Connecting the Dots: Why Attribution Is the Backbone of RevOps Success

Welcome to Go to Market, a podcast for RevOps, sales, and marketing leaders to dive deep into industry insights and best practices. Go to Market is sponsored by Fulcast, the go-to-market cloud. My name is Amy Cook, and I am so excited to introduce to you today Doug Topkin, who is Head of Global CRM and Customer Data at Ingredion. Doug, it is so great to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks, Amy. I've been really pleased to meet you, and I look forward to the discussion today.

Likewise. Thank you so much. You know, it's a Friday morning, and I always love Friday mornings because that means that I get to have some of the most insightful conversations of the entire week. Entire week with leaders like yourself. Just as, just to give our listeners a little bit of a background on you, could you tell me a little bit about your career and how you got to the place where you're at?

Sure. So I've been, been really fortunate. So over the last 20, perhaps 30 years of my career, I've been in product marketing, demand gen marketing, e-commerce marketing, CRM, and now customer data management. So I've been very fortunate to often find myself in a place where I have a broad view over what it takes to get a product into the hands of customers and get paid for it and do that over and over again. I'm especially proud of my work in e-commerce where as a P&L leader and GM, I was able to set up an entire business from scratch inside another business. So pretty, pretty broad experience, mostly B2B, somewhat B2C, but my heart is in B2B.

I love that. And I think that what you described is happening so much in large companies today where you're really like the CEO of a mini business inside of a larger business, right? And I shouldn't say mini, it's probably quite large, but a business inside of a business and you're responsible for all of that, the P&L and the operations and driving growth.

It, it can happen that way. That's not the case today. I have a different role with CRM and, and master data enablers of all of this. But in past roles, yes, GM of and P&L owner of e-commerce. And yeah, you're the CEO of, of a mini business and you're rolling up your sleeves and other times you're putting on your suit and, and meeting with customers even though it's e-commerce. And I enjoy that diversity and, and span of, not necessarily span of control, but span of influence and span of responsibility.

Well, with so many different hats that you've worn in the past, your background is absolutely incredible. What are you really, really passionate about today as it comes, as it relates to RevOps?

So what makes, what really thrills me is that we see this industry or this practice of RevOps coming to life and getting more mature right now in front of our eyes. We've all been practicing this forever since the beginning of our careers, but it wasn't called RevOps and it wasn't well orchestrated. So now we're having an orchestration and a recognition that that orchestration is, is, is, it's not only necessary, but it is, it's the best path towards revenue growth. And I'll go back to customer experience. You know, it's the best path, one of the best paths towards customer experience.

You know, it's interesting that you mention this because I was on the phone with a friend who is a very sophisticated marketer, and she called me up after listening to one of these podcasts, and she was like, Amy, is it really— is this market opportunity really that big? We've been doing sales and marketing forever. Have we really not figured out the orchestration yet? And what I said to her was like, you know, this opportunity that we have in front of us where things have been so highly manual and complex and we now have the opportunity with leaders like yourself to orchestrate, and I love the term that you're using, orchestrate that, those processes for the benefit of our customers. It's a massive opportunity in front of us, I think.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And a lot of what's driving that, right, is data. And, and maybe going back to my, my days as, you know, a demand gen or direct marketer early career, right? Where, oh, we, you know, we, we sent out 600,000 mailers. We got 2% response rate. You know, that was wonderful. But fast forward to today, it's about attribution, right? And results. So now, you know, thinking about attribution in, in, in the RevOps picture, we can use attribution models and attribution data and increasingly, you know, our new friend AI to really understand and optimize what's going on through the cycle. And that's pretty exciting.

Well, Doug, one of the things that I really love to understand more is attribution. As a marketer, as you know, we kind of live and die by that. And I love that you have a marketing back— you have such a diverse background. It's amazing to talk with you. But as a marketer with the attribution piece of it, how is that fitting into the overall RevOps orchestration, kind of back to your original point of what you're passionate about?

