Sourced vs. influenced pipeline
Sourced pipeline credits the origin of an opportunity to a single first cause; influenced pipeline credits every qualifying touch, so the two must never be summed.
Sourced is a single-assignment model and totals to 100% of pipeline. Influenced is a multi-assignment model and totals to well over 100% by design. Presenting them side by side without that distinction lets a demand-generation report overstate contribution without anyone misreading a single number.
Both are legitimate questions, what started this, and what helped, but they are governed differently. Sourced needs a precedence rule for ties; influenced needs a qualifying-touch definition and a lookback window. Neither is meaningful without its parameters stated.
Where it breaks
Influenced pipeline is reported as though it were sourced, and channel budgets are set from a number that double-counts.
Related terms
- Attribution
- Attribution is the rule set that assigns credit for revenue to prior touchpoints, a definitional choice, not a measurement you can discover.
- Metric definition
- A metric definition is the governed specification of a measure, its formula, source fields, filters, grain, owner and known limitations.
- Lead scoring
- Lead scoring is a model that ranks records by expected conversion, and it is only valid when it is calibrated against realized outcomes.
- Funnel conversion rate
- Funnel conversion rate is the proportion of records that transition from one governed stage to the next, measured on a consistent cohort basis.
Field notes on this
- You just inherited RevOps. Start with a charter.
Being told to "own revenue operations" is not a mandate. Until authority is written down, every decision you make is reversible by whoever objects loudest.
- Why four teams report four different revenue numbers
A reconciliation problem may be definitional, technical, or both. Test the metric contract before buying another data platform.