If you've been reading B2BOOM! you likely didn’t need a Forrester report to tell you this was coming, though we’re happy to have it. Keep ’em coming, Forrester.

You can see it in the culture.

In Capture the True Value of Marketing, Forrester puts in writing what most B2B teams already experience day to day: buying no longer happens through individuals or linear funnels. Nearly two-thirds of B2B purchases now happen through complex buying groups, often spanning multiple departments. Deals start, stall, and restart. New stakeholders appear halfway through. Context gets rebuilt, not remembered. Confidence and clarity become the constraint.

That mismatch has been breaking in slow motion for years.

Forrester also notes that B2B buyers engage in an average of 18 meaningful interactions across self-guided and human touchpoints during a single buying journey. Yet most marketing organizations still measure success by tying revenue back to the earliest interaction of the first person who engaged.

That’s a problem because you end up measuring a group decision with a single data point.

The report frames this as a value-capture issue, one that limits marketing’s role to finding demand, rather than helping deals progress, gain consensus, and ultimately close. The more teams cling to sourcing as proof of value, the further marketing drifts from where revenue is actually decided.

Sourcing metrics reinforce the wrong behaviors.

By rewarding early handoffs and acquisition activity, marketing is structurally pushed out of the stages where uncertainty peaks and decisions are actually made.

We help B2B teams create that kind of clarity through sharper messaging, disciplined creative decisions, and brand systems built to scale.

The most damaging effect of sourcing metrics is behavioral.

When marketing is rewarded for first touch, it learns to optimize for being early, not for being useful. The system quietly reinforces the behavior that their job is to surface interest, hand it off, and move on.

Everything that happens after that point belongs to someone else.

Forrester calls this out directly, arguing that sourcing metrics “reinforce marketing efforts that are misaligned with how today’s buyers buy,” because they credit the earliest interaction of the first person rather than the work required to support a buying group through a decision.

When success is defined by sourcing, messaging is built to trigger action, not to carry meaning forward. Campaigns skew toward broad, early-stage hooks that convert individuals quickly, because that’s what the metric rewards. Messaging that helps buying groups align, revisit assumptions, or reduce risk later in the journey is deprioritized because, crucially, it lacks attribution.

The result is a reporting system that ignores the majority of influence while shaping teams to optimize for the least decisive interaction.

Forrester points out that conversion from initial engagement to closed/won deal is less than 1% for most B2B organizations. Despite that, many teams still treat MQLs as the primary signal of progress. Context disappears. Initiative, buying group composition, and deal health are lost. Marketing hands sales a score, not a story. Sales skepticism is the predictable outcome.

Forrester frames this as a credibility issue, not a performance one. When marketing can’t show how it contributes beyond sourcing, its impact becomes abstract, even when it is actively helping deals move, recover, and close.

When success is defined by first touch, marketing is optimized for attention.

Credibility erodes because the system hides where marketing actually creates value, which is influence throughout the entire cycle.

This is the most persistent myth in B2B growth.

If marketing sources more pipeline, revenue should follow. If lead volume goes up, wins should go up. If attribution looks strong, the engine must be healthy.

Forrester’s data doesn’t support that logic.

This report shows that reality also doesn't support that particular mode of thinking. Higher win rates, larger deal sizes, or better cost efficiency do not reliably line up with high rates of marketing sourcing. Finding opportunities turns out to be a prerequisite for growth, rather than a predictor of it.

The actual magic in the process happens after interest is established.

Sourcing metrics stop the clock at first contact. From that point on, every opportunity looks the same. Deals that advance, deals that stall, and deals that never recover are all counted equally without qualifying who’s involved, how aligned they are, and whether confidence is building.

That's a leak without a plug.

Forrester suggests an alternative framing: marketing creates growth when it stays involved long enough to change the odds. When engagement reaches a meaningful threshold across a buying group, win rates increase and deal sizes grow. Below that threshold, additional sourcing adds volume, not velocity.

In other words, more sourcing doesn’t compound, but better involvement does.

Sourcing fills the funnel. It doesn’t move the deal.

Growth comes from staying involved long enough to change the outcome.

You don’t lose credibility by failing to create value. You lose it by measuring the part of the journey where value is easiest to count and least decisive.

—Jay