Learn the signs that your marketing organization is ready to make the switch and how to leverage Marketo Measure for smarter business decisions. Follow this strategic guide based on the experiences of Marketo Engage Champion A.J. Navarro to enable your team to achieve more data-driven attribution and reporting of your marketing programs.
Executives don't judge modern marketing teams solely by the campaigns they launch; in fact, they measure marketing teams by the revenue they influence. But when your data is fragmented, your funnel is complex, and ROI feels more like a guess than a metric. It’s hard to answer the most important question: What’s really working?
This article is designed for marketing operations or marketing technology professionals who are looking to bring clarity, confidence, and strategic insight to their attribution and reporting efforts. I share my thought process for knowing that you're ready for Marketo Measure and exactly how to use it to drive smarter business decisions.
Ready to crush it with Marketo Measure?
So, how do you know if your team is ready to step up its attribution game? I’ve seen the same themes across companies of all sizes: campaign data is scattered, reporting is a patchwork of spreadsheets, and marketing teams are stuck defending their impact rather than demonstrating it. If any of these situations resonates, you’re likely ready to level up.
Signs you're ready to make the move
- You need solid data, not guesswork: Does your team spend more time trying to figure out which programs drive the pipeline than optimizing them? You're not alone. When clear attribution isn't available, it's easy to waste time on gut-based decisions. Marketo Measure changes that by delivering data you can act on.
- You're done with data chaos: Buyer activity occurs across Salesforce, Marketo Engage, paid media platforms, and other third-party tools, and nothing seems to connect. It creates friction. Marketo Measure unifies this chaos into a single, comprehensive view of the buyer's journey.
- You are ready to prove your impact: Marketing and revenue teams are increasingly expected to speak the same language: pipeline and ROI. When attribution data is missing or misleading, it’s nearly impossible to do that well. Marketo Measure helps Bridge that gap with credible insights you can confidently share with leadership.
- You want to get strategic. At a certain point, basic attribution models (like first-touch or last-touch) stop being helpful and start being misleading. Multi-touch attribution gives you the deeper insights needed to prioritize what matters most--whether you’re trying to understand what drives MQL creation or which tactics accelerate sales.
Business questions you can finally answer
Once implemented, Marketo Measure allows you to move from surface-level reporting to strategic, actionable insights. You can finally answer questions like:
- What programs or campaigns consistently generate pipeline, not just leads?
- Which channels play the biggest role in converting high-value opportunities?
- Where are our teams overinvesting with little impact, and where should the teams double down?
- What’s the true journey of an MQL, and what influenced it along the way?
In several past implementations, I’ve seen teams uncover surprising patterns like underperforming campaigns that were key touchpoints in closed won deals or overlooked assets that consistently influenced MQLs. These insights change how budget, strategy, and content are prioritized for marketing teams.
What you get when you level up
- Revenue attribution: Confidently show how every campaign, channel, and asset impacts revenue.
- Pipeline clarity: Visualize how your marketing and sales activities work together to move buyers from first touch to closed-won.
- Custom attribution models: More advanced teams often build models that assign greater credit to key conversion points, such as the moment a prospect becomes an MQL or books a sales meeting. These models reveal which motions move the needle.
- Confident reporting: No more reactive reporting or last-minute number scrambling. With consistent, credible data, you can proactively tell a story that aligns marketing with business goals.
Getting stakeholders buy-in
The key to stakeholder alignment? Focus on what attribution solves. Whenever I am recommending Marketo Measure to an organization or the executive team, I’ve seen the most success by aligning it to pain points leaders already feel:
- Budget justification: "We need data that helps us cut waste and double down on what works."
- Revenue accountability: "We need to tie marketing to revenue in a way Sales and Finance can trust."
- Cross-functional alignment: "We need a shared view of the buyer journey that both marketing and sales teams can act on."
The most compelling business case often comes from showing how attribution enables faster, smarter decisions, especially when growth depends on efficiency.
