Marketing isn't underperforming.

Most companies are measuring it against two different jobs at the same time.

I don't think most marketing teams have a measurement problem. I think they have a definition problem.

Leadership defines Marketing one way. Then measures it as something completely different.

I've seen this play out over and over again.

"We want Marketing focused on awareness."

"Build the brand."

"Create air cover for the accounts Sales is working."

That's a legitimate strategy.

Then the quarterly review arrives.

"Why isn't Marketing sourcing more pipeline?"

Now Marketing is expected to prove short-term revenue from activities that were specifically chosen because they create long-term demand.

"We want Marketing laser-focused on pipeline."

Also a legitimate strategy.

Then the requests begin.

Those are brand and awareness investments, and they compound over months and years. They're not designed to maximize next month's pipeline.

So Marketing is expected to deliver next quarter's revenue while investing in channels that may pay off next year.

Both strategies can work. Trying to run both on the same scorecard rarely does.

There's another distinction that gets lost in these conversations. Marketing is often doing two fundamentally different jobs.

Creating demand.

And capturing demand.

Brand, thought leadership, content, events, PR, community and other programs can create familiarity and preference before a buyer is ready to talk to Sales.

Paid search, high-intent content, hand-raisers, campaigns and other programs are often designed to capture demand that already exists.

Both matter. But they behave differently. They have different time horizons. Different measurement challenges and different paths to revenue.

The problem starts when leadership funds one motion but measures the other. That's when Marketing gets trapped.

When this contradiction becomes obvious, the instinct is predictable.

"We need better attribution."

After years in enterprise B2B SaaS, I've become skeptical. Not because attribution is useless. Because people expect it to answer a question it simply can't. Very few enterprise purchases happen because of one channel.

A buyer might:

Which channel deserves the credit? Probably all of them.

Unfortunately, most of them aren't measurable. So attribution often creates an illusion of precision.

It tells us who captured the conversion. Not necessarily who created the demand. And the more complex the buying process, the more dangerous that distinction becomes.

But there's an even bigger problem underneath the measurement debate.

Marketing can be held responsible for an outcome without having authority over the system that produces it.

Marketing may not control:

Yet Marketing is still expected to explain the revenue outcome. That's not accountability.

That's responsibility without authority.

If Marketing owns the number, Marketing needs a seat at the table where the GTM system is designed.

The attribution debate usually isn't really about attribution. It's about expectations.

If Marketing's primary job is awareness, don't pretend the primary KPI should be next-quarter pipeline.

If Marketing's primary job is pipeline, don't keep loading the team with activities designed primarily for long-term brand building.

If leadership wants both, that's perfectly reasonable. Just recognize you're asking Marketing to run two different motions.

Then build a scorecard that reflects both.

What doesn't work is asking Marketing to execute one strategy while grading it as if it were another.

And it gets even worse when Marketing is expected to influence revenue after the hand-raise without having any real influence over what happens next.

Creating pipeline and converting pipeline are different problems.

Adding more pipeline won't fix a system where opportunities stall, sales cycles stretch, deals shrink or win rates deteriorate.

That's why we're increasingly interested in what happens after pipeline.

This is the thinking behind a study we're running with Eric Gruber and Kristina Jaramillo at Personal ABM.

We're looking at where B2B revenue actually gets stuck between pipeline and closed-won.

It's early and the sample is still small, but one pattern is already showing up. So far, not a single respondent has said their post-pipeline investment is accelerating deals.

Every one is either not investing there yet, or investing and still watching revenue stall.

That's a problem.

Because the dashboard can tell you pipeline is healthy while the business is quietly accumulating leakage.

And the response is often to create more pipeline.

But if the problem is happening after the hand-raise, more top-of-funnel activity may simply create more opportunities for the same system to process.

That's the disconnect we're trying to understand.

The activity looks healthy. The revenue doesn't follow.

Help us find out how widespread it is.

The survey takes about 10 minutes, and you'll get a clear read on where your own revenue is most likely leaking, plus first access to the findings.

You'll fit right in at MarketingHQ.

These are the conversations happening every day inside the community.

Not which attribution model to buy. But how to get aligned with leadership on what Marketing is actually for.

How to build a GTM system that connects brand, demand, sales, customer success and expansion. How to stop measuring one function against outcomes controlled by five others.

Because the hardest part isn't the dashboard. It's designing a GTM system Marketing and leadership both actually believe in.

Join the conversation and learn what's working for other operators in the MarketingHQ community. Inside the community, you’ll also get:

Chief Marketing Officer (Remote) at APEX Wheels

Chief Marketing Officer at Elite Consulting Partners ($140,000 - $160,000)

VP, Product Marketing, Observability at Elastic

Sr. Director, Demand and Digital Marketing at Elastic ($200,400 - $316,900)

Director of Product Marketing, Arena at PTC ($180,000 - $220,000)

Director, Paid Media and Digital Demand at Pluralsight ($148,200 - $195,000)

Director of Marketing (Remote) at Red Wing Shoes

Director, Marketing at WellSky

Associate Director, Partner Marketing (Remote) at Zeta Global

Senior GTM Enablement Manager at Braze

Partner Marketing Manager at 6sense

Senior Marketing Manager, Growth (Remote) at Webflow

Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Mixpanel

Product Marketing Manager, Startup Segment at Stripe

Product Marketing Manager at Fundraise Up

SEO/AEO Manager at Madison Reed

Find many more roles on our MarketingHQ Job Board

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