Every recommendation in a Maze Map comes with one line underneath it. A metric, a baseline, a target and a deadline.
Cost per WhatsApp enquiry. ₦4,800 today. ₦3,200 by day 90.
That’s the example printed on our Maze Map page, and it’s the only kind of goal I’ll put my name to. You can argue about whether the target was ambitious enough. Ninety days later, you can’t argue about whether it was hit.
Compare that with how a surprising number of marketing engagements in Nigeria begin. “We want to grow our online presence.” Six months later they end with a different sentence. “So did we grow it or not?”
Nobody lied. The goal was simply never specific enough for anyone to be wrong about it. A written marketing goal fixes that by forcing five decisions before any money moves. What you’re measuring, where it stands today, where it needs to be, by when, and what happens if it doesn’t get there.
Below you’ll find the template, the rules for filling in each field, twenty worked examples across different industries, and the seven ways most goals fail. It works with an agency, an in-house team or just you. It doesn’t exist to motivate anybody. It exists to make the outcome impossible to argue about later.
The Template
Written marketing goal
Metric: [one measurable thing, defined precisely]
Source of truth: [where the number comes from, such as your CRM, your bank or your sales records]
Baseline: [the current value, and the period it was measured over]
Target: [the value you are committing to]
Deadline: [a calendar date]
Consequence if missed: [what happens, agreed in advance]
Owner: [one named person]
Agreed by: [names and date]
Eight lines. It should fit on one page, and if it doesn’t, you’ve got several goals pretending to be one. Split them up.
Field by Field
1. Metric
One thing, defined so precisely nobody can reinterpret it. “Leads” won’t do. “Qualified enquiries, meaning a named person with a stated budget in our target range who responds to our first follow-up” will. Here’s the test. Would two people counting separately from the same records get the same number? If they wouldn’t, the definition isn’t finished.
Pick a metric as close to money as you can reasonably measure. Revenue from new customers beats customers, which beats qualified enquiries, which beats enquiries, which beats clicks. The further you get from money, the easier it is to hit the target while the business stands still.
2. Source of truth
Decide this before you start, never after. This one line prevents the most common argument in marketing. Ad platforms, analytics tools and CRMs all count differently, and the platform numbers are nearly always the most generous. Leave the source unnamed and whoever is reporting will naturally reach for the number that looks best. Name your CRM, your bank statements or your invoicing system, and agree that platform dashboards are for optimising. They don’t get a vote at judging time.
3. Baseline
Measure it, with a date range, even if the number is embarrassing. A target without a baseline is a guess. Take the current figure over a recent, representative period, usually the last full quarter, adjusted if that quarter included something unusual. Write the period next to the number. An embarrassing baseline is far more useful than a flattering estimate, because the improvement you measure against it will be real.
No baseline at all? Don’t invent one. Set a measurement goal first, such as “By [date], every enquiry is logged in the CRM with its source.” Run it for four to six weeks, then write the real goal. Skip this step and you’ll end up celebrating improvements against numbers nobody ever measured.
4. Target
Ambitious enough to matter, realistic enough to be believed. If everyone expects a miss, the target becomes decoration. If you’d hit it by changing nothing, it isn’t a target either. A useful test is that the target should need the planned work to succeed, and shouldn’t need luck. When in doubt, set a committed target and a separate stretch figure, and attach the consequence only to the committed one.
5. Deadline
“Q3” is a quarter. “30 September 2026” is a deadline. Match it to how fast the metric can realistically move. Response times can change in weeks, organic search usually takes months, and brand-level metrics take longer still. A deadline shorter than the metric’s natural cycle guarantees a miss and teaches everyone that goals are theatre.
6. Consequence
Almost everyone leaves this field out, and it’s the one that gives the rest meaning. The consequence doesn’t have to be harsh. It has to be real and agreed before the work starts, so nobody can negotiate it away afterwards.
| Relationship | Proportionate consequences |
|---|---|
| With an agency | Remediation work at the agency’s cost until the target holds, a fee reduction for the period, or an agreed exit without notice penalty |
| With an in-house team | A formal review of the approach, budget moved to what is working, and the goal and method rewritten with the lessons recorded |
| For yourself as owner | Stop spending on the channel until the underlying problem is diagnosed, bring in an outside review, and publish the miss internally |
7. Owner
One name. “The marketing team” owns nothing. One named person should be accountable for reporting progress and raising problems early. Shared ownership reliably turns into no ownership the moment a number starts moving the wrong way.
8. Agreed by
Names and a date. It feels formal for a marketing goal. It’s exactly as formal as it needs to be when, six months later, somebody remembers the target differently.
John F. Kennedy’s moon goal had every field this template asks for. A man on the Moon, returned safely, before the decade was out. Nobody had to argue afterwards about whether it had worked.
