AdTech enterprise deals close over quarters across a buying committee, not on a last-click conversion. We build a full-funnel performance program measured on pipeline and revenue, with the attribution rebuilt to survive signal loss.
The Problem
Cost-per-lead optimization is fighting your actual sales motion
AdTech enterprise deals run two to four quarters through procurement, security, and legal, decided by a buying committee. A performance program optimized to cost-per-lead pushes budget toward the cheapest form fills, which are almost never the accounts that close enterprise contracts. You end up with a funnel full of leads sales will not work and a CAC number that looks fine until you trace it to actual revenue. The metric that drives the spend and the metric that drives the business have nothing to do with each other.
Signal loss broke the attribution your whole program depends on
The same cookie deprecation and conversion-tracking decay reshaping your product also degraded the multi-touch attribution performance marketing runs on. Pixels fire incompletely, cross-device journeys fragment, and offline enterprise deals never make it back into the platforms to train bidding. An AdTech company cannot credibly run its own demand on broken attribution while selling buyers the fix. Without modeled conversions, a data layer that captures the full journey, and offline conversion import, your performance spend optimizes toward a signal that no longer maps to pipeline.
Three-sided buyers fracture the funnel into incompatible journeys
Brands, agencies, and publishers move through completely different evaluation paths with different proof needs and different next steps. A single full-funnel program tuned to one generic journey wastes spend on the other two and under-converts the buyer it was not built for. A brand performance lead, an agency trade-desk head, and a publisher monetization director need different content, offers, and conversion paths. One undifferentiated funnel produces blended metrics that hide which buyer is actually converting and which is bleeding budget.
Blended CAC hides which channels actually drive enterprise revenue
Most AdTech performance reporting rolls everything into a blended CAC and a lead count that satisfies a board slide but cannot answer which channel produced closed revenue. Because deals close offline over quarters, channel-level attribution to revenue is hard and usually skipped. So budget keeps flowing to whatever shows the cheapest top-of-funnel cost rather than what sources real pipeline. Without revenue-grade, channel-level measurement, you cannot reallocate spend intelligently, and you defend the wrong channels in every budget review.
How We Help
We start by connecting spend to revenue, not to leads. In the first 30 days we audit the full funnel across paid, content, and lifecycle, connect your ad platforms to CRM, and trace which channels and campaigns actually touched closed enterprise deals. We rebuild the measurement foundation – the data layer, conversion definitions, and offline import – so the program optimizes toward pipeline rather than the cheapest form fill. We segment the funnel by buyer type so brand, agency, and publisher journeys stop getting averaged together.
Strategy turns that into a full-funnel plan built around the enterprise sales cycle. We define the role of each channel – paid search and social for buyer-specific intent capture and account warming, content for the long evaluation, lifecycle for nurturing committees through a multi-quarter cycle – and set channel-level pipeline targets instead of lead targets. We decide where to concentrate budget by buyer and stage, and where the current spend is buying volume that never converts. This is where performance marketing has to connect to the broader marketing motion so paid demand and content and sales are pulling the same direction.
Execution builds and runs the program on the rebuilt measurement. We restructure paid channels around deal value, wire offline conversions and modeled conversions back into bidding, stand up the content and lifecycle that carry a buyer through a multi-quarter evaluation, and align the conversion paths to each buyer. We run it as an embedded operator, reallocating budget weekly toward the channels and buyers producing pipeline, not the ones producing cheap clicks.
Measurement judges the whole program on pipeline and revenue by channel and buyer. We track cost per qualified opportunity, channel-level pipeline contribution, multi-touch influence on closed deals, and eventually channel-level CAC tied to real revenue. We feed those signals back so the program learns toward the deals that close. Performance marketing is working when channel-level revenue attribution is clear enough to reallocate budget with confidence and CAC tied to actual revenue is falling, even when raw lead volume is flat.
What makes this different is that we run performance marketing as operators accountable to pipeline and revenue, not as an agency optimizing to CPL and a blended CAC that looks tidy. We sit inside your GTM, fix the attribution, and own the number that matters. We have run growth at scale, so we build a performance program a sales team can work and a CFO can fund.
What we deliver
- Full-funnel and attribution audit connecting spend to closed enterprise deals
- Rebuilt measurement foundation: data layer, modeled conversions, and offline conversion import
- Buyer-segmented full-funnel plan with channel-level pipeline targets
- Restructured paid, content, and lifecycle channels optimized to deal value
- Channel-level pipeline and revenue reporting that supports confident budget reallocation
In AdTech, you cannot run performance marketing on the same broken last-click attribution you sell buyers a fix for. Optimize to cost-per-lead and you fund the cheapest form fills; rebuild attribution to survive signal loss and import closed deals, and the program finally optimizes toward the enterprise revenue that actually pays the bills.
