Proving Marketing’s Value: How RevOps Measures Attribution, ROI & Brand Impact — with Jeff Ignacio

#9: Is your marketing team struggling to prove ROI? Are attribution models, budget battles, and RevOps alignment making it harder to show your impact?

You’re not alone. Every CEO and CFO wants to see marketing ROI, yet few can define it—and even fewer know how to measure it effectively. That’s where RevOps comes in.

In this episode of Growth Activated, I sit down with RevOps powerhouse Jeff Ignacio to unpack the real way to measure marketing’s impact—beyond just lead generation. With a background in Financial Planning & Analysis at Google and Intel and over a decade in RevOps and GTM strategy, Jeff shares his expert insights on marketing measurement, attribution, and AI’s role in the future of B2B marketing.

We dive into:

• How RevOps thinks about GTM investments and marketing ROI
• The biggest mistakes marketing teams make when proving impact
• Do attribution models actually work? And which ones should you use?
• Where AI fits into marketing measurement, lead scoring, and attribution
• How to align marketing, sales, and finance for smarter budgeting

If you’ve ever struggled to justify your budget, prove marketing’s value, or align with RevOps and finance—this episode is a must-listen.

Hit play now and start making smarter, data-driven marketing decisions!

Free Sales & Marketing Maturity Assessment Giveaway: Enter Here

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going!
Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business.

🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com
🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker
🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today!

Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

Chapters

• 2:00 Introduction to Jeff Igancio, Head of RevOps (previously Google and Intel)
• 2:40 The Role of RevOps in Go-to-Market Strategy
• 3:33 The Relationship Between Marketing & RevOps
• 5:01 How to Measure ROI Across the Go-to-Market Function
• 8:23 How to Determine the Right Marketing Attribution Model
• 14:44 Brand vs. Demand: Why CMOs Need to Measure Both
• 21:00 The Law of Diminishing Returns with B2B Marketing Strategies
• 32:03 How AI Is Changing B2B Marketing & RevOps
• 43:21 Jeff Ignacio’s Final Advice for B2B Marketing Leaders and CMOs

Transcript

Introduction to Jeff Ignacio, Head of RevOps (previously Google + Intel)

Mandy:

Hey, Jeff, it's so great to have you on the Growth Activated podcast today. Thanks for joining us.

Jeff:

Hey, Mandy. Great to be here. It’s good to see you, as always.

Mandy:
Yeah, absolutely. And I’m so excited about today’s conversation because, time and time again, with almost every client I work with, CEOs and CFOs say all they really want is marketing ROI. But—

And yet, they don’t really know how to define it or what that means. Even when I talk to marketing leaders, they often don’t have a strong grasp on it either. Given your background in revenue operations, I know you have a firm handle on best practices in the market. So, I’m really excited to dive into the details with you today.

Jeff:
Absolutely. And to boot, before revenue operations, I was in FP&A. So—

I have a unique blend of viewing the world from a finance perspective, which will hopefully lend itself well to this conversation.

Mandy:

Oh, absolutely. So why don’t we start there? Tell us a little bit about your background and what has led you to this point in your career.

Jeff:

I’ve been a head of revenue operations for the last 10 years. Before that, I was in FP&A—financial planning and analysis—at Intel and Google. I supported the go-to-market team for what was then known as Google Enterprise, encompassing six different product lines, from Google Cloud to Google Apps to Maps.

In that role, I had the capacity to support annual planning, sales, marketing, and customer success—articulating what we were doing from a business practice and strategic finance lens. This meant not only telling the story of what happened historically but also planning ahead for the future. How do we allocate resources?

What are the different scenarios or business outcomes that we could potentially drive? That’s what a strategic finance partner does. Then, before moving into sales, I jumped into sales operations. In that sales operations role, I took on more responsibility, particularly around business systems. I wasn’t hands-on with the keyboard as an administrator at that time, but I had to be a quick study and learn all the different systems.

Since I focused on sales operations, I had to learn marketing operations over time as well. So, when you look at my background today, it spans end-to-end revenue operations—from marketing ops all the way through CS ops. That includes strategic planning as well as the tactical execution of the business.

Mandy:

Awesome. And just so we can get inside the mind of the RevOps persona a little bit—for those who may not work with a RevOps team right now—

The Role of RevOps in Go-to-Market Strategy

Mandy:

What are some of the things that are always top of mind for you in terms of your priorities day in and day out?

Jeff:

I have four key pillars. I view revenue operations as the steward where go-to-market strategy and execution come together, supported by four key pillars: process, enablement, advisory, and systems.

Most folks would think about data in there, too. I actually like another acronym—PTSD: Process, Technology, Systems, and Data—because running a go-to-market function can be traumatic at times.

