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Estd 4.22.2023
In the complex ecosystem of B2B sales and marketing, few metrics carry as much weight as pipeline generation. However, focusing solely on marketing-generated pipeline tells only part of the story. To truly understand marketing's contribution to revenue, forward-thinking SaaS executives must embrace a more comprehensive metric: Marketing Influenced Pipeline.
This broader measurement acknowledges marketing's role across the entire customer journey—not just in initiating opportunities but in nurturing and accelerating them through to closure. Let's explore why this metric matters and how to effectively measure it in your organization.
What is Marketing Influenced Pipeline?
Marketing Influenced Pipeline refers to the total potential revenue in your sales pipeline that has had meaningful marketing touchpoints or engagement during the buying process, regardless of where the opportunity originated.
Unlike Marketing Generated Pipeline (which only counts opportunities sourced directly by marketing), the influenced metric captures marketing's contribution to deals that may have been initiated through other channels such as sales outreach, referrals, or partnerships.
In practical terms, this means that when a prospect:
- Downloads a white paper after being referred by a current customer
- Attends a webinar that accelerates a stalled sales-generated opportunity
- Engages with case studies that help move a deal forward
All of these interactions contribute to Marketing Influenced Pipeline, even though marketing may not have been the original source of the opportunity.
Why is Marketing Influenced Pipeline Important?
1. Provides a Complete Picture of Marketing Value
According to research from SiriusDecisions (now Forrester), 67% of the buyer's journey is now done digitally, and many of those digital touchpoints fall under marketing's domain. Measuring only direct lead generation drastically undervalues marketing's impact.
2. Aligns Marketing and Sales Teams
When both teams recognize marketing's contribution throughout the funnel, not just at the top, it helps break down silos and create more collaborative approaches to revenue generation. A study by LinkedIn found that organizations with strong sales and marketing alignment achieve 38% higher sales win rates.
3. Justifies Broader Marketing Investments
Content, brand-building, and customer marketing initiatives often influence deals without being the originating source. According to Gartner, when B2B buyers are considering a purchase, they spend only 17% of their time meeting with potential suppliers, while 27% of their time is spent researching independently—often engaging with marketing materials.
4. Informs Content Strategy
Understanding which marketing assets influence deals helps teams prioritize content creation that advances prospects through the pipeline, not just content that generates initial interest.
How to Measure Marketing Influenced Pipeline
Measuring marketing influence requires systematic tracking and attribution. Here's a step-by-step approach:
1. Establish Clear Definitions
First, define what constitutes "influence" in your organization:
- Time-based influence: Any opportunity that had marketing engagement within a defined period (e.g., 90 days) before creation
- Touchpoint-based influence: Opportunities where contacts engaged with a specific number or type of marketing activities
- Multi-touch attribution: Weighting different marketing touchpoints based on their impact in the buying journey
2. Implement Proper Tracking and Technology
Robust marketing automation and CRM integration is essential for accurate tracking:
- Ensure your marketing automation platform properly syncs engagement data with your CRM
- Tag campaigns consistently to trace influence across channels
- Use UTM parameters for digital campaigns to maintain attribution integrity
- Consider investing in attribution software for more sophisticated analysis
3. Define Key Metrics
Several metrics help quantify marketing influence:
Marketing Influenced Pipeline Percentage: The percentage of total pipeline value that had marketing engagement
Formula: (Marketing Influenced Pipeline $ ÷ Total Pipeline $) × 100
Marketing Influenced Win Rate: Closed-won rate for marketing-influenced opportunities versus non-influenced opportunities
Marketing Influence by Stage: How marketing touchpoints affect deal progression through pipeline stages
Influence-to-Close Ratio: The efficiency of converting influenced pipeline to revenue
4. Regular Reporting and Analysis
Develop a cadence for reporting on influenced pipeline:
- Monthly or quarterly influence reports aligned with sales cycles
- Segment analysis by product line, region, or customer type
- Trend analysis showing influence patterns over time
- Comparative analysis of influenced versus non-influenced deals (size, cycle time, win rates)
Best Practices for Maximizing Marketing Influenced Pipeline
Once you're tracking influence effectively, optimize your approach:
1. Create Late-Stage Content
Develop materials specifically designed to address objections and questions that arise during later buying stages. According to Demand Gen Report, 95% of B2B buyers choose vendors that provide content that helps them navigate each stage of the buying process.
2. Enable Sales with Marketing Assets
Equip sales teams with easy access to relevant marketing content they can share with prospects at critical decision points. Organizations with strong sales enablement practices see 13.7% higher win rates, according to CSO Insights.
3. Implement Account-Based Marketing Tactics
Target high-value accounts with personalized content and experiences that influence multiple stakeholders simultaneously. ITSMA research shows that 87% of marketers report that ABM initiatives outperform other marketing investments.
4. Maintain Visibility Throughout the Sales Cycle
Deploy nurture campaigns that continue engaging prospects even after they've entered the sales process. This "air cover" helps maintain momentum while sales works on the ground.
Challenges and Pitfalls to Avoid
While measuring marketing influence delivers valuable insights, be aware of these common challenges:
1. Attribution Modeling Complexity
Multi-touch attribution can become overly complicated. Start with simpler models and increase sophistication as your team matures.
2. Double-Counting Revenue
Ensure your reporting clearly distinguishes between marketing-generated and marketing-influenced pipeline to avoid inflating marketing's contribution.
3. Recency Bias
Be careful not to overweight recent touchpoints when prospects may have engaged with foundational marketing content months earlier.
4. Overlooking Offline Influence
Don't forget to capture offline marketing touchpoints such as events, direct mail, or phone conversations that might influence deals.
Conclusion
Marketing Influenced Pipeline provides a more holistic view of marketing's contribution to revenue than traditional source-based metrics alone. By properly tracking, measuring, and optimizing for influence, SaaS executives can make more informed decisions about marketing investments, improve sales-marketing alignment, and ultimately accelerate revenue growth.
The most successful organizations understand that pipeline generation isn't a hand-off from marketing to sales but rather a collaborative journey where marketing plays multiple vital roles—from awareness creation through to closed deals and beyond.
By implementing the tracking and measurement practices outlined here, you'll gain clearer visibility into marketing's full impact and be better positioned to scale your revenue engine efficiently.