After more than 25 years in B2B Tech Marketing, I’ve seen this movie too many times, and it keeps rerunning. So allow me to beat a dead horse.
A leader demands marketing prove ROI despite years with no GTM plan, no tracking except MQLs, just guesswork and spray-and-pray. Yet they want the receipts.
It’s crazy talk that sends marketing on wild goose chases instead of fixing the problem.
And it’s not a measurement problem. It’s a management problem.
Fixing it starts with real straight talk around operationalizing basic GTM tracking that should have happened from day one. Things like cleaning up contacts with zero context in the CRM.
Within a few months (yes, it takes time to build these systems), patterns emerge that couldn’t be seen before, such as buying group signals, channel performance, actual sales cycles.
But ROI? No.
There’s nothing to compare it to because marketing is building the measurement system while being asked to justify the investment.
It’s Groundhog Day all over again.
Neil deGrasse Tyson nailed why this keeps happening:
Neil’s advice?
“The scientific method is there to save you from yourself, to remind you that every conclusion must be tested, questioned, and refined.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Research from 6sense shows that 81% of B2B buyers choose their vendor before ever contacting sales. Yet most marketing teams are still measured on MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) that capture only 2-3 out of 10 buying group members.
Your marketing might be working brilliantly (or not). You just can’t see it.
Kerry Cunningham’s “MQL Industrial Complex” explains why: Only 3-5% of website visitors fill out forms.
The other 95-97% (including the CFO checking you out before signing off, the VP of Engineering evaluating your technical docs, the procurement lead comparing pricing) remains completely anonymous and invisible.
For the past 15-20 years, B2B tech leaders (including marketing) have operated on a fundamental misunderstanding about how marketing works and how it’s measured. Not because they’re incompetent, but because the measurement systems we all adopted from companies like Eloqua, Marketo, and HubSpot were built on flawed assumptions. (More on how this happened here.)
The truth is, marketing does not create revenue directly. It can only influence revenue by multiplying sales effectiveness.
One of the best thought leaders and data scientists on this topic is Dale W. Harrison, and his research demonstrates this.
When properly instrumented, marketing investment generates a 20:1 return, not by “driving” revenue, but by making sales 3x more efficient. Close rates improve from 4:1 to 12:1. Sales cycles shorten. Deal sizes increase.
But these effects compound over quarters (sometimes years), not weeks. 90% of revenue influenced by a quarter’s marketing activity won’t be recognized until 8-9 months later or longer, depending on how complex and pricey your tech is.
This is why your CFO can’t see it.
Because of time lag, you’re measuring in the wrong timeframe with the wrong metrics.
Short answer: Stop asking marketing to prove last quarter’s ROI, especially if you don’t have the systems in place to track and measure the YoY data needed to answer that question.
So ask better questions that reveal multiplier effects:
Pull your leads from the last 12 months (if you have the data!) and group them by company domain. You’ll typically see 1.5-2.5 leads per account.
Now ask:
Answers to those questions help you establish buying group signals that can predict pipeline better than individual lead scores.
Five people from a target account researching your solutions (even if no one fills out your forms) is a stronger signal than one person downloading a PDF.
As Neil deGrasse Tyson said, the scientific method requires a hypothesis. Most B2B leaders are demanding marketing prove ROI without ever stating what they believe should happen.
Treat marketing like capital. Its job is to cause more profitable closes by multiplying your Sales effectiveness. Fund programs that show tested lift and save money and time by cutting the rest.
B2B Marketing has never been predictable or linear. Buyers are irrational. Decisions involve politics, budget constraints, competing priorities. Multiple stakeholders rarely move in straight lines.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t measure marketing. It means we’ve been measuring the wrong things and looking in the wrong places.
The companies winning today aren’t the ones with the most MQLs. They’re the ones that show up consistently when buyers are researching, earning trust across multiple stakeholders, and making sales teams more effective.
Your marketing could already be doing this.
The question is whether you’ve built the systems to see it.
If you like this content, here are some more ways I can help:
Cheers!
This article is AC-A and published on LinkedIn. Join the conversation!
