Common sense > attribution
A tale about attribution holding back business growth
A few years ago, we went all in with our dual-motion go-to-market (GTM) offer. We had a great sales-led GTM engine already in place + completely changed the industry by offering the first forever free recruiting ATS/CRM with our product-led GTM offer.
A handful of months in, we were seeing PLG signups steadily rising, but the pipeline and revenue from those signups weren’t following that same trendline. Next to prospects explicitly asking to talk to sales, this should’ve been our second “hottest” pipeline driver…but it wasn’t.
Sponsor: Affect
Affect is the framework for how I think about marketing accountability. The playbooks I’ve built from 15 years of seeing what works + what doesn’t and recognizing that the purpose of marketing isn’t to hit vanity metrics like MQLs, but to move the business.
Affect is for the marketers who have sat in a room where marketing celebrated surpassing its MQL targets while the business missed revenue. It’s for the marketers who want to be held accountable because they’re confident enough in their work to let the math speak for itself. It’s for the marketers who understand that clarity is earned, conviction is a choice, + being a force on the business is the only version of this job worth doing.
Founding member special: The first 50 people who sign up as paying customers get the founding member rate of $99/month for life. One flat rate per entity (AKA unlimited users/teammates) + a rate lock for life (I can’t stand those “your rate is going up at renewal!” emails). We launched less than a month ago + 4 spots have already been claimed.
The cause?
We had a basic marketing nurture series in place for those who signed up, but with these being higher “intent” signups, these should be layups for our BDRs to follow up with and convert.
So I reached out to our top BDR to see how I could help further enable the BDR team with these. What content would be helpful to supply, what objections could they expect + how to speak to those, FAQs, etc. But what was uncovered in the first 5 minutes of that call put a spotlight on the issue when they said:
“I don’t call on these until after 14 days so I get credit”
At the time, we had a 14-day reverse trial period where the prospect would have full access to the entire platform. After the 14-day window was up, they would be downgraded to the “Free” version. Based on this, there were rules in place that prevented BDRs from getting any credit or compensation for converting the PLG leads within the first 14 days because they were “attributed to marketing, not BDRs.”
Attribution was holding us back from business growth.
Worrying about who would get credit for pipeline or revenue was literally holding us back from even creating pipeline or driving revenue.
The fix
The actual fix for this was wildly simple - don’t get caught up in attribution. But putting this into practice is much easier said than done due to things like compensation plans, budgeting, egos, and more.
So we went back to our north star metric: revenue.
Is what we’re solving for here going to increase revenue? Yes.
Is what’s holding us back from doing this internal processes or red tape? Yes.
Can this be solved by changing said processes? Yes.
There was our answer. And within the next week here’s what happened:
We had BDRs starting the sequence we built together ASAP instead of waiting 14 days
Marketing and Sales leadership reworked the BDR compensation plan for these
Pipeline from the PLG signups shot up immediately
Remember: the goal of attribution isn’t to say “Who gets credit for this?” but to answer “What’s working to drive business?”
Once you overcome that hurdle, that’s when the magic happens as team siloes are broken down and true cross-departmental teamwork begins, resulting in a better customer experience + better business results.
And this reinforces a belief I will go to the grave with: a successful GTM program needs to be treated as an ecosystem, not a set of channels.
Marketing can drive countless signups, but if BDRs and sales aren’t there to engage them + help qualify, marketing won’t be successful.
BDRs and sales can have killer conversion rates + success with converting signups, but if they don’t have marketing driving signups their way, BDRs and sales won’t be successful.
Moral of the story when it comes to marketing + sales:
The success of each depends upon the other.
See you next Saturday,
Sam
P.S. if you liked today’s newsletter or have enjoyed some of the earlier ones, forward this along to a marketer you think would like it as well 🙂 This newsletter grows by word of mouth + I can see which weeks resonate more/less with you all based on how many people do (or don’t 😅) subscribe after reading.