• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, March 8, 2023

Almost all B2B marketers feel that the ability to forecast pipeline outcomes is critical to their success. But only 29% can fully predict pipeline contributions, according to The 2023 State Of Pipeline Generation, a study from RevSure done in partnership with Ascend2. 

Moreover, 66% admit they don’t know when there is funnel leakage and conversion bottlenecks. 

The most significant challenges to generating pipeline are:

• Lack of adequate data to make effective decisions — 38% 
• Inability to scale demand program efficiently to meet growth targets — 33% 
• Budget allocation challenges — 33%
• Misunderstanding around ideal Customer Profiles and buyer-personas — 29% 
• Inability to convert buyers across channels and campaigns — 28% 
• Misalignment of sales and marketing teams — 27%
• Poor lead quality — 25%
• Lack of an effective go-to-market strategy — 25% 

These are not small issues: While 94% are confident in their ability to make predictions, only 32% are extremely sure about them. The lack of confidence is especially apparent in the middle and bottom of the funnel. 

On the positive side, 50% of those who can fully predict pipeline contributions saw a significant increase in revenue last year. And they list these benefits to forecasting pipeline:

• More efficient use of resources — 43%
• Improved confidence to hit revenue contribution goals — 43%
• Improved ability to meet targets quarter-over-quarter — 40%
• Improved ability to quickly adjust to market/economic events — 40%
• More efficient marketing and sales processes/workflows — 38%
• Improved trust of the executive team — 24%
• Improved morale/work environment — 22%
• Improved employee retention — 22%

Do they have the visibility to know when it’s time to pivot their marketing? They answer: 

• Yes (I have real-time visibility) — 55% 
• No (I don’t know until it is too late) — 16%
• To some extent (I have to manually monitor) — 29% 

Email has the greatest impact on pipeline generation, with other channels closely following:

• Email marketing — 42% 
• Social media — 38%
• Content marketing — 35% 
• Organic search — 34%
• Paid media — 34%
• Events and webinars — 34%
• Community and partnerships — 28% 
• Chatbot — 4% 
• Other — 4% 
• Unsure — 2%

“Many marketers are experiencing shrinking budgets and are being forced to work with fewer resources,” the study explains. “With this comes a drop in marketing spend, so it is no surprise that more organic channels are being favored by marketers as avenues making the most impact on pipeline generation.”

Marketers plan to pursue these priorities for improving their lead-to-opportunity conversion rates in the year ahead:

• Improving lead quality and nurturing — 43%
• Improving pipeline analysis — 39%
• Understanding which leads/accounts are converting — 34%
• Improving marketing and sales handoff or routing — 33%
• Aligning marketing and sales — 28%
• Reworking content strategy — 23%
• Enabling the buyer to self-serve — 19%
• Changing to the tech stack — 18%
• Moving to an account-based structure — 17%

How are brands determining success? They analyze:

• Forecast to actual comparisons — 55%
• Percentage of pipeline that closes — 51%
• Sales velocity — 48%
• Opportunities within your ideal customer profile — 45%
• Average deal size — 45%

Here are the primary metrics they use for measuring campaign success: 

• Return On Investment or Customer Acquisition Cost — 48%
• Revenue Contribution — 47%
• Win/Loss Rate — 37%
• Total Pipeline Value by Stage — 34%
• Leads — 33%
• SQLs — 20%
• MQLs — 19%
• MQL to SQL % — 17%

RevSure and Ascend2 surveyed 424 marketers who work in B2B companies with more than 250 employees in January 2023.  

The full study is here.