That beautiful dashboard showing your marketing ROI? Those perfectly optimized attribution reports? The quarterly presentations where you confidently declare marketing’s contribution to revenue?
Most of it is probably not helpful or particularly useful.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: 90% of B2B marketers measure ROI, but most are measuring the wrong things in the wrong ways for the wrong reasons.
The ROI Measurement Lie
“We track everything! Our attribution is solid. We know exactly which campaigns drive revenue.”
No, you don’t.
What you know is which campaigns get last-click credit before someone fills out a form. What you know is which touchpoints your broken tracking system happened to capture. What you know is how to manipulate numbers to make your quarterly review look good.
The research shows that marketers are measuring ultimate outcomes like revenue and ROI, but are not measuring the meaningful milestones leading up to those outcomes. You’re tracking the finish line but ignoring the entire race.
Why Your Attribution is Broken (And It’s Costing You Everything)
Problem #1: You’re Optimizing for Tracking, Not Results
Most B2B attribution models are designed around what’s easy to measure, not what actually drives revenue.
First-touch attribution gives all credit to the first interaction. Last-touch attribution gives all credit to the final interaction. Both are wrong for B2B sales cycles that span 6-12 months with dozens of touchpoints.
You’re essentially giving full credit for a marathon victory to either the person who fired the starting pistol or the one who put up the finish line tape.
Problem #2: You’re Confusing Activity with Impact
Here’s a question that will make you uncomfortable: If you stopped all marketing activities tomorrow, how long would it take for your pipeline to actually decrease?
For most B2B companies, the answer is 3-6 months. Which means your current “marketing-attributed” revenue might have nothing to do with your current marketing activities.
B2B products require long sales cycles that can run into 6 months or more. Your February campaign results might not show up until August. But your February reports still claim credit for February revenue that came from last year’s activities.
Problem #3: You’re Measuring Leads, Not Customers
You’re counting leads like they’re all equal when some leads cost $50 to generate and never buy anything, while others cost $500 and turn into $50,000 customers.
The Attribution Models That Actually Work (Spoiler: None of Them)
Single Attribution: Too Simple to Be Useful
Single attribution models credit one marketing touch for turning a lead into a customer. For B2C products with short sales cycles, this works. For B2B products with complex buying groups and 6-month cycles, it’s useless.
Multi-Touch Attribution: Too Complex to Be Accurate
Multi-touch attribution tries to assign fractional credit to every touchpoint. Sounds smart. In practice, it’s just a more sophisticated way to be wrong.
Some businesses assign weight to touches based on proximity to conversion or level of interaction. But how do you weight a LinkedIn ad someone saw 8 months ago versus a case study they downloaded last week? You’re making educated guesses and calling them facts.
Market Mix Modeling: Too Expensive to Be Practical
Market mix modeling considers all marketing and non-marketing touches involved in making a sale. It sounds comprehensive, but it requires massive datasets, expensive statistical modeling, and still can’t tell you which specific campaigns to optimize.
What Actually Works: The Revenue Reality Framework
Reality #1: Stop Measuring Marketing ROI, Start Measuring Business Impact
Instead of asking “What’s our marketing ROI?” ask “How is our business performing, and what’s marketing’s contribution?”
Track business metrics first:
- Total pipeline generated
- Pipeline velocity
- Average deal size
- Customer acquisition cost
- Customer lifetime value
Then work backwards to understand marketing’s role in influencing these numbers.
Reality #2: Measure Influence, Not Attribution
According to 6sense research, marketers should focus on measuring marketing influence at the overall level rather than trying to attribute success to specific programs.
Instead of asking “Which campaign drove this deal?” ask “How did our overall marketing efforts influence this customer’s decision?”
Reality #3: Accept That Some Things Can’t Be Measured (And That’s Okay)
Brand awareness campaigns don’t directly generate leads. Thought leadership content doesn’t immediately convert. Conference sponsorships create long-term relationship value.
Stop trying to force direct ROI measurement on activities that work indirectly. Measure what you can measure well, and acknowledge what you can’t.
The Hard Questions You’re Avoiding
About Your Current Attribution:
“If our attribution is so accurate, why do sales and marketing constantly disagree about lead quality?”
About Your ROI Claims:
“Can we directly trace 50% of our revenue to specific marketing activities? If not, why are we claiming marketing drives 50% of revenue?”
About Your Measurement Strategy:
“Are we measuring ROI to improve our marketing or to justify our budget?”
🎁 FREE Guide: “The B2B Marketing ROI Reality Check Kit”
Download our comprehensive audit framework that includes:
- Attribution model assessment checklist
- ROI calculation templates that actually work
- C-suite reporting framework
- Common measurement mistakes diagnostic tool
Your 90-Day ROI Measurement Detox
Days 1-30: The Brutal Audit
- Calculate your true customer acquisition cost (including ALL marketing expenses)
- Track leads from generation to customer conversion (not just MQL to SQL)
- Identify which attribution claims you can actually prove vs. which you’re guessing
Days 31-60: The Data Integration
- Connect your marketing platforms to your CRM for single source of truth
- Implement campaign-specific revenue tracking for both direct and influenced revenue
- Create cohort analyses to understand true customer lifetime value by channel
Days 61-90: The Reality Reporting
- Build dashboards that show business impact, not just marketing activity
- Create scenarios showing marketing’s contribution under different attribution models
- Establish measurement frameworks that acknowledge uncertainty instead of hiding it
The Uncomfortable Truth About B2B Marketing ROI
Most ROI measurement exists to make marketers feel good about their work and justify their budgets to executives who don’t understand marketing.
But here’s what actually matters: companies that measure marketing impact correctly achieve 15-20% better business performance than those using traditional attribution models.
The winners aren’t the ones with the most sophisticated tracking. They’re the ones measuring the right things in the right ways for the right reasons.
Stop measuring marketing ROI to justify your existence. Start measuring business impact to drive your growth.
Marissa Homere 