Mandy:

Yes, it can. And how do you typically partner with marketing on a daily basis? Where has that relationship really flourished, and where does it sometimes break down?

Jeff:
I’ve seen a couple of configurations. I’ve reported into marketing at times, even as a revenue operations leader.

How Marketing and Revenue Operations (RevOps) Work Together

Jeff:

At other times, I’ve been a revenue operations leader while marketing remained a standalone organization embedded within marketing. I don’t think it matters where it sits, but there are pros and cons to both.

If marketing ops sits under revenue operations, speed can become an issue—especially when launching several campaigns under a tight time crunch. If marketing ops sits within the marketing organization, you encounter upstream and downstream challenges. For example, if one organization moves in a particular direction without informing the other, particularly in systems, key metrics can become misaligned.

However, you also optimize for speed. If marketing ops sits under marketing, the team can coordinate campaign calendars and execution more tightly and track metrics more efficiently. I’ve seen both configurations, and I can speak to either.

How to Measure ROI Across the Go-to-Market Function

Mandy:

Well, tell me a little bit about this. I want to understand, from your perspective—having deep knowledge across the entire go-to-market function—how do you approach investments in the go-to-market function? How do you think about ROI across the entire function, knowing that you’ve got your financial planning background as well?

Jeff:
ROI, at the end of the day, is an expression of the excess revenue or bookings generated from a fixed amount of expense.

When you think about that expense in a business, especially in sales and marketing, classically, sales and marketing expressed as a percentage of revenue is roughly 45% to 55%. This is what you see with publicly traded companies, so you can use those as comparables. You could also create some proxy metrics, but it would take a lot more work, especially on the private side. You could get some of that data from VC funds that aggregate their data.

Within that sales and marketing spend, you’ll typically see a different ratio of sales and marketing relative to one another, depending on the go-to-market motion. For an enterprise selling motion, about 30% of every sales and marketing dollar is spent on marketing. As you move to a PLG (Product-Led Growth) model with a high-velocity inbound sales motion, that number is closer to 70% to 95%.

In PLG, self-serve marketing and brand become much more important. That’s on the expense side of the equation. On the top line, we work backward from bookings or revenue. Then, from revenue, we look at bookings. From bookings, we look at opportunities and win rates.

From a sales and marketing perspective, there’s a lot of debate now on LinkedIn about what CMOs should be measured by. Some will say they’re measured by opportunities, some by leads, and others by revenue. It’s some flavor of the funnel.

You also have to think about conversion rates down to won opportunities. Then, on a per-unit basis, I work with my marketing leaders to understand:

• What is our cost per lead?
• What is our cost per MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)?
• What is our cost per opportunity?

This can be contentious because it depends on the attribution model you’re using.

Marketing Attribution: The Right Model for Your Business

Mandy:

I am so curious to hear your thoughts on marketing attribution models because sales, marketing, and biz dev often end up fighting over credit. As someone who is more agnostic—you just care that the function is working overall—what is your approach to attribution modeling? How do you view it within the holistic go-to-market function?

Jeff:

Good question. I’ve seen those fights as well. Typically, what I like to do is create an approach where we look at attribution models consistently over time, and we don’t rely on just one model—we look at several.

The reason I suggest this is that when you look at a problem from only one angle, you’ll develop only one set of solutions. But let’s say you’re not looking at the dark side of the moon, to use a phrase—you might be missing valuable information.

So, I highly suggest looking at first touch, last touch, and maybe one or two multi-touch attribution models. Each of these perspectives will reveal different challenges and insights. In fact, different attribution models might highlight different problems entirely.

Obviously, this makes the conversation much longer. When you sit down with your marketing team and methodically analyze different attribution models, it takes more time. But I’d argue that’s time well spent. There is tremendous value in it.

When you communicate with your sales partners, having a codified process for why you’re making specific recommendations is invaluable because you’ve analyzed the pipeline from multiple angles.

I also give credence to the idea of influenced versus sourced revenue. If outbound gets credit, does that mean inbound didn’t contribute? Maybe, maybe not—but we should take a closer look.

For example, maybe someone saw your billboard three years ago, and your logo stuck in their mind. When they became a decision-maker, that early brand exposure may have influenced their purchase decision. But because there’s no direct way to track that attribution, it’s often overlooked.

So, we need to think with nuance. Establish rules that make sense, and study the problem from different angles. When working with sales and marketing partners, ground the discussion in the distinction between influence and source.

Mandy:
I love your recommendation to look at multiple attribution models because each tells a different story. But are there specific models you’d recommend based on company size, sales cycle length, or complexity? Or would you generally apply the same two models across the board?

Jeff:

Great question. I primarily work with mid-market and enterprise selling motions, where average contract values range from $50K to six figures. In these models, sales cycles are typically 120 to 210 days.

