For years, marketing teams have chased credit. We optimized for attribution. We tried to prove we “sourced” pipeline. We counted every MQL and traced every form-fill back to a campaign.
And for a while, it felt like progress.
But here’s what we’ve learned, especially in B2B:
Chasing credit doesn’t build confidence. It kills it.
Because when marketing hits its goal, but the business misses revenue, no one’s impressed. The CFO doesn’t care that you beat your MQL target. The CRO isn’t thanking you for all the “influenced” pipeline. Instead, they start asking hard questions:
“If marketing did so well… why did we still miss?”
That’s the moment credit turns from proof into poison.
It’s not just that attribution and sourcing are flawed. It’s that they create false confidence, which does more damage than no confidence at all.
The Shift: From Claiming Credit to Earning Trust
The best marketing leaders today aren’t fighting for attribution points. They’re focused on something else:
Confidence.
Not manufactured confidence from a dashboard. Real, earned confidence across the executive team. Confidence that marketing is on the right track, even when revenue is lagging, cycles are long, or attribution is unclear.
This kind of confidence comes from alignment. Not defense.
And it’s the difference between getting questioned in the QBR or getting more budget.
What Is a Confidence Signal?
A confidence signal is a observable indicator and trend that marketing is driving momentum, even if results haven’t landed yet.
It doesn’t try to assign credit. It answers a more useful question:
“Is this working?”
Confidence signals help your GTM team stay aligned and your executive team stay calm.
Three Confidence Signals Every CMO Should Watch
✅ 1. Branded Search Growth
When more people are searching for your company name, it’s a strong signal of rising awareness and demand. Branded search is hard to game, and it often correlates with pipeline 1–2 quarters out.
✅ 2. Target Account Engagement
How many of your known accounts are visiting your website, attending webinars, interacting with ABM ads, or opening outbound sequences? If engagement is broad and growing, your programs are landing, even if they haven’t converted yet.
✅ 3. Share of Voice (SOV)
If your brand is showing up more often in the market, across paid and organic channels, your visibility is increasing. SOV is one of the few long-range indicators that can justify brand investment even when direct conversions are hard to measure.
Why These Signals Matter More Than Attribution
These signals aren’t new. In fact, they might feel like legacy indicators. But somewhere along the way, we got distracted. Chasing MQLs and claiming marketing-sourced pipeline became the focus, and we lost sight of signals that actually correlate with long-term success. This shift isn’t about inventing new metrics—it’s about coming back to the right ones but radically changing the top of our B2B funnels.
Think of it as a reset: a way to re-anchor marketing around momentum and impact, not just what’s easy to count.
Here’s why they are better:
- They’re more correlated to business outcomes (not channel vanity metrics)
- They’re harder to manipulate
- They support full marketing planning, not just performance reporting
- They give sales and finance leaders a reason to stay bought in
And most importantly, they help teams make smarter decisions, not just defend old ones.
Where Attribution Creates False Confidence
The problem isn’t just that attribution is incomplete. It’s that it can be convincing right up until it fails.
- Marketing shows strong lead volume, but none of it converts
- A campaign gets credit, but didn’t influence any real decision-makers
- The dashboard looks great, but the revenue isn’t there
That’s how attribution can backfire:
It tells a comforting story that isn’t supported by reality.
And when that happens, marketing loses the one thing it was trying to build: trust.
How to Use Confidence Signals in Practice
These signals are most useful when:
- Pipeline is soft, but signals are strong → stay the course
- Brand investment is under pressure → remind and show why visibility matters
- Attribution is unclear → highlight real account engagement and movement
- Planning season is here → show how these signals correlate to rising pipeline to confirm that they are a better focus than MQLs and pipe creator credit.
Marketing then signs up for the entire pipeline and closed-won target, right along with the sales org. So these metrics aren’t about shirking responsibility. They refocus marketing on efforts and indicators that matter more.
As Chad Sollis, CMO at AudioEye, once said when I asked about which metric to use to show the CEO that marketing is working instead of “marketing sourced” metrics:
“Easy. Revenue. If you doubt, turn off marketing and watch revenue.”
How Align BI Helps
At Align BI, we help marketing leaders shift away from narrow attribution models and toward confidence-driven planning.
Our Media Mix Modeling platform allows CMOs to simulate budget decisions, monitor leading indicators, and build alignment with sales and finance, without fighting over who gets credit.
When you stop chasing credit and start earning confidence, marketing becomes something much more powerful: A lever the whole business can trust.
Final Thought
Attribution and sourcing tell you where the lead came from.
Confidence signals tell you if your strategy is working.
If your team is tired of defending metrics no one believes in, maybe it’s time to measure something better.