Marketing ops

Drive efficient, scalable pipeline growth by building and optimizing the systems, processes, and campaigns that attract, nurture, and convert high-quality leads into revenue—enabling the sales team to focus on closing while we focus on filling the funnel.

Go-to-market attribution

Our go-to-market (GTM) approach is built on a foundation of end-to-end visibility. We want to track touchpoints from first engagement through closed revenue, connecting marketing activity to pipeline and revenue. This means instrumenting our campaigns, content, and channels with consistent attribution, maintaining clean data flow between our marketing automation and CRM systems, and building reporting that ties spend and effort directly to outcomes. The goal isn't data for data's sake—it's to create a feedback loop where we can see what's working, double down on high-performing channels, cut what isn't delivering, and continuously refine our targeting, messaging, and timing. Every campaign we run should make us smarter about the next one.

Key resources

1. Conversion rates
2. GTM Model
3. Attribution framework (aka contact source)
4. Unified campaign member status framework

Conversion rates

Conversion rates help us to plan, forecast, and improve. There are several key comparisons that we want to understand:

• Win rate: From stage X to closed won. For closed opportunities, this tells us what percentage of opportunities historically will be won for a given stage in the sales cycle.
• Stage to win cyce time: tbd/todo
• Stage to stage:tbd/todo
• Stage to stage cycle time: tbd/todo

GTM model

We can build a reverse funnel using the conversion rates and an estimated ASP, which will indicate the business demand for top-of-funnel leads/contacts and opportunities in order to attain future revenue targets. See our current model in google docs [link](link to google docs) <Tbd/todo>

Attribution framework

To scale demand generation effectively, we need to have a trusted source of data about what works in generating new leads, opportunities, pipeline, and business. Without a consistent framework, our data is messy, reporting is unreliable, and we cannot confidently measure the ROI of our marketing or sales efforts. This framework solves three core problems:

1. Inconsistent data
2. Lack of visibility
3. Inaccurate ROI

This outlines a simple, scalable, and non-negotiable system for tracking all lead-generating activities at Fleet.

First-touch vs. converting-touch

This framework is not just for the Original Lead/Contact Source field. It should be applied to two separate, critical moments in the customer journey.

🌎 First-touch: Original contact source

• What it is: The "birth certificate" of a contact. It is the very first marketing or sales touch that brought this person into our database.
• The rule: This field is set once and is locked forever. It should never be overwritten.
• It answers: "Which of our channels are best at generating net-new names and filling the top of our funnel?"

🏁 Converting-touch: Opportunity creation source 🟡

• What it is: The "final push." It is the specific campaign that caused a known lead or contact to convert into a sales-qualified opportunity (i.e., they booked a demo or engaged with sales).
• The rule: This field is set at the moment of opportunity creation.
• It answers: "Which of our channels are best at generating pipeline and revenue?"

Example:

• A MacAdmin first discovers FleetDM by attending an OSQuery 101 webinar in Oct 2025 (2025_10-WH-osquery_101).

  • Their First-Touch is Event > Webinar (Hosted).

• Six months later, an SDR emails them (2026_04-SDR-q2_fintech_sequence), and they reply to book a demo.

  • Their Most Recent/Converting-Touch is Prospecting > SDR Outbound.

This allows us to see that our webinars are great for finding leads, and our SDR team is great at converting them.

Attribution hierarchy

Our model is a simple 3-level hierarchy. Every report can be rolled up to Level 1 for an executive summary or drilled down to Level 3 for granular analysis.

Source

At the top of the hierarchy, there are 6 “Source” buckets, where all our contacts and new logo opportunities will align.

• 🌳 Organic/web: All unpaid, inbound traffic and brand-driven interest.
• 🗣️ Word-of-mouth: All manually tracked, human-to-human recommendations.
• 🗓️ Event: All in-person or virtual events, sponsored or hosted.
• 💻 Digital: All paid and owned online media and content.
• 🎯 Prospecting: All outbound activities initiated by sales or a 3rd-party vendor.
• 🤝 Partner: All co-marketing and leads generated from formal channel partners.

🌳 Organic/web

For all unpaid, inbound traffic and brand-driven interest.

🗣️ Word-of-mouth

For all manually tracked, human-to-human recommendations.

🗓️ Event

For all in-person or virtual events, sponsored or hosted.

💻 Digital

For all paid and owned online media and content.

🎯 Prospecting

For all outbound activities initiated by sales or a 3rd-party vendor.

🤝 Partner

For all co-marketing and leads generated from formal channel partners.

Campaigns

The golden rule: Every single lead-generating activity must have a unique campaign in the CRM before it launches.