Well, it helps us connect the dots, right? Marketers with, with today, we're using attribution models, and increasingly, we're going to be connecting the dots much better in terms of, you know, lead to cash all the way through, and rinse, lather, repeat. But right now, it's, it's connecting the dots via a lot of AI, or beginning, I should say, beginning to use AI to understand, you know, what's happening top of funnel and through the funnel and through the opportunity stages. And then what? Right? Once it's closed one, sometimes we lose sight of the order and we lose sight of the repeat orders. Right? Because once the opportunity is closed one, people move on. So attribution models are getting built to show us that lifetime value of the customer and the true value of marketing. And, of course, it's good for marketing because they know now where to place their bets. But it's good for the, good for the company because they say, hey, yeah, you know, those marketing folks, you know, they're not just doing pretty brochures anymore. They're driving revenue. They're driving pipeline that matters. So sharing that data and building those models that— and socializing them, right? Because you can come to the sales team or sales leader and say, hey, we built this model with AI, and it's really great, and it shows marketing contributed 20% of your pipeline last year. And they're gonna say, no, it didn't.

Right?

I agree.

Yes. That is the challenge I run into all the time where I can say, hey, I, We, we built this. I did all the research and all the data, and here it is. And for whatever reason, sometimes it can be political, sometimes it can be just like not understanding, or what— for whatever reason, the data that I present oftentimes is taken with a grain of salt, and probably rightly so, because I'm biased, right? I'm a marketer. I know what I know. But what I love about what you're saying is that this gives us an unbiased opportunity to really validate marketing's contributions to the overall go-to-market.

Yeah, just don't bring your data late in the game and say, hey, look at, look at everything I've done to make you a success this year when they really, they busted their butts and worked hard to do so themselves.

That's a very good point. Right.

Socialize it early so they believe in the model. They get it. They can help you tweak it. right? So, so it— they believe it.

I love that. And that collaboration enables us, like, with the RevOps model, the collaboration with sales, um, and customer success and the executive team enables you to help, like, you co-create the story together. And one thing that I have loved about working at Fulcast is I never have that issue. I can always say to this, you know, I work very closely with the sales team, very closely with the customer success team, very closely with the product team, and we have our revops structured correctly. So we're all looking at the same data and we're all making these decisions together. I've never been in a company quite like this before where it is that collaborative.

Well, I, I certainly hope Fulcast gets it because you're in the, you're in the revops business, right?

So that's right.

Great that, you know, I don't want to use the phrase, you know, eating your own dog food because it's, it's, it's much bigger than that.

That's right.

So you're in a very fortunate position to, to, to practice and, and not just practice, but develop and lead, you know, what you're, what you're, what you're preaching and what you're helping the market understand.

It is a very exciting opportunity to be able to use Fulcast internally, see how well it works, and then be able to communicate it. I wanna go back a little bit more to some practical advice that you said. For example, just do this early. Don't come late in the game and assume that they're going to just be like, oh, this is amazing. What are some other practical insights that you might have for people who are in— either marketers or other people in the go-to-market— to socialize that well?

Well, it's, it's about alignment with your colleagues, right? And now that, uh, some of us are going back to offices— some of us like it, some of us don't— you know, I happen to enjoy being in the office from time to time. I'm at home today, I like that too. Here it's Friday afternoon, by the way, not Friday morning. I'm in New York. But, you know, getting back in the office with colleagues after being away for so long, I feel is a, you know, refreshing new opportunity to build new relationships and really kind of step away and away from our silos and figure things out. Right? And we don't yet all have goals that are shared and we're accountable for across organizational structure. Right? Not yet. We're getting there. We have some. But at an individual level, increasingly, we do. We make, you know, we have relationships and commitments to one another. So I'm really enjoying that personal touch. You know, I used to go to the office 5 days a week. I don't know how we all did it back then. Now it's 3 to 5 or whatever. But, you know, that personal connection and maintaining relationships with those folks you're talking about, marketing, sales, and customer success, as you said, is refreshing after being away and looking at screens for so long. And I believe most are embracing it.

I think so too. And I have really enjoyed the additional, like, in-person interaction after being being stuck in front of a screen as well. Grateful for the screens because it enabled us to do business still. Yeah, but it's, it's great. So, you know, communicating early, communicating in person, that's another great one. Um, what about the tech stack and, and how we're coming together?

