How to Tie Marketing to Revenue

In today’s boardroom, “brand awareness” and “engagement” only get you so far. The ultimate question is: How much revenue did marketing drive?

If you can’t answer that, you’re flying blind—and likely underfunded. The modern mandate for marketing leaders is clear: move beyond vanity metrics and build a direct, defensible line from your daily activities to closed deals and revenue.

Here’s your practical guide to linking marketing activity to leads, ROI, and revenue.

The Foundation: From “Spend” to “Investment”

Stop talking about “marketing spend.” Start talking about “marketing investment.” An investment implies an expected return.

1. Build Your Attribution Backbone

You can’t tie activity to revenue if you can’t see the buyer’s path.

• First-Touch: Credits the first interaction. Great for top-of-funnel.
• Last-Touch: Credits the final touchpoint. Simple but incomplete.
• Multi-Touch (MTA): Distributes credit across all key touchpoints. This is the gold standard.

Start simple: Begin with last-touch, then pilot a multi-touch model.

2. Define Your Revenue Funnel Metrics

Map your buyer’s journey with clear, numerical goals.

Funnel Stage	Key Metric	What It Ties To
Awareness	Website Visitors	Volume
Consideration	Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)	Lead Quality & Volume
Decision	Sales Accepted Leads (SALs)	Pipeline Volume
Conversion	Closed-Won Deals	REVENUE & ROI

Crucial: Track how many MQLs from a campaign become Opportunities and pipeline revenue.

3. Calculate True Marketing ROI

ROI is the full financial picture.

The Formula:
(Revenue from Marketing - Marketing Cost) / Marketing Cost x 100

Example: A $10,000 campaign drives $40,000 in attributed revenue.

• ROI = (($40,000 – $10,000) / $10,000) x 100 = 300%

Go Deeper: Factor in Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) for a more powerful view.

4. Implement Closed-Loop Reporting

Your marketing platform must talk to your CRM.

1. Marketing tracks lead source and engagement.
2. Sales logs the closed-won deal value in the CRM.
3. Data syncs back, showing which campaign drove $X in revenue.

Without this, you’re guessing. With it, you have proof.

5. Report Metrics That Matter

Build a one-page dashboard with:

1. Marketing-Sourced Pipeline: Value of open opportunities from marketing.
2. Marketing-Sourced Revenue: Closed-won revenue attributed to marketing.
3. Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI): ROI for the period.
4. Cost Per Lead (CPL) & Cost Per Acquisition (CAC): Efficiency metrics.
5. Lead-to-Customer Rate: Lead quality indicator.

6. Tell the Story Behind the Data

Be the leader who explains:

• “This campaign had a high CPL but the highest conversion to pipeline—it’s our best channel for intent.”
• “Social drives volume; paid search accelerates conversion.”

The Goal: Predictive Planning

Master this and you can forecast:

• “To hit $500K in revenue, we need 250 MQLs from these three channels with a $75K budget.”

Start Now, Start Simple

You don’t need perfect data on day one.

1. Pick one campaign and track it to revenue.
2. Clean your CRM data.
3. Align with Sales on lead definitions.
4. Report one new revenue metric at your next review.

By tying activity to revenue, you stop being a cost center. You become a proven growth engine—and that changes everything.