There are only two types of campaigns:

1. "Always-on" campaigns (continuous)
2. Discrete campaigns (time-based)

Discrete campaigns

Discreet campaigns have a specific start, end, and budget (e.g., webinar, trade show, quarterly ad). Use the following naming convention when naming a "Discrete" campaign:

• Structure: YYYY_MM-[Code]-[Name]
  • YYYY_MM: The start month. (e.g., 2026_02)
  • [Code]: The 2-4 letter code from the table above. (e.g., MC, PS, WH)
  • [Name]: A short, URL-friendly name. (e.g., blackhat_booth, google_brand)
• Full example: 2026_08-MC-blackhat_booth_scans

Always-on campaigns

These are generic "buckets" for continuous inbound channels that don't have a start/end date. They are “Default” campaigns, since they do not have a start or stop date. Use the following naming convention when naming an "Always-on" campaign:

• Structure: [Code]-Default
  • [Code]: The 2-4 letter code.
  • [Name]: Default, Always_On, or General.
• Full example: OS-Default (for all Organic Search)

Unified campaign member status framework

To accurately measure marketing ROI and attribution, we must standardize how we track prospect progression through our campaigns. This framework establishes a unified status hierarchy for Salesforce campaigns.

Key Objectives:

1. Standardization: Use the same language across all campaign types.
2. Attribution: Ensure only meaningful interactions trigger attribution models.
3. Social Integration: Capture top-of-funnel social intent without inflating pipeline metrics.

Unified hierarchy

All campaigns must utilize the following status values. Custom statuses outside this list are to be avoided.

Operational definitions by channel

Social media and content

Goal: Distinguish between vanity metrics (Likes) and true leads.

• Interacted: User "Likes" a post, "Follows" the page, or clicks a link to ungated content.
• Engaged: User comments on a post, shares/retweets with their own commentary, or sends a Direct Message (DM).
• Registered: User fills out a specific lead gen form (e.g., LinkedIn lead gen) or clicks through to a landing page and converts.

Webinars and virtual events

Goal: Track the drop-off between sign-up and attendance.

• Interacted: Clicked the invitation link but did not complete registration.
• Registered: Completed the registration form.
• Attended: Logged into the webinar platform for >1 minute.
• Engaged: Attended AND asked a question in Q&A, answered a poll, or stayed for the entire duration.

Physical events

Goal: Differentiate between booth traffic and serious conversations.

• Interacted: Visited the booth, took swag, a COLD LEAD
• Registered: RSVP’d to the event (if hosted by us) or pre-booked a meeting.
• Attended: Badge scanned at booth.
• Engaged: HOT lead. Had a meaningful conversation with a rep; notes added to CRM.
• Meeting Requested

Meeting service

Goal: Qualify and move to become an opportunity

• Targeted: A prospect is in the pool of potential targets
• Interacted: Introductory meeting requested/ scheduled
• Attended: Introductory meeting completed.
• Meeting Requested: The prospect has asked for a follow-up engagement/discussion

Email marketing

Goal: Move beyond "Open Rates."

• Sent: Email delivered.
• Interacted: Clicked a link in the email (click-through).
• Registered: Clicked a link and filled out the resulting form.
• Engaged: Replied to the email directly.

📧 Contact marketability & compliance

At Fleet, we maintain a strict separation between contacts we can legally email (Marketable) and those we are prospecting cold (Non-Marketable). This ensures we honor opt-outs, protect our domain reputation, and comply with GDPR/CAN-SPAM.

We do not rely on "implied" logic (e.g., "If they have an email, email them"). Instead, we use a dedicated status field on the Contact object to act as the single source of truth.

The "marketing status" definitions

The Marketing_Status__c picklist is the master switch for a contact's eligibility. Every contact in Salesforce must fall into one of the following buckets:

Data structure

To support this status, we use three additional fields to track the "Who, When, and Why."

Records exactly when the status changed. Required for compliance auditing (e.g., "Proof of Consent"). | | Status Reason | Marketing_Status_Detail__c | The Audit Trail.

Explains why the status changed.

Examples: "Inbound Demo Request," "Clay Enrichment Import," "User Clicked Unsubscribe." | | Is Marketable? | Is_Marketable__c | The Integration Gatekeeper.

A generic checkbox formula (TRUE only if Status = Marketable). Our marketing platform (ActiveCampaign) only syncs contacts where this is Checked. |

The "Traffic Cop" automation

We generally do not manually update these fields. A Salesforce Flow acts as a "Traffic Cop" to standardize data entering from different sources.

1. Inbound sources (marketable)

• Triggers: Website forms, Trial signups, Event badge scans.
• Result: Status Marketable.
• Reason Stamped: "Inbound Form Fill: [Form Name]"

2. Outbound/enrichment sources (cold)

• Triggers: Clay enrichment, Snitcher identification, ZoomInfo imports.
• Result: Status Cold/Prospect.
• Reason stamped: "Enriched via Clay - Cold"
• Note: These contacts are synced to sales tools (Outreach/Apollo) for 1:1 prospecting but are excluded from marketing newsletters.

3. Opt-Outs (Unsubscribed)

• Triggers: User clicks "Unsubscribe" in email, or HasOptedOutOfEmail is checked in SFDC.
• Result: Status Unsubscribed.
• Rule: This is permanent. A "Cold" lead can become "Marketable" (by filling a form), but an "Unsubscribed" contact is locked unless they manually re-subscribe.

Why this matters

• Compliance: We must be able to prove when and how someone consented to receive emails.
• Deliverability: Sending marketing blasts to "Cold" data (Clay lists) ruins domain reputation. We keep those lists separate for low-volume, high-relevance sales outreach only.
• Debugging: If a VIP prospect stops receiving emails, the Status Reason tells us if it was a system error (Bounce) or human error (Sales marked "Do Not Contact").