Exec Summary

GTM Experimentation is Essential

• Know which GTM initiatives aren’t working
• Know which ones will help you achieve your goals
• In a fast, cheap, and scalable way before committing

Start With a Hypothesis

• Independent variable (what you’ll test)
• Dependent variable (what you’ll measure)
• It must be testable

Execute & Measure

• Execute on a small scale
• Measure leading indicators
• Gain insights and iterate
• Establish testing timelines
• Get an experienced RevOps team to help

Most B2B SaaS companies aren’t experimenting enough. Of the ones who are, most aren’t asking the right questions, tracking the right metrics, or following the right process.

Which means:

• They have multiple GTM initiatives that aren’t working
• They don’t know which ones are working or not
• They’ve likely killed initiatives that would have worked

CROs (and all CXOs) are meant to be stewards of capital. Why, then, is it so common for businesses to commit these “random acts of GTM” – launching and killing off initiatives without a plan in place?

Wherever you sit in the company, you’ve probably experienced this yourself. Nothing is more frustrating than when the goalposts keep shifting, especially when you know a project or product just needed a little more time and iteration to prove itself.

At a high level, experimentation should be a regular part of your GTM strategy. Here’s how to do it properly.

What Makes an Impactful GTM Experiment?

GTM experimentation is about testing out a hypothesis to see if it’s true or not. Before we run with an idea company-wide and pour resources into it, we want to prove that the desired outcome is attainable.

This is how we protect our time, energy, and revenue from being wasted.

Matthew May from Insight Partners says a GTM experiment needs to be:

• Simple
• Fast
• Frugal
• Repeatable
• Scalable
• Focused on a business outcome

Matthew also advises on having a Rapid Experimentation Methodology: a process for how you plan to roll out experiments before you go all-in on a new initiative.

For example, assigning only a few sales reps to test ways to enter a new market before you dedicate a whole team to it.

Forming the Right Hypothesis

Here’s where most companies take a wrong turn: They decide to try new ideas without defining the outcome they’re looking for or how they plan on measuring it. This is why it’s important to form the right hypothesis and build your experiment off of it.

A hypothesis has two parts: an independent variable (the thing you plan to change/try) and a dependent variable (the outcome that you’re testing for).

An example hypothesis might be:

“We believe that if we create new territories for our reps based on account scores, they will increase their win rates.”

Or:

“We believe that if we enter the Enterprise market, we’ll be able to generate more revenue at a lower CAC.”

Remember, your hypothesis must be testable! If you can’t test it, it’s not an experiment.

Execution and Measurement

Think back to what we said about having a Rapid Experimentation Methodology. We want to define a plan for testing our hypothesis on a small scale before using the insights to determine any larger-scale business decisions.

For our territory hypothesis, this might mean doing territory planning for a small group of reps first.

For our Enterprise market hypothesis, this might mean testing out the market in the UK first.

We’ll also want to establish KPIs and leading indicators to measure the progress of our experiment. For our Enterprise example, we would measure leading indicators such as:

• ACV
• Win rates
• Sales cycle length
• Opportunity creation

And since the outcome we’re testing for is to lower CAC, we’d be tracking that as well.

Keeping tabs on the leading indicators gives us more insight into how the test is progressing and where we may need to tweak and iterate in order to reach our desired outcome. Doing those tweaks and iterations now means saving ourselves tons of resources and headaches in the future.

During this part of the process, it helps to be working with an experienced RevOps team that understands the importance of process, accurate data collection, and how to slice and dice data for impactful insights. A specialized team will also be able to establish timelines for your GTM experiment to ensure you’re running the experiment long enough for accurate results.

We’re currently running free 1:1 strategy workshop sessions for qualified participants interested in conducting efficient, effective GTM experiments in Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. Contact us to learn more!