Uh, you know, that's not always easy. Um, So, so now where I am, we're, we're forming teams in the business across functions, and I'm in a global role. We're bringing in global functions and regional leaders across functions to establish— we're calling it a council for now— to, to not just look at the tech stack, but to, you know, to look at our goals that would be delivered by RevOps, even though we're not yet always using the term RevOps. And, but one of the outputs is, okay, well, what's, what's the tech stack gotta look like? And how can we partner with our IT brothers and sisters to, to help them make better decisions about enterprise architecture and their investments, right? There is no lack of demand on our IT folks, and this is at any company, not just mine, to invest in new things. Right? They don't have enough budget. Nobody does anywhere. So it's a matter of making those really good choices. And, you know, what I'm really pleased about is that we're forming this group that is, you know, senior decision makers to help align earlier with our enterprise architects and our CIO to establish a direction for the tech stack. And knit things together a little bit.

Oh, I love that. I think— so you're calling it a council for now, huh?

Yes.

Okay. And it's made of senior leaders to help on the business side, help with how we should collaborate also with IT and on the technical side?

Correct. Yeah. IT basically said, look, we're getting demand from all over the place. Could you please all, you know, meet as a group. Right? I'm simplifying. We're, you know, meet as a group, get your act together, come back and let us know what you want, and we'll talk about fixing it. And, and, and they're part of this, this council with us. Right? So it's not like we all go into a room and come back and give the answer. So it's very collaborative. But it's, it's, it's a council that is attended by and led by marketing, sales, and customer success and CX leadership.

Oh, that's amazing. So another practical output from what you're telling me is getting your senior leaders involved in the decision-making and working together with business and the technical side is also really imperative in building that RevOps function.

Yeah, 100%. You know, especially since, and you've probably seen this too, right? When SaaS came along, all of a sudden marketers started shifting budget from printing brochures and trade shows, and I'm simplifying, of course, what marketing did, just spending money on tech. And, you know, and it, it, it, in some cases, maybe it went a little too far, right? Because now you've got all these silos and you've got customer data here, customer data there, and touchpoints and little, little, less control and governance than, than maybe was optimal. And now it's, it's, it's coming a little, it's coming back together. Budgets are, are tighter. We're spending smarter. I'll go back to the attribution, right? Everybody's accountable. So this is an effort to invest and build more wisely.

I love that. Would you say that this convergence of like defining RevOps is built from that? Like, why do you think this is happening now, whereas it didn't happen before?

Accountability. You know, we're all accountable outside of our silos. I think that's it, right? And we, we've gotta adopt, you know, a, a bigger picture mindset and be part of, you know, the, the bigger solution, not just optimizing our space. And, you know, that's forcing us to work together. And, you know, I've been in, you know, it depends on the culture. I've been in some companies where force wasn't so required and then other companies where, you know, maybe we need a little extra help. To get together. But, you know, increasingly today, you know, we're seeing shared goals. We're seeing collaboration and progress. It's not perfect. Right? It'll never be perfect because—

No, it won't.

Perfect changes.

Yes.

You know?

Oh, that's amazing. So, from your experience and just looking forward and ahead to this, I see that there's a big focus on the collaboration, which 100% is the RevOps methodology. I see a focus on shared goals, see a focus on communicating well in person and also through technology, making accountable decisions. Where do you see the future of RevOps?

Yeah, so I've been doing a lot of thinking about that. And so when you think about a solution to a challenge, an opportunity. Right? I always think about people, process, and tech. Right? So is it— is the future of RevOps in tech? I don't know. Definitely, it's gonna be— it is and will continue to be enabled by it. But really, it's around process optimization and process transformation. Of course, the tech enables that, but it's really understanding and changing business processes That's where I think the money is. Again, enabled by tech. There's got to be a framework or something that ties it all together very well. I don't know that that's completely emerged yet, but, you know, process change and process optimization is what I'm looking at the most.

I really love that. When we, you know, a lot of people in RevOps are learning how to use AI well and how they would like to use it. There have been some questions about, you know, will AI take my job? Can AI, you know, do all of this stuff? What's your thought on AI and the future of RevOps there?

