Designing the GTM model for marketing’s revenue era

Marketing has long been measured by the marketing-qualified lead (MQL). Entire budgets, campaigns and reporting cadences built around producing as many as possible, with targets backed into based on volume. The result was marketing teams churning out thousands through brute force and spamming.

But MQLs are not revenue. They are proxies: single contacts who often lack intent, budget or authority. Marketing leaders know this, and sales leaders know it too. Yet many CFOs and CEOs still insist on judging marketing by a metric they also realize doesn’t tie to annual recurring revenue (ARR).

The path forward is clear: marketing must move beyond MQLs and prove its value through collaborative meeting creation, pipeline conversion and ARR impact. This isn’t just a reporting shift — it’s a cultural and operational reset that requires alignment across the entire revenue team.

Here’s how marketing leaders can navigate the shift — managing stakeholders, identifying the right metrics and operationalizing a GTM motion that makes the concept of one revenue team real.

The end of the MQL era

The MQL once served a purpose: signaling that a contact had shown enough interest to warrant sales follow-up. But in today’s complex B2B environment, its flaws are impossible to ignore:

• It’s individual-based: An MQL might be a junior analyst, not a decision-maker.
• It overlooks buying committees: Enterprise deals often involve 8–12 stakeholders, not one.
• It prioritizes volume over quality. Thousands of MQLs may never convert, wasting sales time.
• It erodes trust: When SDRs chase leads that don’t buy, confidence in marketing collapses.

The outcome is predictable: marketing looks busy but disconnected from revenue — a position no CMO wants to defend when budgets are under scrutiny.

Dig deeper: What if you didn’t follow up on MQLs?

Shifting the narrative: From leads to revenue moments

The path forward is not to abandon metrics altogether, but to replace weak activity metrics with strong outcome metrics. Instead of passing leads, marketing’s job becomes:

• Creating collaborative meetings with the right stakeholders in the right accounts.
• Accelerating pipeline conversion from engaged accounts to opportunities.
• Driving ARR impact through higher win rates, larger deal sizes and expansion.

The narrative for stakeholders should be straightforward:

• “Marketing is no longer a lead factory. We are a revenue team function. Our success is measured in the meetings we create, the opportunities we accelerate and the ARR we help close.”

Managing stakeholders through the shift

A significant challenge in this evolution is stakeholder management. Sales, finance and the board are used to hearing MQLs. Shifting them takes alignment and proof.

With sales

• Position as time protection: Explain that fewer, higher-quality meetings protect sales development rep (SDR) and account executive (AE) time.
• Build shared accountability: Define meetings as co-owned outcomes. Marketing generates the air cover and signals, and sales secures the conversations.
• Show conversion data: Compare MQL conversion rates (often <1%) with meeting-to-pipeline conversion (frequently 30–50%). The math sells itself.

With finance

• Translate into ROI language: Show how marketing spend ties directly to pipeline and ARR.
• Highlight waste reduction: Cutting MQL volume and focusing on ICP accounts with the highest propensity to buy saves SDR headcount hours and budget dollars.

With the board/CEO

• Frame as risk mitigation: Leads create false confidence; pipeline impact is real business value.
• Tell a progression story: Show account journeys: coverage → engagement → meetings → pipeline → revenue.

Dig deeper: Why the MQL model is failing B2B marketing and what to use instead

The critical metrics that replace MQLs

To make the shift credible, you need a clear metrics framework. Here are the most critical measures.

Coverage metrics

• Target account coverage: Percentage of ICP accounts with active engagement.
• Persona coverage: Percentage of buying committee roles touched.

Engagement metrics

• Account engagement score: Aggregate activity from all personas in an account.
• Multi-threading: Number of unique roles engaged per account.

Meeting metrics

• Meetings created: Qualified conversations booked with decision-makers in target accounts.
• Meeting-to-opportunity conversion: Percentage of meetings that progress to opportunities.

Pipeline metrics

• Opportunity creation rate: Percentage of engaged accounts creating opportunities.
• Pipeline velocity: Time from first engagement to opportunity.
• Pipeline influence: Dollar value of opportunities where marketing touchpoints were involved.

Revenue metrics

• Win rate in target accounts: Percentage of opportunities closed-won.
• Average deal size/ACV growth: Larger deals for ABM-engaged accounts.
• Retention and expansion: ARR expansion in ABM accounts.

GTM plays that bring the revenue team to life

Metrics provide the framework, but numbers alone don’t drive change. To make the shift real, marketing and sales must operationalize these measures through shared plays. 

Here are tangible GTM examples that show what one revenue team looks like in practice.

