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What Are SLAs, and Why Do They Matter for Marketing Ops?
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is an agreement between a service provider and client that defines expectations, timelines, and outcomes for a service. SLAs establish clear expectations between marketing ops and stakeholders by outlining the level of service, speed, and quality of work provided by the team.
As a company grows, so do the volume of requests coming to the marketing ops team from Go-To-Market teams like sales, product, and customer success. SLAs proactively fight against stakeholder frustration, piled up requests, and missed deadlines. SLAs can provide:
✱ Alignment: Ensures all stakeholders know what to expect, helping marketing ops prioritize and schedule work
✱ Efficiency: Avoids last-minute requests, reducing burnout and improving workflow efficiency
✱ Accountability: Outlines what is required from marketing ops and stakeholders
✱ Focus on Priorities: Determines what needs immediate attention and what can be de-prioritized by the marketing ops team
It is important that teams stay aligned to the goals and objectives of the broader business. This will ensure teams are focused on priority projects and tasks which produce key results for the business.
Audit the types of requests that the marketing ops team receives on a regular basis. Bucket these requests into categories. These categories could include list import, basic email program, webinar program, or event program with registration. Each category will likely have different SLAs based on scope and urgency.
Outline specific tasks, deliverables, and expectations of both the marketing ops and stakeholders per request type. Document these roles and responsibilities to hold both teams accountable throughout the request process. This will help avoid misunderstandings.
Establish timelines for each type of request. Simple tasks like creating a basic email program may take 2-3 business days while complex tasks like a multi-channel campaign could take 3-4 weeks. Evaluate your team’s capacity to set reasonable timelines for deliverables.
Clearly communicate the new SLA policy to all stakeholders in the organization. Schedule SLA training and provide documentation to stakeholders so they understand the request process including types of requests, timelines, roles and responsibilities, and communication channels.
As companies evolve and grow, the demands of the GTM team and business needs will change. Schedule time on a recurring basis to review and adjust SLA guidelines as needed. This will help improve efficiency down the road.
Request Type | SLA | Special Requirements/Notes |
List Import | 3 business days | – |
Content Syndication Program | 5 business days | – |
Nurture Email | 4 business days | – |
Email Send | 7 business days | If secondary webinar/event CTA is included, follow those SLAs |
Nurture Program | 4 weeks (prior to first send) | |
Webinar | 6 weeks (prior to webinar date) | First invite email should be sent at least 3 weeks before the webinar date. Need to fully test flow at least 1 week prior to email send. |
Event/Tradeshow | 6 weeks (prior to event date) | First invite email should be sent at least 3 weeks before event date |
Keep these best practices and common challenges in mind while developing your SLA guidelines:
Best Practices
Common Challenges
✱ Communicate SLAs across all stakeholders — Ensure clear communication and alignment between departments by 1) utilizing centralized documentation, making SLAs visible to everyone and reducing misunderstandings (Ex. Confluence, Google Docs, or Notion), 2) scheduling regular cross-functional meetings to address challenges and make adjustments as needed (Ex. weekly standups or monthly SLA reviews), and 3) setting up email updates/notifications to reinforce SLAs targets with automated reminders about upcoming deadlines (Ex. Salesforce, Slack, or Asana)
✱ Be flexible—SLAs should guide, not restrict — SLAs should be flexible enough to accommodate changing circumstances. If SLAs are too rigid, they can cause tension and frustration for stakeholders when challenges arise. Everyone should be empowered to regularly review SLAs and adjust them to meet new business needs. They are living documents that streamline workflows, not etched in stone.
✱ Use data to track compliance and identify bottlenecks — Teams can track compliance and performance with metrics like response times, resolution times, and throughput. Project management tools including Jira or Asana can provide this data with some configuration. Analyzing this data can identify when there are delays in approvals, resource limitations, or technical obstacles. Regular reporting on these metrics can allow teams to be proactive in responding to bottlenecks.
✱ Setting unrealistic SLAs — Unrealistic SLAs lead to burnout, missed deadlines, and stakeholder frustration. Whether it’s a lack of awareness of internal resources or pressure to meet stakeholder expectations, if an SLA has a 24-hour response time but it actually takes 48 hours for the team to respond, it’s a recipe for disaster. The impact of this mistake is poor quality output and team morale. It is important to utilize realistic resource planning while developing SLA guidelines
✱ Overlooking stakeholder input during SLA creation — As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. Lack of collaboration with cross functional stakeholder teams during the SLA creation process can lead to confusion, frustration, and unmet expectations. These SLAs often do not match reality when it comes to response times and available resources. Involve cross functional teams in order to gather all perspectives before setting targets and SLAs guidelines. This will improve alignment and accountability
✱ Ignoring the need for periodic updates — SLAs are not etched in stone and shouldn’t be “set and forget”. As companies evolve and grow, so do stakeholder expectations and circumstances. SLAs should be reviewed and updated on a regular basis (at least quarterly or semi-annually). SLA guidelines created a year ago may no longer align with the current business environment, resources, or capabilities. Give teams the opportunity to revisit areas of friction and adjust targets to remain effective and relevant.
SLAs are key to scaling requests and improving efficiency across GTM teams. They help teams stay aligned with business objectives and mitigate challenges with miscommunication when requests start to increase. It is important to set clear expectations, prioritize requests and hold teams accountable when developing SLA guidelines. Communication is number one! SLAs will ensure that the marketing ops team can provide exceptional results at scale.
RevOps Consultant @ Go Nimbly