The Inevitable Problem with Measuring B2B Marketing by Leads
September 27, 2026 - 2:23 pm
Credit: © Frank Peters / Getty Images via Canva.com
B2B companies today can track almost every movement a prospect makes, yet the numbers that appear most prominently on dashboards often have little connection to the metric that matters most to executives and stakeholders: revenue.
87% of B2B marketers found it increasingly difficult to measure the long-term impact of campaigns, while nearly half were required to justify marketing spend to CFOs and CEOs every month. This pressure is intensifying as software buyers navigate increasingly complex paths to purchase.
Gartner found in 2026 that B2B buyers use an average of seven information sources during a purchase, with 45% turning to generative AI during their research. At the same time, 67% preferred a completely digital, sales rep-free buying experience. Thus, a click marks an increasingly small moment in a larger commercial journey.
Yet marketing reporting often ends at the first conversion. While a campaign generates leads and the cost per lead looks acceptable, the harder question comes later: did those prospects enter a qualified pipeline, become customers, and produce an economic return?
Often, there’s a disconnect between what B2B marketing teams aim to accomplish and what they measure, with lead-based metrics remaining prevalent even as companies pursue account-based growth. This issue is particularly pronounced in software markets, where deals involve multiple stakeholders and extensive research before closing.
Gartner found that 74% of B2B buying teams experienced unhealthy conflict during the decision process, with buying groups often spanning five to 16 people. Under these conditions, attribution becomes less a reporting exercise than an attempt to reconstruct a complex commercial decision.
It’s this gap that Waqas Khokhar, founder and CEO of ScalixAI, has made central to his approach. Khokhar, who spent nine years at Google before building ScalixAI, views paid advertising through the lens of the business outcome it is intended to influence. His belief hinges on the idea that marketing should be ultimately accountable for the commercial journey it facilitates.
Khokhar argues that the root problem lies in how attribution is calculated. “The biggest issue is that companies don’t understand how individual channels influence the end goal, which is revenue,” he explains. In a product-led business, this means understanding how far a customer travels after arriving. In a sales-led model, he suggests, focusing solely on the cost of a booked demo can obscure whether those demos are generating commercially viable opportunities.
His experience at Google also shaped his perspective on managing paid search. “Google Ads is ever-changing and ever-evolving, and most people don’t know how to adapt to the way the algorithm shifts,” Khokhar argues. His analogy is a boat in a storm: fighting the current with a fixed playbook makes little sense when the environment keeps changing.
The more significant shift, however, occurs after the click. Khokhar emphasizes, “We want to know: what did I invest, and what did I get out of it?” While CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) and CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) still play roles in establishing healthy economics, pipeline and closed revenue provide a harder test.
ScalixAI’s reported client outcomes illustrate this philosophy. For example, Oneleet generated 660 demos alongside more than $1 million in revenue.