What CRM Admins Need to Know About Marketing Automation

Marketing Ops may have its own marketing automation system in the tech stack, but for the entire GTM team to function, it’s important to understand the ins and outs of integrating with Salesforce. Join Alisa Goldschmidt, Sr. Manager of RevOps at Harver, and Camela Thompson, RevOps Co-op's Head of Marketing, as they delve into marketing data reporting, how to use Salesforce Campaigns, and advice on how RevOps can be a partner to Marketing Ops.

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“If you’re not tracking what your data is doing, it’s useless. You can’t use it to prove anything.” - Alisa Goldschmidt

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From the outside, it can seem like Marketing is spending a lot of money on their campaigns. But even when that’s true, remember that they always have to justify every dollar they spend and connect it to driving pipeline. 

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As RevOps pros, we can help Marketing collect, track, and quantify the answers to the most common questions about their spend: 

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• How long will it take after the spend to have qualified leads? 
• How many qualified leads will we get from this campaign?
• How much are we spending per lead on this campaign?
• How long does it take for leads from a specific campaign to convert to pipeline? 
• How much ($$) pipeline was created due to marketing activities?
• Which marketing campaigns drove the most pipeline dollars?
• How do we make sure the sales team takes action with these leads? 
• And much more.

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What does marketing need from data to show ROI?

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In order for data to be useful, it must be collected through every step of the buyer journey. Marketers can use this information to monitor their campaigns for trends and learn how long it takes leads to convert into pipeline, track conversion rates and deal velocity, and understand what tactics and channels are working well. 

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Salesforce can store large amounts of historical data, giving marketers the ability to analyze current customers for trends and characteristics that they can use to increase the success of new campaigns. Finally, data helps Marketing and RevOps anticipate questions they will receive from across GTM functions like the C-suite, finance, product, and the board.

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Where should marketing data live in the tech stack?

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“The campaign object helps you make the connection between marketing spend and your pipeline and revenue. It’s a critical object in salesforce. - Alisa Goldschmidt

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Many companies sync their marketing automation platform to Salesforce where the Campaign object can be your most powerful tool. It’s your entire collection of data on specific marketing activity and how it relates to lead generation.

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Here’s a pro tip: 

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For marketers who don’t understand how Salesforce stores data, it’s easy to be tricked by limitations in how data is presented. Try to keep your campaign data layer very flat. Set up one campaign per call-to-action and store all your data at the campaign member level. This helps you leverage Salesforce reports to slice and dice data effectively.

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Revops can create harmony between sales and marketing data

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“At the highest level, everyone is working towards the same goal. We want to bring in qualified opportunities with people willing to sign on the dotted line.” - Alisa Goldschmidt

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RevOps ultimately owns, manages, and nurtures data from the GTM org. We serve as the connection between marketing, sales, success, and finance, and can offer both the 10,000 ft view and the 1 ft. view of data, tools, and processes. 

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Meet often with your marketing team to make recommendations and ensure that RevOps is part of any new marketing tool evaluations from the beginning. Don’t hesitate to ask marketing why they think they need certain tools or capabilities.

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