Because of that sales length, there’s a lag in marketing impact. You need to analyze marketing touches from months before the deal closes to get an accurate picture of what influenced pipeline generation.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but I’d recommend setting a thoughtful attribution framework based on the business model.

For instance:

• First-touch attribution might be useful if you want to understand which campaigns create initial demand.
• Last-touch attribution helps show what converts prospects into buyers.
• Multi-touch models help balance credit across multiple interactions, which is particularly helpful in longer, multi-stakeholder sales cycles.

For marketing leaders whose CEOs ask, “How much revenue did marketing drive?”—which often ties marketing directly to revenue instead of pipeline creation—understanding these models is crucial.

Mandy:
That makes sense. I can see how applying different models helps show the bigger picture. But when marketing leaders are required to report on marketing-sourced revenue, how should they frame it for their CEO or CFO?

Jeff:

I can’t speak for all CMOs, but I would say this is a tough challenge.

It’s part of what I call the over-salesification of multiple functions. This happens in several ways.

For example, customer success (CS) leaders are often compensated on net recurring revenue (NRR), meaning they’re responsible for both churn mitigation and upselling. But selling a new product to a new persona within an account requires a higher degree of selling skill. So, AEs often step in to assist account managers in the upsell process.

Similarly, marketing leaders are often golden on revenue or pipeline sourced—but marketing encompasses much more than that.

Imagine if you asked a random person on the street about your company versus a competitor. If they spoke highly of your brand—even if they’d never been a customer or seen a demo—doesn’t that brand awareness hold value?

Yet, many executive teams only measure marketing on sourced revenue, which is a narrow view of marketing’s impact.

Brand vs. Demand: Why CMOs Need to Measure Both

Mandy:

That’s one of the biggest pain points I see today—marketing is often relegated to a lead generation function, tied strictly to short-term metrics.

We’re losing sight of brand impact, awareness, and share of voice, which are arguably more important today due to increasing market saturation.

Jeff, do you partner with your marketing leaders to help them quantify brand impact if it’s outside of lead generation? Or is that predominantly owned by the CMO? Where have you seen this done well?

Jeff:

To be honest, I don’t think I’ve seen it done well.

My instrumentation and reporting have always focused on pipeline-driven metrics—

• Cost per lead
• Cost per MQL
• Cost per opportunity
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

So, in many ways, RevOps helps but also hurts marketing.

For example, we structure marketing funnels by breaking conversion points into measurable steps. This improves tracking but also leads to rigid campaign structures.

Let’s compare this to Duolingo’s marketing strategy—they’ve created viral marketing through spontaneous content on TikTok. Their lowest-level employees are launching campaigns without waiting for RevOps approval.

Would that approach fly in a B2B enterprise setting? Probably not. But should marketing leaders explore more agile strategies? Absolutely.

Mandy:

That’s a great point. Many marketing leaders today struggle to balance brand-building activities with short-term demand generation.

Where do you think marketing teams should prioritize their time when splitting efforts between the 95% of buyers who aren’t in-market versus the 5% who are ready to buy?

Jeff:
The key is having a balanced approach that includes short-term and long-term goals.

• Short-term: Hit pipeline and revenue targets.
• Long-term: Build brand recognition and market presence so that when a customer is ready to buy, your company is already top of mind.

Customer success plays a role here too—loyal customers who become evangelists increase word-of-mouth and referrals, which further strengthens brand equity.

Mandy:

That’s a great way to frame it. Many marketing leaders today aren’t thinking beyond lead generation—they’re not tracking their influence on deal conversion, upsells, or retention.

Do you see this as a gap in how marketing communicates its value?

Jeff:
Yes. If marketing teams only measure pipeline creation, they’re missing huge opportunities to show their impact further down the funnel.

Marketing contributes throughout the entire customer journey, from awareness and education to deal acceleration and retention. But many teams aren’t measuring those touchpoints effectively.

How to Start Measuring Marketing’s Full Impact

Mandy:

For marketing teams that don’t yet have sophisticated reporting—or maybe no reporting at all—where should they start? How can they begin building towards a more complete view of marketing’s impact?

Jeff:

The first step is to have an honest conversation about the different touchpoints marketing influences and build a measurement approach from the ground up.

A good place to start is with UTMs at the demand generation layer. UTMs should feed into your first-touch and last-touch models at a minimum.

• Crawl: Start with basic first-touch and last-touch attribution.
• Walk: Add multi-touch attribution to get a more balanced view.
• Run: Incorporate influence tracking throughout the opportunity lifecycle.

Marketing’s impact isn’t limited to lead generation. We need to look at opportunity-level marketing efforts, like ABM campaigns, events, and brand influence—all of which require a more nuanced attribution model.

Of course, not everything can be measured perfectly. For example, LinkedIn activity and dark social interactions are notoriously difficult to track in CRM systems. But even with these limitations, companies should start by tracking what they can directly measure and build from there.

