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Leading a GTM team

Marketing says it sourced the pipeline, sales says it did not. How do I do attribution without fooling myself?

Accept that software attribution measures what is clickable, not what is persuasive, and the gap is enormous. Refine Labs tracked 620 declared-intent conversions against 21.5 million dollars of closed-won revenue and found self-reported data credited podcasts with 53 percent of revenue while the tracking software credited them with zero. So run both. Ask every inbound lead one open question about how they heard of you, keep the tracked data for optimising within a channel, and use holdout or geo tests when you need to know whether a channel actually caused anything. Then stop arguing about who sourced a deal and agree on one shared pipeline number, because sourced-versus-influenced is a scoreboard fight nobody wins.

Go deeper

3 resources, 3 link-checked.

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The single most quotable attribution finding we know of: across 620 declared-intent conversions and 21.5 million dollars of closed-won revenue, self-reported data credited podcasts with 53 percent of revenue and the software credited them with 0 percent.

Refine Labs Study Confirms Measurement Gap in Software-Based Attribution & Releases Hybrid Attribution Framework

From Refine Labs 12 min read

  • Over 12 months, 620 declared-intent conversions and $21.5M in closed-won ARR showed a 90 percent gap between software attribution and what buyers said.
  • Self-reported attribution gave podcasts 53 percent of revenue ($11.4M); software attribution gave them 0 percent.
  • The fix is hybrid: ask buyers directly on the form and reconcile that against software, since dark social never shows up in the tool.
  • Its main use is showing executives that demand creation has business value, not just demand capture.
Open refinelabs.com →
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The other half of the answer: how to actually find out whether a channel caused anything, using holdouts, geo tests and lift studies. It is also honest that click attribution flatters brand search and retargeting, which convert regardless.

Incrementality Testing: The Only Guide You Need

From Supermetrics by Olivia Kory and Erkki Paunonen 16 min read

  • Below roughly $5M a year in paid media you do not need geo or platform lift tests; observational experiments are enough.
  • Three methods: platform conversion lift with a holdout, geo splits, and before-and-after natural experiments.
  • Feed results back into reporting: if only 50 percent of platform conversions were incremental, double your reported CPL and CPA.
  • Re-test your big bets quarterly, or at least every 3 to 6 months, since incrementality decays.
Open supermetrics.com →

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The same ground, at another level

How inbound, content and demand gen reads from a different seat.

Everyone says do content. What does inbound actually mean for a startup with no audience? Inbound means someone with the problem finds you while they are looking for an answer, and leaves you a way to follow up. For a startup with no aud... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → How do I decide what to write about so it brings in buyers and not just traffic? Sort every topic idea by how close it sits to a purchase. Comparison pages, alternatives pages, integration pages and "how do I do X with Y" pages ... Doing the work 4 resources → What do the companies with genuinely great inbound do differently? They pick one content strategy and commit to it for years instead of sampling five. Lenny's breakdown of content-driven growth is a useful map: edi... How the best do it 4 resources →

People also ask

Everyone says do content. What does inbound actually mean for a startup with no audience? 4 → I write blog posts and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong? 4 → How do I decide what to write about so it brings in buyers and not just traffic? 4 → Our product is self-serve. How do we get users without a sales team? 4 → How much of my pipeline should come from inbound versus outbound, and when do I add the second channel? 4 → I run demand gen for an Indian SaaS selling globally. Does the US content playbook work here? 5 →

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