Have you ever been a bit too excited for a big event and built up your hopes too high? Whether it’s a bad first date or an underwhelming vacation, having your unrealistic expectations crushed can make you feel disheartened.

Our new clients often tell us about times they’ve experienced this in the past. Excitement for a new idea can create tunnel vision to the end destination and prevent us from using smaller goals as checkpoints along the way. For marketers, failing to hit goals is a significant problem. A CoSchedule survey of marketers found that 70 percent of marketers set goals, but only 64 percent of those report that they either always or often achieve them.

We are not encouraging you to lower your expectations or suppress your ambition. We believe your marketing goals should be aggressive, but they should also be achievable based on your business’ current position.

How do you plan marketing goals for your business that are demanding yet realistic? First, be honest with yourself about the current state of your company. When you plan a trip to a destination, you need to know where you’re starting the journey. If you are a new business and have low awareness, embrace the opportunity your position provides. That means changing the way you think about goals. Instead of being aggressive with big, lofty goals, pair smaller accomplishments with an ambitious timeline. Building momentum by checking off smaller goals will help your team feel enthused rather than defeated.

Another reason why many fail to achieve their goals is simply because they are too vague. Think about how you might set a goal in your personal life. You might have a goal to get in shape, but what do you specifically mean by that? You need to know what to aim for and a definitive way to know you have accomplished it. A more attainable goal would be to run a mile in under nine minutes.

Clients often come to us with vague goals like “increasing awareness” or “growth,” and it’s our job to discover what that means in numbers and specific measurements. Instead of “achieving growth,” the goal becomes increasing revenue by a certain percentage or reaching a set number of total customers. This is a realistic goal we can measure, and our client will know if we had success or not.

Realistic goals should also be relevant to your company’s overall strategy. A goal like gaining one million Instagram followers in six months is not only unrealistic, but it’s also not necessarily that important, depending on your business’ needs. We’ll let you in on a secret: not all marketing metrics are made equal. We hear industry buzzwords like “impressions” and “reach,” but those don’t show us tangible end results. Your goals should be measured in end engagements, interaction and purchases, not followers or likes.

In a successful marketing campaign, each goal you set should map back to a strategic measurement. If you want to change your audience’s perception of your brand, your goals should focus on increasing engagement and interaction with followers. However, if you want to promote an offer, you’ll track click-throughs instead. These results will tell you with concrete numbers whether or not you reached your goal. With these strategies, you can actually achieve your goals and save the disappointment for the next movie sequel you see.