There are also new tools that aim to capture what some call the dark funnel—intent signals at both the account and persona level. These platforms try to de-anonymize website visitors, but accuracy rates can be as low as 30%–35%.

Mandy:

Yeah, I’ve experimented with some of those tools. It’s fascinating but still a bit hit-or-miss.

How AI Is Changing B2B Marketing & RevOps

Mandy:

I know you're a big proponent of AI—I love following your AI content. How do you see AI helping marketers put better measurement systems in place? How are you using it today for tracking and reporting?

Jeff:

I’m not using AI directly for measurement, but I do use it extensively for enrichment.

For example:

• If your enrichment provider fails to deliver the signals you need, you can scrape website data via automation and analyze it with an LLM (Large Language Model).
• AI can generate predictive lead scores instead of relying on manual scoring models.
• AI can capture social signals and generate custom content tailored to different platforms.

Some companies are even using AI for voice-based lead interactions, where a bot calls prospects and has a full conversation—which is both scary and cool at the same time.

Mandy:

That’s fascinating. AI-generated lead scoring sounds far superior to the traditional if-this-then-that scoring models in HubSpot.

Jeff:

Exactly. Traditional lead scoring models assign fixed point values to different actions—e.g., a webinar registration might be worth 25%, while a demo request might be worth 50%.

But an AI-driven scoring model can:

1. Analyze historical lead data and run a multivariate regression analysis.
2. Generate a predictive lead score based on past conversions.
3. Continuously adjust the scoring model based on new data inputs.

That’s a major leap forward in precision and accuracy—but most marketing ops teams don’t have PhDs in statistics. That’s where AI can really bridge the gap.

Mandy:

That makes so much sense. I’ve been experimenting with AI for market research, competitive analysis, and buyer persona development.

One thing I want to try is uploading sales call transcripts—hundreds of them at once—and having AI synthesize common themes, challenges, and feature requests.

Jeff:

That’s a brilliant use case. In the past, marketers had to manually listen to Gong or Chorus calls, one by one.

With AI, you can:

1. Aggregate all your call transcripts into a vector database.
2. Use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to analyze trends.
3. Generate a persona matrix with pain points, objections, and buying triggers.

That’s a game-changer for customer insights.

Mandy:

Agreed! So, as AI reshapes marketing, what’s one thing you’d encourage marketing and GTM leaders to embrace?

Jeff:

Stay nimble and adapt to change.

I often joke that I feel like a dinosaur—I’ve been in RevOps since 2013, and the hottest technologies back then are now obsolete.

The biggest mistake people make is clinging to the past. Look at software engineers—four years ago, being a developer was the hottest career path. Today, low-code and AI automation are eliminating entire categories of software jobs.

The same is happening in RevOps and marketing operations.

• Onshoring vs. offshoring: More sales ops roles are moving to Latin America due to talent availability and cost efficiency.
• AI replacing manual tasks: If you’re spending time on low-value, repetitive work, AI will likely automate it soon.

The best way to stay relevant is to focus on higher-value strategic thinking rather than routine execution tasks.

Mandy:

That’s so true. I was just talking to a CTO friend this morning about how software development jobs are shrinking unless you’re in AI research.

It’s wild how fast things are changing.

Jeff:

Exactly. Just look at medical records clerks—my father was one. He used to physically move paper files between departments in a hospital. Today, that job is obsolete.

If you’re in marketing ops, RevOps, or sales ops, you need to think about what parts of your job AI will automate—and start investing in higher-level skills.

Final Thoughts: The Future of Marketing Measurement & AI

Mandy:

Jeff, this has been such an insightful conversation. Any final words of advice for marketing leaders who want to level up their data, AI strategy, and measurement capabilities?

Jeff:

Yes—two things:

1. Embrace change. The marketing and RevOps landscape is evolving rapidly. Be the leader who adapts and experiments, not the one who resists.
2. Make a bold case for marketing’s value.
   • Don’t let marketing get reduced to just demand generation.
   • Invest in brand-building and ensure your company is top of mind when buyers are ready to purchase.

Short-term revenue is critical, but long-term brand presence is what makes a company unstoppable.

Mandy:

Absolutely. Jeff, this was amazing. Thank you so much for your insights today!

For those who want to connect with you and learn more—where’s the best place to find you?

Jeff:

LinkedIn: Jeff Ignacio (I-G-N-A-C-I-O).

I also run courses on RevOps Impact—you can find them at revopsimpact.com.

Mandy:

Perfect! And I can personally vouch for Jeff’s courses—I took one myself, and it was incredibly valuable.

Jeff, thank you again. I really appreciate the conversation today!

Jeff:

Thanks, Mandy. Always a pleasure!