# Make The Number Marketing Model | Revenue-First Planning for Fractional CMOs | Crank

Source: https://wearecrank.com/make-the-number-marketing-model

The Make The Number Marketing Model: a revenue-first framework for fractional CMOs that reverse-engineers marketing plans from a defined pipeline target.

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Fractional

CMO

# Make The Number Marketing Model **Marketing That Starts With The Number.** 

A revenue-first framework that gives fractional CMOs a structured way to build marketing plans around a defined revenue target rather than a collection of tactics.

[Talk to WeareCrank ](/contact) 

![Marketing That Starts With The Number](/images/fcmo/make-the-number-marketing-model/01.png) 

On this pageContents 

1. [Marketing That Starts With The Number](#marketing-that-starts-with-the-number)
2. [What Is The Make The Number Marketing Model?](#what-is-the-make-the-number-marketing-model)
3. [From Revenue Target to Pipeline Requirement](#from-revenue-target-to-pipeline-requirement)
4. [Allocating Budget Across Channels to Hit the Number](#allocating-budget-across-channels-to-hit-the-number)
5. [Running The Model Inside a Fractional CMO Engagement](#running-the-model-inside-a-fractional-cmo-engagement)
6. [Aligning Marketing and Sales Around a Shared Number](#aligning-marketing-and-sales-around-a-shared-number)
7. [Build a Marketing Plan That Starts With the Number](#build-a-marketing-plan-that-starts-with-the-number)

TL;DR 

The Make The Number Marketing Model is a revenue-first framework that gives fractional CMOs a structured way to build marketing plans around a defined revenue target rather than a collection of tactics.

* Most marketing plans are built around tactics, not revenue outcomes — this is the core problem the model solves.
* The Make The Number Marketing Model works backwards from a specific revenue number to define what marketing must deliver.
* It gives fractional CMOs a repeatable operating framework rather than a blank-sheet starting point.
* The model connects marketing activity directly to pipeline and revenue, making accountability clearer.
* It replaces gut-feel planning with a structured, number-driven approach that boards and leadership teams can scrutinise.

## Marketing That Starts With The Number

Most marketing plans start in the wrong place.

A team sits down, lists the channels they want to run, builds out budgets, and estimates what results they might get. The revenue target — if it shows up at all — gets bolted on at the end. Not a starting point. An afterthought.

That produces activity. Rarely reliable revenue growth.

The problem is structural. When tactics come first, the plan is built around what the team wants to do rather than what the business needs to hit. Budget conversations turn into debates about channel preference. Reporting becomes a hunt for metrics that justify the spend. And when results disappoint — which they often do — it's genuinely hard to diagnose why, because the plan was never engineered around a specific outcome.

We see this constantly. Marketing teams aren't lazy or untalented. They're just working from a broken starting point.

The Make The Number Marketing Model flips this. One non-negotiable input: the number the business needs to hit. Channel mix, budget allocation, headcount, campaign cadence — all of it gets derived from that number. Marketing becomes an engineering problem with a defined output, not a creative exercise with loosely connected goals.

For fractional CMOs, this matters more than it does for a permanent hire.

A fractional CMO steps in without months of accumulated context. No time to spend Q1 finding your feet before committing to a direction. The model provides a structured starting point — a way to quickly assess what revenue the business needs, what marketing must contribute to pipeline, and what the current setup can realistically deliver.

It's not a planning template. It's a [fractional CMO operating system](/fractional-cmo-operating-system) — a method for running marketing as a revenue function rather than a support function. That distinction changes how decisions get made, how performance gets measured, and how marketing earns its seat in leadership conversations.

So what does starting with the number actually change? Most things.

* Channel choices get evaluated against their capacity to hit a specific pipeline target
* Budget goes to what moves the number, not what feels strategically interesting
* Reporting shifts from vanity metrics to the only question that actually matters: are we on track?

That's the foundation the model is built on.

