95% of Marketers Find the Ability To Predict Pipeline Outcomes Crucial for Success
Discover the state of the marketing pipeline and how marketers plan to approach pipeline generation over the year.
Marketers often find it challenging to identify the right marketing mix to generate their pipeline while keeping acquisition costs low. Ascend2 and RevSure conducted a study to understand the current state of the pipeline and how marketers plan to approach pipeline generation over the next year.
In an ideal marketing world, marketers would know everything they should do to drive pipeline growth. However, in reality, many marketers find it challenging to develop the perfect marketing mix required to hit their pipeline generation targets while keeping acquisition costs low. And given the current business and economic climate, there is little room for error.
So, what is the current state of the marketing pipeline? What approach to pipeline generation are marketers taking, and how do they intend to achieve their revenue goals over the next 12 months? Ascend2 and RevSure recently tried to find the answers to these questions. Here are a few key insights.
Marketers Face Substantial Challenges in Generating Pipeline
The study found that marketers face several challenges when generating the pipeline. Some significant challenges include insufficient data to arrive at effective decisions, the inability to scale the demand program efficiently, and budget allocation challenges. Each of these challenges feeds into the other, thus creating a cycle of hurdles marketers try to overcome without the right data.
Most significant challenges of successfully generating pipeline
Source: The 2023 State of Pipeline Generation
Marketers Aren’t Confident in their Ability to Convert throughout the Funnel
The study also showed that most marketers are not highly confident about their capabilities to convert prospects throughout the funnel. The lack of confidence is more visible in the middle and the bottom of the funnel. About 58% were somewhat confident in their middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) conversions, and only 39% of marketers reported being extremely confident in their bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) conversions.
The ability to convert prospects and predict the conversion at MOFU and BOFU is critical from the points of timing, investment, and velocity of the sale. For example, the BOFU is key to the business’s bottom line. Huge budgets and resources are often dedicated to the top-of-the-funnel (TOFU). But businesses won’t hit the pipeline and revenue goals if they don’t spend enough to optimize MOFU and BOFU.
So, why is there a lack of confidence among marketers? This may be because only 29% of respondents can fully predict pipeline contributions and outcomes. Marketers with full capabilities to predict pipeline contribution are significantly more confident in their end-to-end marketing funnel.
See more: 5 Ways To Make Your Sales Pipeline More Trustworthy
Marketers Are Unaware of Where Conversion Bottlenecks and Funnel Leakage are Present
The study found that 66% of respondents are unaware of where there are conversion bottlenecks and funnel leakage. When marketers understand why MQLs are not converting to opportunities or why accounts are stuck in the sales process, they can make more effective decisions on where and why funnel leakages occur and find a solution.
Those who can predict pipeline outcomes are significantly more able to identify funnel leakage and conversion bottlenecks. About 68% of respondents who could fully predict pipeline outcomes reported being able to fully identify where leakages and bottlenecks occur in the funnel compared to 18% of all others.
Marketers Are Making Pipeline Insight a Priority
Marketers already have a few priorities to improve conversions for the year ahead. The top three priorities are improving lead quality and nurturing, improving pipeline analysis, and understanding which leads and accounts convert. All three priorities focus on improving conversion by uncovering exactly what generates pipeline and revenue.
Top priorities to improve lead-to-opportunity conversions in the year ahead
Source: The 2023 State of Pipeline Generation
Currently, over 50% of marketers analyze the quality of their marketing pipeline with forecast to actual comparisons (55%) and percentage of pipeline that closes (51%).
Regarding the metrics to measure success, 48% of marketers measure campaign success based on ROI or customer acquisition cost (CAC). Other common metrics include revenue contribution (47%), win/loss rate (37%), and total pipeline value by stage (34%). The fact that ROI and revenue contribution top the list of metrics marketers use to measure success is encouraging. It shows that marketers are slowly moving away from vanity metrics to supporting revenue generation.
When using attribution, multi-touch and custom attribution models are the most common ones marketers use. While 44% use multi-touch attribution, 42% use custom attribution models. About 36% use a first-touch model, while 28% use a last-touch attribution model. Only 10% don’t use any model at all. It was also found that 57% of those who could identify an attribution model chose more than one model they used. Having the ability to switch between different attribution models helps marketers analyze how marketing tactics and touchpoints contribute to sales.
When looking at the channels having the biggest impact on pipeline generation, email marketing (42%) and social media (38%) came on top. These were followed by content marketing (35%), organic search (34%), paid media (34%), and events and webinars (34%).
Marketers Feel the Ability to Predict Pipeline Outcomes is Critical to Success
About 95% of respondents felt that being able to predict pipeline outcomes is crucial for their marketing program’s success. According to the respondents, successfully predicting the pipeline helps them use resources more efficiently, improves their confidence to meet targets, and helps them pivot their strategies. Those who can fully predict pipeline outcomes are significantly more likely to have a positive outlook on their business’s success than those who can’t.
Most companies that can predict pipeline contributions are doing so manually to some extent. About 60% reported forecasting pipelines using entire or mostly manual processes.
As confidence in pipeline predictions increases, the revenues increase as well. About 32% who could predict pipeline outcomes to any extent felt extremely confident in these predictions. This group is also more confident in its ability to convert prospects at every stage of the funnel. The key contributing factors to this confidence in pipeline predictions are automation, real-time visibility, and transparency with leadership.
Be Aware of Four Factors to Drive Results
The following are four factors marketers should be aware of to drive results.
1. Know when to pivot
About 56% of marketers have real-time visibility into when to pivot marketing strategies and tactics, while 29% have some visibility but have to monitor manually. This kind of insight allows marketers to adjust their strategies to specific conditions proactively. And those with the insight to know when to pivot see significant increases in revenues and feel positive about the overall success of their business.
See more: 99% of B2B Marketers Say AI Chatbots Increase Their Lead Conversion Rates
2. Know the big picture
A full-funnel view of data helps leadership make better strategic decisions and allows marketing and sales teams to align on what generates pipeline. About 54% of respondents said their leadership team has complete visibility into their pipeline. Such leaders are more likely to have seen a significant increase in revenue last year and are more confident in their ability to convert throughout the pipeline.
3. Know where and how to spend
About 33% of marketers said that budget allocation was a top challenge when trying to achieve pipeline generation success. When marketers don’t have the right data, allocating budgets becomes a guessing game. About 43% of respondents said one of the greatest benefits of successfully predicting pipelines is the more efficient use of resources.
4. Know how to sustain growth
About 33% of marketers said that a top challenge of successfully generating a pipeline is their inability to scale demand programs efficiently to meet growth targets. This is mainly because they don’t have access to the data required to build a scalable strategy to hit pipeline targets. Many also rely on guesswork. About 54% of respondents said they determined a scalable strategy to hit pipeline targets predictably.
Regarding data, two metrics marketers should focus on is MQL to SQL percentage and win/loss rate.
Pipeline Success
Gaining visibility into the pipeline and the funnel is critical for marketers to hit revenue targets. Insights into the leads and opportunities converting into revenue allow them to focus on closing deals better. The study shows that when marketers better understand their pipeline and funnel data, they will stop firefighting, a welcome outcome for everyone. In a year where budgets may be tighter, unlocking such insights becomes necessary to make better decisions.
Hence, marketers should develop appropriate strategies and take the necessary steps to achieve greater efficiency in pipeline generation and create a plan to hit revenue goals in the year ahead.
What steps have you taken to hit your pipeline goals over the next year? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Image source: Shutterstock
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