Case Study: Proving Marketing Impact with Marketo Engage

Client Background

A mid sized B2B technology company was running a high volume of marketing activity across regions, but the team could not connect campaigns to pipeline or revenue. Marketo had been implemented the year before, but without a clear operational framework it only served basic email distribution. Reporting required manual reconciliation, naming conventions were inconsistent, and Sales did not trust the quality of MQLs. Leadership struggled to understand the impact of marketing investments. The company partnered with OneMetric to rebuild Marketo into a structured and measurable system with reliable automation, attribution, and connected reporting.

Challenges Before the Transformation

Lack of Reliable Marketing Attribution

Marketing executed campaigns across numerous channels such as paid search, paid social, webinars, nurture programs, and content hubs, but none of these activities connected to pipeline or revenue in a measurable way.

There was no consistent tracking, no first touch or multi touch attribution, and no clear understanding of which campaigns actually influenced opportunities. Budget decisions were made based on assumptions rather than performance, and the team had no framework to assess ROI across marketing motions.

Unstructured and Inconsistent Reporting

Reporting was one of the most significant pain points. Analysts spent hours each week pulling spreadsheets, joining CRM data, and exporting Marketo lists, yet leadership continued to receive reports that contradicted each other.

Different teams used different definitions for MQLs, lead sources, and campaign success metrics. The lack of clear and standardized reporting meant that leadership gradually lost confidence in the numbers being provided. Marketing credibility suffered simply because the systems were not aligned.

Fragmented Program Architecture

Inside Marketo, program structures were inconsistent.
Different regions and campaign owners used different naming conventions, tags, statuses, and channels. Some programs did not have proper statuses configured. Others lacked tags required for reporting. The absence of a standard framework made cross channel analytics nearly impossible and created data silos even within Marketo.

Ineffective Lead Scoring and Qualification

Marketo scoring was inflated and outdated.

Most leads accumulated high scores through basic activities such as visiting the home page or opening an email without demonstrating real intent. Negative scoring did not exist, score decay was not implemented, and demographic scoring did not align to ICP criteria.

Sales received too many low quality MQLs, creating friction and slowing down acceptance rates. Both teams lacked a shared understanding of what qualified truly meant.

No Visibility Into Funnel Behavior

Because lifecycle stages were not clearly defined or automated, the company could not answer essential funnel questions:

• How long does it take for a lead to become an SQL
• Where do leads drop off
• What percentage of leads convert at each stage
• How much pipeline is influenced by marketing activities
  
  

Without this insight, strategic planning relied on guesswork rather than accurate funnel intelligence.

What We Built

A Reengineered Revenue Cycle Model for End to End Visibility

Without lifecycle definitions, leads moved inconsistently across stages and created gaps that affected both Sales and Marketing. The company needed a structured lifecycle to drive accountability, automation, and measurement.

We rebuilt the Revenue Cycle Model from the ground up.
Each stage from Awareness to Customer was clearly defined with explicit entry and exit criteria. Automated workflows ensured every lifecycle transition happened consistently and accurately. SLA expectations were incorporated so that Sales received timely alerts when new MQLs were generated. Marketo and the CRM were connected with synchronized lifecycle stages and audit checks.

For the first time, the company gained real time visibility into funnel volume, velocity, and conversion rates and removed uncertainty about how leads progressed toward revenue.

A Scalable and Standardized Program Framework Across Channels

Disorganized program structures made meaningful analysis impossible and created inconsistencies that weakened reporting.

We built a unified program framework with standardized:

• Channel taxonomy
• Naming conventions
• Program statuses
• Tags by persona, product, region, and funnel stage
• Reporting fields aligned across Marketing and Sales
  
  

This foundation ensured every new campaign followed the same operational rules and contributed clean data into reporting dashboards.

The marketing team could finally compare program performance across channels, regions, and segments with confidence. Cross channel reporting became accurate and scalable.

A Modern and High Accuracy Scoring Model

Sales needed better qualified leads. Marketing needed a scoring system that reflected real buying intent.

We rebuilt the scoring model using:

• Behavioral signals such as content engagement and event participation
• Demographic fit such as role, industry, company size, and ICP match
• Negative scoring for inactivity, spam behavior, and bounces
• Score decay rules
• Threshold testing to ensure accuracy

Sales and Marketing aligned on a shared definition of MQL which improved trust and accountability. Only high intent and ICP aligned leads reached Sales, reducing friction and improving conversion from MQL to SQL.

Multi Touch Attribution and Connected Insight

Leadership had no clear understanding of which campaigns influenced opportunities. Without attribution, investment decisions lacked direction.

We implemented multi touch attribution models in Marketo and the CRM to support:

• First touch attribution
• Last touch attribution
• Full influenced pipeline reporting
• ROI measurement by channel, persona, and region
• Attribution aware dashboards
  
  

Budget planning became data driven, and leadership could finally see which initiatives drove pipeline and revenue.

Leadership Dashboards for Unified Company Wide Reporting

Executives required reliable reporting, and Marketing needed a single source of truth.

We built dashboards showing:

• Funnel conversion and velocity
• Progression from MQL to SQL to Opportunity
• Channel performance and marketing ROI
• Marketing sourced and marketing influenced revenue
• Quarterly performance trends
  
  

All teams, including Marketing, Sales, RevOps, and Leadership, now operate from the same shared metrics and avoid conflicting interpretations of performance.

Outcomes Delivered

• 60 Percent increase in marketing-sourced opportunities driven by stronger scoring logic and clearer qualification rules.
  
  
• 30 Percent higher MQL to SQL conversion rate because only high intent and ICP aligned leads reached Sales.
  
  
• 45 Percent reduction in reporting time due to dashboards replacing manual spreadsheets and reconciliation.
  
  
• Full funnel visibility from first touch to closed revenue, enabling better forecasting, bottleneck identification, and planning.
  
  
• Stronger alignment between Sales and Marketing supported by shared scoring, SLAs, definitions, and attribution.
  
  
• A fully predictable and data-driven revenue engine where Marketing can prove impact, Sales receives qualified leads, and leadership has visibility into contribution across all marketing activities.
  
  

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