Metric Monday: Marketing-Sourced and Influenced Metrics

For quite some time, organizations have wrestled with the challenge of quantifying marketing’s impact on revenue generation. Traditionally, two distinct strategies have been employed:

1. Marketing-Sourced Metrics: Attempt to identify which deals and their associated revenue were first identified or engaged through a marketing activity.
2. Marketing-Influenced Metrics: Attempt to measure which deals that are not claimed as sourced by marketing were nonetheless touched at some point by marketing tactics.

Unfortunately, both approaches are marred by subjectivity, questionable claims, and, in the case of marketing-influenced metrics, irrelevant assertions about when a deal was identified, activated, or influenced by marketing.

Marketing-sourced metrics have faced growing scrutiny in recent years for their tendency to both underestimate and overstate marketing's involvement in identifying selling opportunities. The challenge of determining who sourced or initiated first contact for a given deal is virtually impossible. And, in sales cycles that last months and quarters, the answer is not likely helpful.

Last year, 6sense Research surveyed nearly 400 B2B practitioners to understand whether marketing organizations are adapting their measurement strategies to align with the reality of B2B buying and selling. Survey answers showed us that organizations predominantly favor measuring marketing output through sourced metrics over influenced metrics.

-On average, organizations employ 4 to 5 sourced metrics and 2 to 3 influenced metrics.

- 68% of measurements (such as pipeline opportunities and early-stage opportunities) are reported as sourced, while 50% reflect influence.

- Among those utilizing marketing-sourced metrics, first-touch, last-touch, and multi-touch approaches are equally popular, with statistically-determined lagging well behind.

These findings highlight the ongoing challenges in accurately assessing the impact of marketing on revenue, prompting the need for organizations to evolve their measurement strategies to better align with the complexities of B2B buying and selling dynamics.

@Kerry