## What Is The Make The Number Marketing Model?

![What Is The Make The Number Marketing Model?](/images/fcmo/make-the-number-marketing-model/02.png) 

The make the number marketing model is a planning method that works backwards from a defined revenue or pipeline target to determine exactly what marketing needs to produce. Instead of setting activity-based goals — campaign outputs, content volume, ad spend — you start with the number the business needs to hit and reverse-engineer everything from there.

Make The Number Marketing Model

The make the number marketing model is a structured planning framework that reverse-engineers marketing activity, budget, and channel mix from a fixed revenue or pipeline target.

The logic is straightforward. If the business needs £5m in new revenue and your average deal size is £50k, you need 100 closed deals. A 25% close rate means 400 qualified opportunities. If your SQL-to-opportunity rate is 50%, that's 800 SQLs. Work backwards far enough and you arrive at the precise volume each channel must generate — and whether your current mix can realistically deliver it.

Three inputs make this work:

* The revenue goal itself — a specific, agreed number tied to business performance, not a marketing aspiration
* Your conversion rate data at every funnel stage: lead to MQL, MQL to SQL, SQL to opportunity, opportunity to close
* Your channel mix, which determines how the required volume gets distributed across paid search, organic, outbound, events, and everything else in your programme

#### From Revenue Target To Marketing Plan

1. Set the revenue goal: agree the exact number the business needs marketing to support
2. Map your funnel conversion rates: document real rates at each stage from lead to close
3. Calculate the required pipeline volume: work backwards to determine how many leads, SQLs, and opportunities are needed
4. Audit your channel mix: assess which channels are generating pipeline and at what cost and volume
5. Identify gaps: compare what your current channels can produce against what the number requires
6. Build the plan: allocate budget, resource, and activity to close the gap between current output and the target

Most marketing plans start with tactics. Content calendars, campaign themes, channel budgets. This model starts with arithmetic.

That shift changes which channels you prioritise, how you allocate budget, what you measure, and how you justify spend to the board.

#### Arithmetic Before Activity

The make the number model forces marketing to prove, before any campaign launches, whether the plan is mathematically capable of hitting the revenue target — based on real conversion rates, not optimistic assumptions.

The model doesn't require perfect data to be useful. Even rough conversion rate estimates expose whether a plan is realistic. We see this constantly during audits — teams sitting on enough data to run the maths, but no one has actually run it.

And when the maths shows your current channels cannot produce the required pipeline volume at realistic conversion rates? That's a finding. A valuable one. It lets you make the case for additional investment, a revised target, or a different channel mix before the year starts — not six months in, when there's nothing left to do about it.

## From Revenue Target to Pipeline Requirement

![From Revenue Target to Pipeline Requirement](/images/fcmo/make-the-number-marketing-model/03.png) 

Most marketing plans start in the wrong place. Channels get picked, budgets get carved up, campaign briefs get written — and then someone eventually asks whether any of it actually adds up to the revenue number.

It usually doesn't.

The [make the number marketing model](/make-the-number-marketing-model) flips that sequence. Start with the target. Work backwards. Figure out exactly what pipeline needs to look like before a single brief gets written.

Four inputs drive the whole calculation: your revenue target, your average deal size, your win rate, and your sales cycle length. Get those four numbers right, and the rest is arithmetic.

#### From Revenue Target to Pipeline Requirement

1

#### Set the revenue target

Start with the closed-won revenue figure your business needs to hit over a defined period — typically a quarter or a full fiscal year. This number comes from finance or the board, not from marketing. It is the fixed point everything else is built around.

2

#### Calculate the deals required

Divide the revenue target by your average deal size. If your target is £1.2m and your average deal closes at £40k, you need 30 closed deals. This step forces honest conversations about whether your deal size assumptions reflect actual recent performance or aspirational thinking.

