The consideration to combine marketing, sales, and customer operations resources into a centralized revenue operations structure has long been a subject of research for Forrester (and, earlier, SiriusDecisions) B2B analysts. We help our clients grapple with these questions on a regular basis, and we structure our advice to the specific needs of their business. While disparate teams in certain areas, such as data management teams, are often encouraged to come together, most areas require more nuanced advice.

In my presentation, “How To Build A B2B Marketing Measurement And Insights Organization,” at Forrester’s upcoming B2B Summit North America, I’ll focus on three key questions:

  • Should marketing measurement be part of a larger revenue operations structure?
  • What org design model (decentralized, shared service, or center of excellence) is best for your team?
  • How should marketing measurement be differentiated from a business intelligence function built within IT?

In this blog, I’ll tackle the first of those questions.

Should The Marketing Measurement Team Reside Within A RevOps Structure?

The Revenue Operations Charter (available to current marketing and sales operations seatholders) provides an example of a best-practice RevOps function’s remit. While the details of the charter document should be customized for each unique business, the sample charter does offer common language to help answer the question of marketing measurement’s reporting structure:

  • Typical RevOps goals. Align all operational priorities responsible for customer acquisition, growth, and retention to achieve revenue goals.
  • Accountability for measurement and analysis within RevOps. Revenue operations delivers visibility into revenue performance and contribution to the business, enabling decision-making for functional improvement opportunities.

Both examples highlight the core issue that needs to be addressed when considering adding marketing measurement to a RevOps structure. How many of the responsibilities of a typical marketing measurement and insights team fall within the scope described above? There are clearly elements that any RevOps leader would agree are drivers of revenue performance, such as demand generation reporting and shared waterfall responsibilities. But how about long-term brand tracking? Market insights? Content measurement?

Marketing Leaders Need Measurement Teams To Support Marketing’s Full Remit

While RevOps measurement alignment around key demand and waterfall performance responsibilities will almost certainly improve the efficiency and effectiveness within those areas, marketing organizations take a risk when rolling the larger marketing measurement and insights team into a combined RevOps structure without first recognizing whether the leadership of that group places the appropriate value on the rest of marketing’s responsibilities to the business.

Where RevOps leadership has a clear understanding and commitment to supporting the value that marketing offers in areas less immediately linked to revenue growth, aligning measurement personnel across marketing, sales, and customer operations can provide economies of scale and promote shared understanding across functions.

If that broader commitment to supporting marketing’s value proposition is not in place, however, marketing leaders will typically be better served by maintaining a dedicated marketing measurement function. A separate function will allow resources to focus necessary attention on maximizing performance in the areas of marketing accountability that are not as directly tied to opportunity creation and retention.

Join me at B2B Summit for a deeper discussion of this topic and a quick self-assessment to determine whether combining measurement into the RevOps function makes sense for your business. I’ll also talk through the benefits of each org design model within the measurement team and how to best divide responsibilities if you also have a business intelligence team inside your technology organization.