held during the 3rd week of February, May, August, and November. PMG presents full performance & analysis of the previous quarter’s digital campaigns, broken down by segment, channel, region, GTM, content, audiences targeting, etc. QBRs usually produce a higher volume of follow-up action item issues based on key learnings.
Revenue Marketing QBRs are scheduled separately from the main Digital Demand Gen QBRs. These reviews focus on campaign performance from the previous quarter for Corporate, Field, and Account Based Marketing teams.
GitLab and PMG triage issues and plan the completion of work in relevant milestones on Tuesday of each week. In order for this process to work effectively, each week ALL team members should review the issue board and ensure the issue are progressiong towards completion within the designated milestone. Best practices include the following:
assignee and to-do label to the correct DRI if that has changedPMG initiates & manages Publisher/Sponsorship contracts using the following process:
PMG meets with channel reps (LinkedIn, Google, Brighttalk, etc) on either a monthly or as needed basis. These syncs may cover specialized reports/technical deep dives, UI updates and current product roadmaps, and channel/platform news.
Budget Allocation Before the beginning of each fiscal year, GitLab and PMG meet to review the Digital Marketing budget and plan its quarterly allocation. This allocation will be primarily determined by KPI goals, sales coverage, and seasonality.
Before each upcoming quarter, the teams will meet for media planning sessions to determine the coverage mix for our paid digital programs. Given the quarter’s KPI goals as a whole & per segment/region, the media planning’s key topics include the degree of coverage for the following (tiers listed in order of visualization:
The final asset mix for each budget line item will be recorded in the Paid Demand Generation Asset Tracker, with each month’s assets separated by tab.
Intake Process
Optimization
Top metrics include CPI (cost per inquiry) and INQ, MQL & SAO conversion rates. After exiting the learning phase, PMG will monitor the new campaign/asset for any unusual or inefficient performance. During monthly performance recaps, PMG will highlight new campaign/asset performance in relation to the baseline top metrics of the regional, segment & platform historical performance and provide optimization recommendations if necessary.
The GitLab Digital Marketing team receives additional funding at various times throughout the fiscal year to support gaps in the pipeline or test & expand on new initiatives. Both teams follow the same intake process outlined above, but since these funds are limited to the month or quarter, additional strategy is required in order to hit the funding’s targets within a short amount of time.
PMG provides pulse checks & tracking toward KPIs more frequently for ancillary campaigns than regular campaigns since their duration is limited to the month or quarter. Once the ancillary campaign has completed, PMG will provide a campaign summary and key insights for future iterations.
Intake Process
Optimization
KPIs are based on campaign goals, so events will focus on cost per registrations while other campaigns could focus on inquiries & engagement. Similar to regular Demand Gen campaigns, PMG will monitor the new campaign for any unusual or inefficient performance and provide optimization suggestions if necessary. Once the campaign has completed, PMG will provide a campaign summary and key insights for future iterations.
The UTM structure is at the core of all of PMG’s reporting. The UTM parameters that the team has chosen are used for all paid digital activations and are tracked using Alli and displayed in the GitLab-PMG Datastudio dashboard. PMG uses the following parameters to report on digital performance:
PMG uses the following rules when building UTM and platform names:
x is most often used as a placeholder when there is not a correct value to choose from.- and Underscores _ can be used accordingly:
_amer-california_; or _emea-turkey__abm-rtg_Paid Social Campaign Name tab in the GitLab Platform Campaign Name & UTM Parameter Builder to build social campaign names. The Campaign Name is the joining point we use to integrate with Google Analytics data to report on conversions.
Creating the utm_content name follows a similar process:
content_team_budget_languageAlli is PMG’s marketing intelligence platform created to provide a single view of all your data to then accelerate your business by normalizing your marketing data, automating actions, and activating insights based on your custom goals and needs.
Alli is used to power the GitLab-PMG Datastudio dashboard that connects platform data with Google360 and Sisense data in one place. The data points we are tracking, but are not limited to:
GitLab uses Sisense to track backend data such as MQLs and SAOs. GitLab shares this data with PMG through a data connection with Alli so PMG can use Datastudio to connect the front end campaign data with its back-end Sisense performance. The shared data in the dashboard is used to prepare full-funnel marketing reports and presentations.
Accruals are submitted to GitLab 3 business days before the end of the current month. In addition to the actual current monthly spend at the time accruals are due, PMG also includes estimated acrruals based on the forecasted average daily spend. Digital Marketing must verify accruals 4-5 business days before the end of the month, making sure all Allocadia IDs/Coupa POs are correct and estimated spends are within range. Final accruals are then calculated based on effective media spend and PMG tech & agency fees. Note: fees change depending on the media spend tier.
Billing is submitted by the PMG Demand Gen team to the PMG Finance team within the first two business days of the new month. Billing is broken down into unique line items by the following:
PMG sends separate invoices to GitLab by team initiatives or if specifically requested by GitLab marketing team. These invoices are sent in PDF files directly from PMG to the GitLab Marketing team via email.