Marketing-Sourced Pipeline
The board question every B2B marketing team must answer: how much of the pipeline did you create? Enter total pipeline and the value marketing originated to get a clean sourced percentage — and keep it honest by reporting influenced separately.
Marketing-sourced pipeline % = the value of opportunities marketing originated ÷ total pipeline × 100. It answers who created the deal. Keep it strictly separate from marketing-influenced pipeline, which counts any open deal marketing touched along the way and is always the larger, softer number. SiriusDecisions and Forrester popularized both as complementary lenses — report them side by side, never blended, so credit stays honest.
Marketing-Sourced Pipeline Calculator inputs and result
| Sourced % | Read | Meaning |
|---|
How to use this calculator
- Total all new pipelineAdd up the value of every new opportunity created in the period, regardless of who originated it — marketing, sales, partners, inbound, referral. This is the denominator, so a complete, consistent count matters more than precision on any one source.
- Enter marketing-sourced valueEnter the pipeline marketing originated under one clear rule — typically first-touch or a documented sourcing definition. The key discipline is consistency: pick a rule, write it down, and apply it the same way every period so the trend is real.
- Add marketing-influenced valueOptionally enter the value of deals marketing touched at any point, even if sales sourced them. This is always larger than sourced because it counts assistance, not just creation. Reporting both prevents the two from being quietly conflated.
- Read the sourced percentage and bandThe tool returns marketing-sourced and influenced percentages and a contribution band. Sourced share is the headline accountability number; influenced share shows marketing’s wider footprint across the funnel.
- Report sourced and influenced separatelyNever blend the two into one figure — that is how attribution loses credibility. Show them side by side, with the definition stated. Export the CSV for your QBR or board deck.
RGM Expert Says
Marketing-sourced pipeline is the single number that earns a marketing team its seat at the revenue table, and it is also the easiest to argue about. The arguments are almost never about the arithmetic — they are about the definition. Does an SDR who books a meeting off a marketing-generated lead count as marketing-sourced or sales-sourced? There is no universally right answer, but there is a fatal mistake: changing the answer between quarters. We make clients write the sourcing rule down and freeze it, because a metric whose definition drifts cannot show a trend.
The sourced-versus-influenced distinction is where credibility is won or lost. Sourced is the strict, defensible number: marketing created this opportunity. Influenced is the broader, softer one: marketing touched this deal somewhere along the way. Both are legitimate and both matter, but blending them — or quietly reporting influenced while calling it sourced — is how a marketing team loses the finance team’s trust in one QBR. We always show them as two separate lines with the definitions printed underneath.
Context decides what a good sourced share even is. In a long, multi-touch enterprise motion, strict first-touch sourcing structurally undercounts marketing, because sales and SDRs get credit for opportunities marketing genuinely warmed up — there the influenced number tells the truer story. In a self-serve or inbound-heavy motion, sourced share runs high and is the right headline. We read the percentage against the motion, never against a generic benchmark, because the benchmark almost always lies about your business.
How it works
Both metrics are simple ratios against the same denominator — total new pipeline. Sourced counts only what marketing originated; influenced counts anything marketing touched. The gap between them measures assistance.
- Total pipeline — value of all new opportunities created in the period.
- Marketing-sourced — pipeline marketing originated (first touch / agreed rule).
- Marketing-influenced — any open deal marketing touched; always larger than sourced.
- The gap — influenced minus sourced; marketing’s assist on deals it did not originate.
The sourced and influenced concepts were popularized by SiriusDecisions (now Forrester) in its waterfall and attribution models. There is no universal ‘correct’ sourced percentage — it depends heavily on your go-to-market motion and on the sourcing definition you adopt. Pick one definition and hold it constant.
Why sourced and influenced must stay separate
Marketing-sourced pipeline is the metric that makes marketing accountable for revenue, not activity. It moves the conversation from leads and impressions to the only currency the board cares about — pipeline created. That is why it has become the headline number in modern B2B marketing, and why getting its definition right matters more than getting one decimal place right.
The danger is conflating it with marketing-influenced pipeline. Influenced counts every deal marketing touched, so it is always bigger and always more flattering. Both are real and useful: sourced proves origination, influenced proves reach across the funnel. But reporting influenced while implying sourced is the fastest way to lose finance’s trust. Show both, label both, and let the gap between them tell the story of marketing’s assist.
Finally, read the number against your motion, not a benchmark. Strict first-touch sourcing structurally undercounts marketing in long, multi-touch enterprise cycles, where the influenced figure is the fairer read; self-serve and inbound motions run high sourced shares. The frameworks from SiriusDecisions and Forrester exist precisely because no single number captures contribution — you need the pair, with definitions stated.
Reading marketing-sourced share by motion
There is no universal target for marketing-sourced pipeline — it swings with go-to-market motion and with how you define sourcing. These bands are an RGM rule of thumb for interpretation, read against your model, not a published standard.
| Sourced % | Read | Typical context |
|---|---|---|
| 40%+ | Marketing-led engine | Inbound- or self-serve-heavy motions |
| 25 – 39% | Healthy contribution | Balanced sales + marketing sourcing |
| 10 – 24% | Modest contribution | Sales-led or strict first-touch sourcing |
| Under 10% | Sales- or other-led | Outbound/partner-led, or undercounting |
What revenue leaders say
Sourced answers who created the opportunity; influenced answers who helped. Report them as two numbers, or you will end up defending one you cannot.
The metric that aligns marketing and sales is shared, defined and constant. The moment the definition moves, the trust goes with it.