Image source: Closed Loop
Kristan Rodriguez
The B2B landscape is shifting.
Metrics like MQLs, SQLs, demos, meetings booked and form-fills once dominated marketing dashboards. But today, they’re table stakes for business outcomes.
While these metrics still matter, they’re no longer the finish line. Leads, conversations and database growth aren’t enough for the C-suite. Revenue is the top agenda item in today’s competitive landscape. That’s why marketing leaders are working harder than ever to define measurement and align with sales.
So, what are they doing to show this alignment? They’re replacing vanity metrics with insightful dashboards to tie every dollar to growth. Early indicators are being connected to pipeline, closed-won and predictable growth. Most importantly, they’re building full-funnel paid media programs that bridge media, creative, and data around the numbers contributing to the bottom line.
And the pressure is on according to the following LinkedIn B2B statistics:
Undeniably, marketing budgets are under intense pressure to show tangible results and future profitability.
Vanity metrics like MQLs don’t buy credibility for marketing strategy like in the past. They also don’t buy you influence or permanence. A marketing organization stopping at this point in the buyer journey is hurting itself and the brand it seeks to grow.
CFOs are not in the business to reward marketing activity. They’re hyper-focused on revenue generation. Not showing pipeline and business impact positions the marketing organization as a cost center, not a revenue generator. That, in turn, puts your efforts and budget in jeopardy at a macro and micro level. Today’s CMOs must be good stewards of the marketing budget. Sown seeds have to bear a harvest.
Hand-offs that don’t close to won deals dampen the marketing and sales relationship. Lack of strategic alignment with sales can foster tension. Sales has to be empowered alongside marketing. If not, the pointing game begins and advocates walk away from the business goal.
Sometimes, buyers self-educate and make decisions before marketing starts. A heavy MQL focus is short-term marketing by design, concentrating on the 5% of buyers who are in-market and ignoring the 95% who will drive tomorrow’s pipeline.
Andrea Denk, VP of Marketing & Growth at Closed Loop, sums up this disconnect:
Only optimizing for MQLs and other vanity metrics inherently focuses on the wrong outcome. It stops extremely short of the bigger picture. Brands that do so highlight marketing activity instead of business impact. They have to connect the dots and drive the growth.
Leading brands are moving away from old playbooks that emphasize only leads and MQLs. Instead, they’re focusing on metrics directly correlating to business growth. Some of these KPIs include:
As Ty Heath from LinkedIn B2B institute explained during our Making the Case for the Marketing Budget fireside chat—growth, profit and risk are the three drivers CFOs care about the most. Not speaking the language of your CFO puts your budget at risk.
Focusing optimization efforts on revenue-supporting KPIs instrumentally shifts how companies see marketing. By doing this, the mystique around marketing efforts is removed, and its stakeholder influence becomes unquestionable.
The mindset shift around revenue isn’t just marketing’s KPIs. It’s a change in the level of ownership. While revenue has always been a company’s goal, marketing is now expected to have a clear, accountable role in delivering it.
Yet, all too often, sales and marketing work in their own lane. Tension over who owns or drives leads and sales distracts players from the objective. Top marketers are driving cohesion instead by focusing on revenue goals with high-touch, symbiotic relationships that spread ownership across the board.
For instance, leading brands are incorporating pipeline meetings with finance, sales and marketing all at the table. Reporting is transparent, agreed-upon and clarified. Campaign reviews also consider the sales experience and the business outcomes.
Sales and marketing alignment is not a new nuance. But, there is undoubtedly a cultural shift. The “us vs. them” mentality is transforming into shared responsibility for revenue.
The B2B buying process isn’t a pretty funnel like the visualizations. In fact, it’s more like a tornado. Buyers bounce between channels, self-educate and make decisions sometimes without even talking to sales.
The LinkedIn B2B Institute reports that 95% of buyers are out-of-market at any given time, and only 5% are actually in-market.
As a result, marketing leaders today are:
By large, paid media is one of the best tools for the revenue shift but it requires data to be connected for a true understanding of revenue impact.
Amanda Evans, CEO of Closed Loop addressed the need for connection:
Paid media helps marketing leaders understand:
However, marketing intelligence without proper integration is wasted potential.
Paid media strategy only succeeds when embedded strategically across the buyer’s journey and aligned with top-line business goals. A disconnected media strategy doesn’t build a pipeline. It burns cash and torches CMO tenure.
Budgets are too precious to stop at MQLs. Investment has to yield results tied to revenue.
The LinkedIn B2B Institute reports that 95% of buyers are out-of-market at any given time, and only 5% are actually in-market.
As a result, marketing leaders today are:
Making the full shift toward revenue generation requires expertise and serious intention. Marketing leaders need strategic partners who are proactive, problem-solvers and results-driven.
Here is what to look for in a good revenue-fluent paid media agency:
Our digital advertising experts embrace the marketing-revenue shift with the following framework:
In modern marketing, revenue keeps the lights on. Brands can no longer afford to stop at the sales handoff. CMOs have to align the team, set the course and own the revenue narrative from kickoff to the victory lap.
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