The CRM was full of leads that never became pipeline.
A B2B SaaS company was optimising to form-fills, and roughly 80% of those leads never became opportunities. Beeyacorp imported CRM stages back to Google Ads as offline conversions and retargeted bidding toward qualified pipeline. Lead volume fell 24% while sales-qualified leads rose 64% and pipeline per pound of spend more than doubled.
A B2B SaaS company was optimising to form-fills, and roughly 80% of those leads never became opportunities. Beeyacorp imported CRM stages back to Google Ads as offline conversions and retargeted bidding toward qualified pipeline. Lead volume fell 24% while sales-qualified leads rose 64% and pipeline per pound of spend more than doubled.
Lead targets were hit, and sales still didn’t trust a single one
Marketing was hitting its lead targets, but sales had stopped trusting the numbers. The ad platforms were optimising to form-fills, so the CRM filled with MQLs that rarely progressed. Volume looked healthy while pipeline stayed flat, and the gap was straining the relationship between the two teams.
Objectives
- Optimise toward pipeline and revenue. Move acquisition away from raw lead volume as the target.
- Teach the ad platforms what a qualified opportunity looks like. Give bidding a real signal instead of a form-fill count.
- Rebuild sales’ trust in marketing-sourced leads. Close the gap that was straining the relationship between the two teams.
- Improve pipeline generated per pound of ad spend. Make budget accountable to a number that actually matters.
What the account told us
A full audit kicked things off, as it does on every engagement. Each finding below is evidenced from the account itself.
| Area | Finding |
|---|---|
| Analytics | Bidding optimised to form-fills, with no feedback loop from the CRM to distinguish good leads from bad. |
| Attribution | Last-click attribution obscured which campaigns actually created qualified pipeline. |
| Paid Media | Budget followed lead volume, so campaigns producing many low-quality leads were rewarded. |
| Tracking | No offline conversion import, so real sales outcomes never reached the ad platforms. |
Optimising to form-fills told the algorithm to find more form-fillers, not more customers, and without offline conversion feedback the platforms had no way to learn which leads became pipeline. Last-click attribution hid the true source of qualified opportunities on top of it.
The way we approached it
Change the signal the platforms optimise toward. We connected the CRM, imported qualified-stage conversions back to Google Ads as offline conversions, and retargeted bidding to pipeline rather than form-fills, so the algorithm learned to find opportunities instead of leads.
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What we did
- Connected the CRM to the ad platforms. Enabled closed-loop reporting between sales and marketing.
- Imported CRM stages as offline conversions. Fed qualified-stage outcomes back to Google Ads.
- Retargeted bidding toward qualified pipeline. Moved the optimisation signal away from form-fills.
- Rebuilt reporting around SQLs and pipeline value. Gave both teams a shared, trustworthy view by campaign.
How it was sequenced
| Phase | Timeframe | What Happened |
|---|---|---|
| Audit | Days 1–10 | Attribution and CRM-feedback gap analysis |
| Connect | Weeks 2–4 | Offline conversion import and CRM integration |
| Optimise | Weeks 4–8 | Bidding retargeted to qualified pipeline |
| Scale | Month 3+ | Budget shifted to pipeline-producing campaigns |
Cutting lead volume while pipeline more than doubled
Every figure here traces back to the account itself, documented across the engagement.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Lead volume | Baseline | -24% |
| Sales-qualified leads | Baseline | +64% |
| Pipeline per pound | Baseline | 2.2x |
| Optimisation signal | Form-fills | Qualified pipeline |
| Sales trust in leads | Low | Restored |
Fewer, better leads beat more, worse ones: cutting lead volume 24% while lifting SQLs 64% shows the metric you optimise toward is the strategy. Offline conversion feedback is what teaches ad platforms to find customers rather than form-fillers, and that attribution honesty is what repaired the sales-marketing relationship, because both teams finally saw the same truth. More on our SaaS marketing page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Because the ad platforms were optimising to form-fills, so they found more people who fill in forms, not more people who buy. Around 80% of those leads never became opportunities, which is why volume rose while pipeline stayed flat.
They're sales outcomes from the CRM, such as a lead reaching the qualified or opportunity stage, imported back into the ad platform. This teaches bidding what a genuine opportunity looks like, rather than optimising to a form submission.
Because SaaS deals span dozens of touchpoints over months. Last-click credits only the final interaction and gives none to the content and campaigns that created the demand earlier, so those demand-creating channels get defunded and pipeline dries up a quarter later.
Because the 24% removed were mostly leads that never converted. Sales-qualified leads rose 64% and pipeline per pound more than doubled, so the account traded low-quality volume for genuine opportunities, which is what the business actually sells.
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