Example 1: Joint account planning

• Marketing and sales meet regularly to prioritize Tier 1 accounts based on ICP.
• Marketing commits to account-based campaigns (ads, events, content).
• Sales/SDRs commit to multi-threaded outreach with relevant personalization and meeting follow-up.

Goal: Every account has a clear GTM play owned by both teams.

Example 2: Meeting creation as a shared KPI

• Marketing runs plays that generate awareness and engagement.
• SDRs follow signals and book meetings.
• KPI reported in joint strategy calls: Meetings created per target account.

Outcome: Marketing isn’t throwing leads over the fence. Both teams are accountable for conversations.

Example 3: Pod teams for even greater meeting conversion 

• The pod team is a marketer, SDR and AE working together.
• ICP segments are prioritized to specific use cases that may focus on 50-300 accounts, often by vertical and/or shared business problems.
• Marketing focuses on those accounts with a higher propensity to buy and sales signals to run plays to create engagement.
• SDRs/AEs work together to focus accounts through social selling and personalized cadences based on research following intent signals to more easily book meetings.
• Meeting goals and credit are set jointly as one pod team. 

Outcome: The pod team is compensated together and receives a bonus when meeting and conversion goals are reached. Adversely, when the pod team isn’t on point, the team works together and lifts each other up in support to inspire desired results. 

Example 4: Pipeline acceleration plays

• For opportunities in Stage 2, marketing launches tailored plays (executive dinners, thought-leadership kits, case study content).
• Sales leverages those assets in active deals.
• Measured by pipeline velocity (shorter sales cycles).

Outcome: Marketing shows direct impact on progression, not just sourcing.

Example 5: Expansion and retention GTM

• Marketing runs advocacy campaigns and customer events.
• Customer Success identifies upsell opportunities.
• Joint KPI: Expansion ARR influenced by marketing programs.

Outcome: Marketing is tied to LTV, not just acquisition.

Dig deeper: Why marketing must reclaim GTM design in the age of AI

Goal-setting: How to align on the right numbers

To operationalize one revenue team, set shared goals instead of siloed ones:

• Revenue team goal: $X in ARR growth.
• Pipeline goal: $Y in opportunities created from target accounts.
• Meeting goal: Z number of qualified meetings with decision-makers.

Marketing’s contribution becomes clear:

• “We will ensure 80% of Tier 1 accounts are engaged by at least three personas.”
• “We will generate 300 qualified meetings with target account decision-makers.”
• “We will influence $20 million in pipeline and $10 million in ARR.”

Sales’ contribution becomes equally clear:

• “We will follow up on 95% of ABM-sourced signals within 48 hours.”
• “We will multi-thread into at least four stakeholders per target account.”

Roles and responsibilities in the one revenue team motion

Plays only work when each part of the revenue team knows what it owns. Defining roles and responsibilities ensures accountability, reduces friction and keeps everyone moving toward the same outcome.

Marketing

• Define ICP and target account list with sales.
• Run targeted campaigns by account, tier or use case.
• Deliver signals, engagement heatmaps and enablement content.

SDRs/BDRs

• Act on signals within SLA.
• Research and personalize messaging
• Multi-thread into accounts and book meetings.
• Provide feedback on quality of engagement.

AEs

• Own account progression from meeting → pipeline → close.
• Use marketing plays to accelerate deals.
• Partner with marketing on expansion opportunities.

Customer success

• Feed expansion opportunities into the revenue team plan.
• Partner with marketing on advocacy and upsell campaigns.

RevOps

• Maintain one source of truth for metrics.
• Build dashboards for coverage, engagement, meetings, pipeline and revenue.
• Ensure alignment across all GTM systems.

Leading marketing’s shift to revenue

Metrics set the direction. Leadership makes the shift real. Here’s how marketing leaders can lead the change.

• Educate with empathy: Don’t just declare MQLs dead, show why they fail and how new metrics better serve sales and finance.
• Start with pilots: Pick a Tier 1 account list, run collaborative plays and measure meetings and pipeline outcomes.
• Show wins early: Highlight accounts where marketing → meetings → pipeline → revenue.
• Align in revenue team strategy meetings: Present results as a joint revenue team, not siloed functions.
• Use storytelling: Replace vanity numbers with account narratives: “Acme Corp moved from cold to $1 million ARR through joint plays.”

Marketing as the GTM designer

The MQL era is over. Today’s marketing leaders must play the role of the GTM designer and evolve their organization into one revenue team: 

• Driving account coverage.
• Creating collaborative meetings.
• Accelerating pipeline.
• Multiplying ARR.

This evolution isn’t just about changing dashboards. It’s about changing culture. When marketing stops passing leads and starts progressing accounts, it earns trust, secures budgets and wins a permanent seat at the revenue table.

The metrics are clear, and the playbook is proven. The only question is, will you lead the shift?