Many organizations taking their first real step into a formal marketing program aren’t sure what to expect, especially when it comes to leads and ROI. Recently, two different CEOs told us they expected an 8x return on marketing investment in year one.
It’s a fair question. It’s just often an unrealistic one.
Most companies we work with already have a sales function, so expectations for lead generation are usually shaped by what sales is seeing today. That’s helpful, but it only tells part of the story. If you’re trying to estimate how many leads marketing will generate, and when, you need to zoom out and look at the full buying journey.
Here’s a practical way to do that.
Start with what you know: sales-to-deal time
Even if you haven’t been rigorously tracking lead-to-deal metrics, you probably have a solid sense of how long it takes to go from first sales conversation to a signed deal.
At this stage, buyers have already done a significant amount of research. They’re asking more specific questions, evaluating fit, and often requesting demos or proposals. For simplicity, we treat this as one stage in the funnel and refer to it as S: sales time.
This is the final stage of the marketing–sales funnel. Now let’s move up-funnel.
How long is the buyer’s research period?
Over the past decade, buyer behaviour has shifted dramatically. In most B2B industries, buyers now visit a company’s website multiple times and consume significant content before they’re open to speaking with sales.
Buyers are firmly in control, which means marketing has a critical job: making sure buyers find you during their research and have access to the information they need to make a confident decision.
For our formula, we call this stage R: research time.
How long is it? That depends on your industry, deal size, and complexity. If you don’t have clean tracking in place, a surprisingly effective starting point is simply asking new leads or recently closed clients how long they spent researching before reaching out.
Accounting for buyer readiness (the part most people miss)
One of the biggest mistakes companies make is assuming everyone in their market is ready to buy right now.
In reality, only a small percentage are. Research consistently shows that:
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A small fraction of buyers are actively purchasing
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A much larger group is researching or preparing
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The majority are not ready yet
Marketing has to serve all three groups.
For buyers who are actively researching, marketing’s job is discovery and validation. For everyone else, marketing needs to nurture interest, build credibility, and stay relevant until the timing is right.
This is where patience, and consistency, matter.
We refer to this stage as Q: the quiet period.
Q is the time it takes for your marketing efforts, content, ads, email, social, search, to warm up an audience and move them closer to active research. Different tactics have different timelines and returns, which is why smart marketing spreads effort across multiple channels and optimizes over time.
This is also why reporting matters. You should expect clear visibility into what’s working, what’s not, and how performance is trending, even before leads spike.
A simple formula to estimate time to revenue
Once you’ve estimated Q, R, and S, you can calculate T: total time through the funnel.
Q + R + S = T
Quiet phase + research phase + sales phase = total time to conversion
Example
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Q: Based on past experience, buyers who aren’t ready today typically purchase within the next three years.
Q = 3 years -
R: Buyers actively research options for about four months before contacting sales.
R = 4 months -
S: Sales takes an average of two months to close.
S = 2 months
3 years + 4 months + 2 months = approximately 3.5 years
In this scenario, a brand-new lead entering the funnel today may not convert for several years. However, buyers who find you while already in the research phase could convert in as little as six months.
And if you need foundational assets, such as a new website, messaging, or sales collateral, before launching marketing, you’ll want to account for that time as well.
Why this still makes sense
If you’re on the fence about investing in marketing, these three data points help explain why long-term thinking pays off:
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95% of buyers choose a vendor that provides content to help them navigate each stage of the buying process.
— Demand Gen Report -
Companies with aligned sales and marketing teams close deals significantly more effectively.
— Industry research consistently supports this -
Nurtured leads generate more sales opportunities than non-nurtured leads.
— Demand Gen Report
Wanting immediate ROI from marketing is understandable. But when you map your funnel honestly, it becomes clear what’s realistic and what isn’t.
The companies that win aren’t the ones chasing quick spikes. They’re the ones that invest early, build momentum, and stay visible long before buyers are ready to raise their hand.
And when the leads come, they’re better informed, better qualified, and far more likely to close.