Prerequisites to get it right
Before you implement Marketo Measure, you must make sure that your data foundation is ready. These steps are often the biggest drivers of success:
- UTM governance: Create a clear and consistent UTM structure, especially source, medium, and campaign. Solid attribution depends on clean inputs.
- Campaign and program strategy: Adopting a similar strategy to structure Salesforce campaigns and Marketo Engage programs helps maintain alignment between program membership and campaign influence. Ideally, your campaign hierarchy should mirror your Marketo Engage program structure. This process ensures accurate alignment between program membership and campaign influence.
- Touchpoint data completeness: Audit your active campaigns and programs to ensure that key fields used for channel configuration are implemented consistently. Example fields include the acquisition program, channel, success status, and cost attribution. This step allows Marketo Measure to assign the correct touchpoint and prevents gaps in your data down the road.
Bottom line: Attribution isn't just about giving credit; it's about unlocking visibility so you can make smarter marketing decisions. If you’re ready to stop guessing, prove your team’s impact, and lead with data, then Marketo Measure is right for you.
Key models and reports to leverage
Once you've decided Marketo Measure is right for you, aligning the right attribution models and dashboards to your unique challenges is where the impact really comes to life. Below is a detailed breakdown of which models and dashboards I’ve used—and exactly how they helped solve real problems.
Attribution models I use and why
W-Shaped Model
- Used for: Understanding the effectiveness of awareness and lead generation channels (for example, paid social, webinars, content syndication) in driving pipeline revenue.
- How it helped: When my team made significant investments in top-of-funnel programs but struggled to tie them to revenue, the W-Shaped model revealed exactly which efforts contributed to lead and opportunity creation. It helped us prioritize early-stage programs, driving meaningful engagement over vanity metrics.
Full Path Model
- Used for: Measuring the complete impact of marketing from first touch through closed won.
- How it helped: Our team often got stuck justifying nurture programs and sales enablement efforts post-opportunity. Full Path gave us visibility into mid-to-late funnel touchpoints (like email nurtures and demo follow-ups), helping us prove the value of our full funnel marketing strategy.
Custom Attribution Models
- Used for: For advanced teams, building a custom attribution model in Marketo Measure enables you to measure the milestones that are most important to your organization.
- How it helped: My team at Sprout Social created a custom model that tailored attribution to match our unique marketing strategy and business objectives. We focused on key lifecycle stages such as MQL and Opportunity Creation because we wanted to understand “What Causes Someone to MQL?” and “What has to happen for Sales to assign a dollar amount that that?”
Essential dashboards for reporting
In 2024, Marketo Measure introduced six powerful, redesigned dashboards that are automatically available to users. These dashboards significantly enhance visibility into attribution performance and ROI.
Revenue Overview Dashboard
- Use for: Weekly check-ins and quarterly business reviews.
- Impact: This provides a fast, digestible snapshot of how each channel contributes to revenue generation. Use it to reallocate budget to top-performing sources and deprioritize underperforming ones.
Attributed Revenue Dashboard
- Use for: Campaign performance deep-dives.
- Impact: Helped you understand which content types (eBooks, webinars, etc.) and channels have the highest influence on closed-won deals. Filter by campaign type, opportunity stage, and region to make nuanced optimization decisions.
ROI Dashboard
- Use for: Campaign performance deep-dives.
- Impact: Helped you understand which content types (eBooks, webinars, etc.) and channels have the highest influence on closed-won deals. Filter by campaign type, opportunity stage, and region to make nuanced optimization decisions.
Discover Dashboard
- Use for: Exploring touchpoint patterns and outlier behaviors.
- Impact: Identify sequences of touches that consistently lead to pipeline acceleration. Example: When a prospect attended a product webinar after reading a case study, conversion rates jumped significantly.
Passport Dashboard
- Use for: Cross-channel strategy validation.
- How it helped: It gives you a multi-dimensional view of how integrated campaigns perform. For example, use this dashboard to evaluate the combined impact of paid search, paid social, webinars, and follow-up nurtures.
By applying these models and reports with intention, you can move from reactive measurement to a proactive strategy. Marketo Measure is more than just a reporting tool; it’s a decision-making engine.