Our Methodology
Our performance marketing build for AdTech runs as a 90-day sprint, not an always-on retainer with no end state. Phase one is the full-funnel and attribution audit: we connect ad platforms to CRM, trace which channels touched real deals, and rebuild the measurement foundation so the program can optimize toward pipeline. We come out of phase one knowing which channels source revenue and which buy volume that never converts.
Phase two builds the full-funnel plan and the channel structure. We set channel-level pipeline targets by buyer and stage, restructure paid around deal value, stand up content and lifecycle for the long evaluation, and wire offline and modeled conversions back into bidding. Every channel gets a pipeline outcome, not a lead target, so the whole funnel optimizes toward deals.
Phase three runs and tunes the program inside your GTM cadence. We reallocate budget weekly against pipeline signal, keep marketing and sales aligned on opportunity definitions, and stand up channel-level revenue reporting. Unlike an agency that reports blended CAC and lead counts, we stay embedded and accountable to pipeline and revenue until the program is producing them and budget can be reallocated with confidence.
How We Work
Initial engagements run 3 to 6 months because a full-funnel program needs a complete sales cycle and offline data to prove channel-level revenue impact. The first 30 days are the full-funnel and attribution audit and the CRM connection. Days 31 to 60 rebuild the measurement foundation and the channel structure. Days 61 to 90 run and tune the program against live pipeline and revenue signal.
Our team includes a performance marketing operator who owns the channels and budget allocation, a measurement and analytics lead who rebuilds attribution and offline import, and a strategist who keeps the funnel aligned to the buyer and the enterprise sales motion. From your side we need marketing ops or RevOps to connect CRM, sales leadership to align on opportunity definitions, and budget authority for reallocation decisions. We handle the audit, the measurement rebuild, the channel execution, and the reporting.
The cadence is a weekly optimization session and a monthly pipeline-and-revenue review. Weekly sessions reallocate budget and adjust channels against the latest signal; monthly reviews tie spend to channel-level pipeline and revenue. Most AdTech companies see cost per qualified opportunity move within 30 to 45 days and channel-level revenue attribution clarify within a full sales cycle as offline conversions accumulate.
- Lower cost per qualified opportunity instead of cheaper raw leads
- Channel-level pipeline and revenue attribution that supports confident budget reallocation
- Smarter bidding once closed deals and modeled conversions offset signal loss
- Falling CAC tied to actual revenue rather than a flattering blended number
If your adtech company needs performance marketing leadership, we should talk.
Expand your marketing team output with our experts
Let us take a custom approach to your growth goals by assembling and leading the best-in-class marketing team to support your next stage.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a performance marketing engagement cost for an AdTech company?
Most AdTech performance marketing engagements run between $25K and $50K per month in fees, separate from media spend, depending on funnel complexity and how much attribution rebuild is required. That is less than a full-time growth team plus the agencies most companies stack on top, and it comes with operators accountable to pipeline and revenue.
How long before we see results from a performance marketing engagement?
Wasted-spend reduction and cleaner channel signal usually show within the first 30 days as we rebuild measurement and restructure channels. Cost per qualified opportunity moves within 30 to 45 days, and channel-level revenue attribution clarifies across a full sales cycle, which in AdTech is one to two quarters.
How does the performance marketing team integrate with our marketing and sales staff?
We embed in your GTM motion and connect directly to CRM rather than running isolated ad accounts. We work with marketing ops and RevOps to rebuild attribution and offline import, and with sales leadership to align on what qualifies as an opportunity.
What makes Winston Francois different from a traditional performance marketing agency?
Most performance agencies optimize to CPL and report a blended CAC that looks tidy but says nothing about enterprise deals. We treat performance marketing as a pipeline-and-revenue problem, rebuild the attribution to survive signal loss, and import closed deals so the program optimizes toward revenue.
How do you measure ROI from a performance marketing engagement?
We measure cost per qualified opportunity, channel-level pipeline contribution, multi-touch influence on closed deals, and channel-level CAC tied to real revenue rather than blended cost-per-lead. The headline metric is clear channel-level revenue attribution that lets you reallocate budget with confidence. Most AdTech companies see directional ROI within a quarter and revenue-grade channel attribution within a full sales cycle once offline data is flowing.
What type of AdTech company is the right fit for this service?
Series A through growth-stage AdTech companies between $5M and $100M ARR running enterprise sales cycles whose performance program is optimized to leads and blended CAC instead of revenue. The strongest fit is a company already spending across channels but unable to tie spend to closed deals because attribution is broken. The first step is a full-funnel and attribution audit to find which channels actually source revenue.
