DATA-DRIVEN LEADS
optimizing the sales funnel, and driv- ing customer retention and growth. Here’s a look at the competing priorities CROs must handle and how they’re doing it all.
Data-Driven Insights Lead You to Sales
ARJUN PILLAI
Today, the role of chief revenue officer (CRO) is the 23rd
fastest-growing job in the United
States. This stands to reason, as skilled CROs can make incredible changes in their organizations and transform revenue operations. A McKinsey & Company analysis shows that Fortune 100 companies with a CRO-like role show 1.8 times higher revenue growth than their peers. This number will only grow as the CRO function continues to be better understood, defined, and supported.
With this positive traction in mind, the question becomes: How can CROs achieve maximum impact? To do so, they must strike a delicate balance
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between traditional approaches and modern, data-driven strategies. This is especially important when manag- ing marketing and sales investments,
LEANING INTO EFFICIENCY CROs are relied upon to boost ef- ficiency, which they can do in a variety of ways. For example, achieving ac- curacy in revenue attribution has been shown to improve budget allocation and strategic planning efficiency by up to 15%. By having a firm handle on their organization’s numbers and data, they can garner similar results across the entire company. CROs are also being tasked with making marketing more efficient. In- stead of putting budget behind experi- mental spending (e.g., a new or differ- ent marketing channel), they’re leaning toward campaigns and channels proven to be reliably high performing. Often, this means they must make
hard decisions to maximize efficiency. Either they reduce their marketing investments (meaning revenue will decrease in the future) or they reduce their investment in sales (and revenue will decrease today). Revenue leaders are trying to balance this by analyz- ing the data, determining where the money comes from, and allocating budget accordingly.
RETHINKING THE SALES FUNNEL
The next big area of focus for CROs is the top of the funnel, which is now a completely different ballgame after the end of the ZIRP era in 2021-2022. Strategies that used to work at this stage are no longer working, espe- cially for sales development represen- tatives (SDRs). In 2024, 67% of sales reps didn’t expect to meet their quota – and 84% said they missed it in 2023. Therefore, many of the changes that CROs are making involve finding a replacement channel for the top of the funnel. This might involve a combina- tion of marketing, layering on more techniques, bringing in more tools, trying more sophisticated approaches,
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