AI is definitely gonna be an enabler. We have one of our senior execs speaking the other day, and, you know, he asked the same kind of question or in the same vein. Because everybody's pushing on AI. Of course, we are in a lot of different fronts. And, you know, you kinda ask for a show of hands. I think that's how we did it. You know, who, who's afraid that AI is gonna take their job or eat away at their job? And no one raised their hand. Maybe they were scared to, or maybe they just truly weren't, weren't afraid of it. Maybe, maybe a mix. But, you know, the, his point was, you know, AI might take, you know, 5% of your work away. It's just going to enable you to do 110% of your work. So it's, you know, I, I use AI now every day, sometimes in little ways, sometimes in big ways, right? Just little cheats and shortcuts. And, and then in other ways, we use it for, you know, much smarter analysis like marketing attribution and things we're doing in our CRM platform. So, you know, embrace it. It's, it's going to help us. And I, I really enjoy playing with it and loving it.

I love it too. And I find the same, you know, when it comes right down to it, I feel like enabler, as you've described, is exactly the right way to just to, to term it. I don't see people's jobs being lost by this. I see them being more productive. And like you were saying, the focus on the process and optimization and things like that, those are human, you know, that's human analysis and human strategy. And I think that AI can help us in my opinion, AI can help us be a lot faster and smarter so we can work 110%, like you so eloquently said. I just don't see it being a negative in terms of people's jobs. So—

No.

No.

Another interesting thing I've observed last little while about AI is that there's— AI is not one thing. Right? And there's, there's not one AI. So, you know, in, in my, my case, you know, I'm using AI from 3 or 4 different providers or places in a given day. There's not one, you know, great mother AI. It's, it's embedded in so much. And I would encourage everyone just stick your foot in the water and play with it, you know, whether for personal or business or both. And, and don't think of it as one monolithic thing. It's, it's lots, lots of things. And it's, It's sprouting everywhere.

So harvest it. I think that's absolutely right. Doug, it is so much fun to chat with you and to talk with you about how RevOps is really becoming defined as an industry and where we've been and where we are now and where we're going. Do you have any final thoughts on what we should do practically to be better RevOps leaders besides the amazing ones you've already described?

Yeah. You know, I, I, I could easily repeat alignment a couple times, and I said that already, but it's, it's, you know, be curious, ask questions, you know, as, as part of gaining alignment. Ask questions about how can we make this better? Why isn't this working? You know, what is your goal? That, that, that curiosity is going to help RevOps leaders knit together processes or overhaul, transform processes, right? And, and, and ask everyone, right? Don't just ask the people you know. Ask your customers. Ask, ask the folks, you know, think about the whole lead to cash or order to cash process in how many hands, even from customer onboarding before lead, you know, there's, there's so many hands touching things. Be curious and explore.

I love that. That's so well said. My final question for you, Doug, because I know I've taken a lot of your time, is clearly you're at the top of your game. What do you do to stay there? How do you stay at the top? How do you stay in great shape mentally and physically and in all the ways needed to be a great leader?

Well, mentally, physically, it's trying to keep that balance. I mean, today is a beautiful Friday. I'm looking out the window. It's fall. The leaves are changing. There's leaves all over my lawn. So I'll be out there exercising, breathing in good air, splitting wood. So that's, that's my happy place is being outdoors with fresh air, walking my dog. I have a lot of ideas walking my dog. But it, it's, it's, I'll go back to curiosity and, and talking to your colleagues and talking to people inside and outside the company, reading. I, I, I used to read so many books and I find myself reading less books now and just, you know, reading articles and blogs on the web and podcasts and just random posts on LinkedIn. There's so much information. So there's not one way, right? If I have to say one way, it's going to my happy place outside and just refreshing and, and coming back with a, a, a, a, a, a clearer mind and a, you know, a blank whiteboard to start filling with ideas again.

I, I do the exact same thing on beach walks. I feel like I'm a new person and I think, why do I not go here every day? So anyway, thank you so much, Doug. What a wonderful pleasure to be able to chat with you. I so appreciate your time and thank you for all of the amazing things that you're doing to contribute to our community.

Very happy to do it, Amy. I really enjoy speaking with you and, uh, hope we connect again.

Thank you so much.