3

#### Apply your win rate

Divide the number of deals required by your win rate. If you close 25% of qualified opportunities, you need 120 opportunities to produce those 30 deals. Win rate should be calculated from opportunities that reached a defined pipeline stage — not all inbound leads.

4

#### Factor in sales cycle length

Work back from the revenue target date by the length of your average sales cycle. If deals take four months to close, opportunities needed to hit a December target must be in pipeline by August. This step determines when marketing needs to deliver pipeline, not just how much.

5

#### Set the pipeline coverage requirement

Multiply the number of qualified opportunities by average deal size to get your total pipeline coverage figure. This is the number marketing is accountable for building. Everything from channel selection to budget allocation should trace back to hitting it.

The calculation itself isn't complicated. The inputs are where things fall apart.

So where does it go wrong? Usually the same places, every time. Win rates get overstated because teams measure them at the wrong pipeline stage. Deal sizes get pulled from all-time averages instead of the last two or three quarters. Sales cycle lengths come from someone's best guess rather than the CRM.

We see this constantly during technical audits — a model that looks precise on a slide but is built on numbers nobody has actually verified.

Clean your data before you run this. Garbage inputs produce a pipeline target that feels rigorous but is essentially fiction.

#### SaaS business, £2m ARR target

A mid-market SaaS company sets a target of £2m in new ARR for the financial year. Their average new contract value is £50k. That means they need 40 closed deals.

Their CRM shows a consistent win rate of 20% from qualified opportunity stage. To close 40 deals, they need 200 qualified opportunities entering pipeline across the year.

At a £50k average deal size, that is £10m in pipeline coverage required — a 5x coverage ratio against target.

Their average sales cycle is five months. To close deals in Q4, pipeline must be built by the end of Q3 at the latest. That means marketing's pipeline contribution schedule is weighted towards Q1 and Q2, not spread evenly across the year.

With this model in place, the marketing team can work backwards from £10m in pipeline to determine how many MQLs, SQLs, and sourced opportunities they need to generate — and in what timeframe.

Once the calculation is done, you have an actual marketing objective. One that connects directly to a business outcome. Not impressions. Not click-through rates in isolation. Pipeline coverage — at the right volume, at the right time, from the right segments.

Turn your revenue target into a pipeline requirement with our step-by-step calculator.

[Use the calculator](/make-the-number-marketing-model/revenue-to-pipeline-calculator) 

The model also forces a conversation most teams avoid. What proportion of pipeline should marketing source versus sales? There's no universal answer — but making that split explicit, and holding both functions to their respective numbers, removes the ambiguity that quietly undermines every pipeline review.

When marketing knows its number and sales knows its number, performance conversations get a lot more straightforward.

## Allocating Budget Across Channels to Hit the Number

Once you know your pipeline requirement — the total value of opportunities marketing needs to generate — the next question is where that pipeline actually comes from.

Most teams answer this by looking at last year's budget and nudging the numbers up or down. That's the wrong starting point.

Channel selection should flow directly from your pipeline math. Not from habit. Not from what's familiar. The real question isn't "how much did we spend on paid search last year?" It's "which channels can realistically generate the volume and quality of pipeline we need, at a cost we can justify?"

**Start with channel conversion rates, not channel familiarity**

Every channel converts differently at every funnel stage. A webinar lead converts to a sales opportunity at a completely different rate than a paid social lead or an organic search lead. Ignore those differences and you'll almost certainly over-invest in channels that look busy but produce little qualified pipeline — while starving the ones that actually work.

Before allocating a single pound or dollar, map conversion rates for each channel you're considering.

* First touch to MQL
* MQL to sales accepted opportunity
* Opportunity to closed revenue

Those numbers tell you how much top-of-funnel volume each channel needs to generate to deliver what you need at the bottom. Skip that step and you're guessing.

