Dave Gerhardt argues that revenue alone doesn't measure marketing success, especially for companies with long sales cycles. Not all important metrics are easily quantifiable, and focusing only on revenue can miss what actually drives growth.
There are a gazillion different metrics. And I love this quote. Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count, and everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. So start with what is it that counts? And I would argue that this is, you know, the contrarian take here. It's not always revenue. I'll take the example of a business that has an 18 month sales cycle. True enterprise, 18 month sales cycle. I run marketing. And by the time it shows up as a closed one, it's 18 months. Am I really going to tell my CFO, hey, hey, hey, wait up, it's going to take 18 months before I can show impact on revenue? I can't do that. So this whole idea that you measure marketing through revenue is a little bit of a cop out. It's like people saying things without actually thinking about it.