Twenty Worked Examples
These show the shape of a well-written goal in different businesses. The numbers are illustrative and only show the format. Your own baseline and target have to come from your own records.
| Business | Metric | Baseline → Target | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private school | Admission enquiries that book a school tour | 18/month → 30/month | 31 December 2026 |
| IELTS test centre | Test bookings attributed to paid search | Untracked → tracked for 100% of bookings | 60 days |
| Spa | Bookings made directly on the website | 0% → 40% of all bookings | 2 quarters |
| Real estate developer | Qualified site-inspection bookings | 12/quarter → 25/quarter | 2 quarters |
| Boutique hotel | Share of room nights booked direct, not via OTAs | 15% → 30% | 12 months |
| E-commerce store | Cost per first purchase, from ad spend and order records | ₦18,000 → under ₦12,000 | 1 quarter |
| E-commerce store | Customers placing a second order within 90 days | 11% → 20% | 2 quarters |
| B2B software | Demos booked by decision-makers | 6/month → 15/month | 2 quarters |
| Law firm | Median first response time to web enquiries | 26 hours → under 2 business hours | 30 days |
| Clinic | Appointment no-show rate | 22% → under 12% | 90 days |
| Restaurant | Returning diners identified through a loyalty list | No list → 1,500 opted-in contacts | 1 quarter |
| Logistics company | Quote requests from businesses, not individuals | 30% → 60% of all quote requests | 2 quarters |
| Training provider | Enquiry-to-enrolment rate | 9% → 16% | 2 intakes |
| Accounting firm | Referrals from existing clients | 2/quarter → 8/quarter | 2 quarters |
| Fashion brand | Revenue from email and WhatsApp campaigns | ₦0 tracked → 15% of monthly revenue | 2 quarters |
| Fitness studio | Trial members converting to paid memberships | 25% → 40% | 1 quarter |
| Manufacturer | New distributor applications that pass vetting | 3/quarter → 8/quarter | 2 quarters |
| Consultancy | Organic search enquiries per month | 1/month → 8/month | 9 months |
| Car dealership | Test drives booked from online enquiries | 20/month → 35/month | 1 quarter |
| Any business | Enquiries logged in the CRM with their source | Unknown → 100% | 6 weeks |
Look at how many of these have nothing to do with traffic. Response times, no-show rates, second orders, referrals and direct bookings are often where the money is, and they rarely make it into marketing plans because they don’t feel like “marketing”. The last row is the goal most businesses should set first, because every other goal on the list depends on it.
Seven Ways Written Goals Fail
- Vanity metrics. Followers, impressions, reach and engagement rise reliably and prove almost nothing. They’re the easiest targets to hit and the least connected to revenue, which is exactly why they’re popular in reports.
- Too many goals. Seven goals means no priorities. Most businesses need one primary goal per quarter and at most two supporting ones.
- Moving the definition mid-period. If “lead” starts including WhatsApp messages halfway through, the trend line is meaningless. Definitions change only between periods, in writing.
- No consequence. A goal without an agreed consequence is a wish. The consequence is what stops the conversation at the deadline from becoming a negotiation.
- Consequences that are never enforced. Worse than no consequence at all, because it teaches everyone the goal system is decorative.
- Reporting from the platform, not your records. The easiest way to hit a target without the business improving is to measure it in the tool that benefits from the number going up.
- Setting the goal after the work starts. A goal written in month three, once early results are visible, is a description of what already happened, not a commitment.
Reviewing Without the Ritual
Check the metric weekly in one line covering the current number, the trend and anything blocking it. Review it properly once a month against the five numbers that matter. At the deadline, record one of three outcomes (hit, missed or hit early) and what you learned. If it was missed, apply the consequence exactly as written. Then write the next goal, using the new number as the next baseline.
That last step is where the system compounds. Every goal leaves a measured baseline behind, so each quarter’s planning starts from real numbers. Within a year you’ll know things about your business most competitors never measure, like what a customer actually costs, how fast you really respond, and which channels really pay.
Why Agencies Rarely Offer This
Written goals with consequences are uncomfortable for whoever does the work, which is exactly why they’re valuable to whoever pays for it. If an agency won’t commit to a metric, a baseline, a target, a deadline and a consequence in writing, you’ve learned how confident they are of producing an outcome instead of an activity report. The agency selection guide covers what else to ask.
We offer this on every engagement, and we’re publishing the template instead of keeping it as a sales advantage. The more businesses expect it, the harder it gets for anyone to sell activity as results.
Not sure which goal to write first? The free 2-minute diagnostic shows which of your four walls is weakest. If it turns out to be Measure, your first goal is the last row of that table.
P.S. Spend ₦1M or more a month on marketing and you also qualify for a free 30-minute Leak Check. You’ll leave with three leaks, each one ready to become a written goal.
The template and methods are free to use and adapt. The worked examples use illustrative figures to show the format, and they aren’t benchmarks, typical results or predictions. Have your own legal adviser review consequence terms in commercial agreements. This is general business information, not legal or financial advice.
This article covers one part of a bigger system. Our guide to digital marketing in Nigeria shows how the four walls fit together, and the order to build them in.
