Marketo President and CEO Phil Fernandez present key findings from the company’s recent Benchmark on Revenue Performance Management (RPM). More than 400 companies participated in the global study that proves the more a company matures through marketing automation to a true Revenue Performance Management strategy, the better its revenue achievement.

"Companies that embrace the reality of the revenue cycle and commit to a RPM strategy will capitalize on the changes happening in today’s marketplace and grow like wildfire," said Fernandez.

The key findings of the report, released today, include:

• Companies that are more mature at RPM generate more pipeline from their marketing efforts, enabling sales teams to spend less time prospecting and more time selling – to hot leads.
  
  
•  Marketing generates 55% of pipeline at RPM companies, compared to only 38% of pipeline for average companies, and only 18% at companies with the least mature processes.
  
  
•  When marketing takes a larger share of responsibility for pipeline generation, using lead nurturing and lead scoring to help sales focus on the hottest leads and opportunities, it frees the sales team to focus their time on direct selling. As a result, sales reps at leading RPM companies spend 69% of their time selling, compared to 57% for average companies and 46% for the least mature companies.
  
  
•  Companies that excel at RPM achieve 101% of their target revenue plans, while average companies achieve only 77% and the least mature companies achieve only 54%.
  
  
• The Marketo Benchmark on Revenue Performance Management examined revenue performance maturity and performance metrics for each company across three categories: growing number and quality of leads and opportunities, improving sales effectiveness and optimizing sales and marketing ROI (return on investment).

Companies were then grouped into four levels of revenue performance maturity: Traditional Marketing, Demand Generation, Integrated Pipeline and Revenue Performance Management.
The study provides benchmarks for each maturity level to quantify the impact of improving revenue marketing and sales practices. The study data reveals difference by industry, as well as between companies with or without marketing automation.