#### Channel Allocation From Pipeline Requirement

1. Define the total pipeline value required from the previous revenue-to-pipeline calculation
2. List active and potential channels with their historical conversion rates by funnel stage
3. Calculate the top-of-funnel volume each channel must generate to hit its pipeline contribution target
4. Estimate the cost per lead and cost per opportunity for each channel
5. Assign budget to channels based on their ability to deliver pipeline at an acceptable cost, prioritising highest conversion rates
6. Set aside a portion of budget for testing channels with limited but promising historical data

**The most common budget allocation mistakes**

Two mistakes come up consistently when we audit how marketing teams have distributed their budgets.

The first is spreading too thin. Teams running activity across eight or ten channels at once rarely get meaningful results from any of them. Each channel needs enough investment to reach the volume thresholds that produce reliable pipeline data. A campaign running on a few hundred pounds a month tells you almost nothing and delivers almost nothing.

Three or four channels, done properly, will outperform a fragmented approach every time.

The second mistake is ignoring conversion rate differences. A channel generating high lead volume at low cost per lead looks great on a dashboard. But if those leads convert to opportunities at a fraction of the rate of another channel, the cost per opportunity — the metric that actually matters — can be far higher. We see this constantly during budget reviews: teams funding the wrong channels because they're optimising for cost per lead instead of cost per pipeline.

#### Pros

* Allocating from pipeline requirement ensures every pound of budget has a defined role in hitting the revenue target
* Prioritising by conversion rate reduces wasted spend on high-volume, low-quality lead sources
* Channel concentration allows for proper testing, optimisation, and scale rather than fragmented activity

#### Cons

* Requires reliable historical conversion rate data by channel, which many teams do not have cleanly recorded
* Concentrating budget on fewer channels increases risk if one channel underperforms or changes suddenly
* Channel performance data from previous periods may not reflect current market conditions or audience behaviour

**What good allocation looks like in practice**

A team working from a defined pipeline requirement will typically identify two or three channels with strong conversion data and put the majority of budget there. They set explicit pipeline contribution targets for each channel — not just lead volume targets — and review performance against those on a regular cycle.

When a channel isn't producing pipeline at the expected rate, the budget moves. It doesn't get defended.

That's a fundamentally different operating model from one built around protecting historical spend. It requires marketing leadership to be comfortable with mid-year reallocation. It requires finance to understand that budget flexibility isn't a problem — it's part of how the model works. Most teams aren't built this way. They probably should be.

Up to 80% of marketing budgets

Research consistently suggests that the majority of B2B marketing spend is concentrated in a small number of channels, yet most teams still distribute budget across a wider mix than their pipeline data supports, diluting effectiveness.

Source: Gartner CMO Spend Survey

If you're working through how to model different budget scenarios against varying pipeline targets, do that before you finalise your channel mix. Run a conservative case, a base case, and a stretch case. Each one shows you clearly what you're committing to and where the risks sit. We cover the mechanics in our [budget scenario planning guide](/make-the-number-marketing-model/budget-scenario-planning).

The core principle is simple: budget follows the math. Channel selection isn't a brand preference or a creative call. It's a pipeline delivery decision — and it should be made with the same rigour as any other commercial commitment.

## Running The Model Inside a Fractional CMO Engagement

The make the number model is a framework. A fractional CMO is the person who makes it work inside an actual business. Without that operational layer — someone who owns the number, runs the cadence, and holds the function accountable — the model stays theoretical.

Here's how a fractional CMO deploys it across three recurring moments: onboarding, quarterly planning, and monthly reviews.

### Onboarding: Setting the Baseline

The first job at onboarding is not to launch campaigns.

It's to establish what the number actually is — and whether the current marketing function has any realistic path to hitting it. That means pulling the revenue target from the business plan, working back through conversion rates at each pipeline stage, and calculating the volume of leads, MQLs, and opportunities required. Most clients arrive with a revenue goal but no documented logic connecting that goal to marketing activity. The onboarding process builds that logic from scratch.

At the same time, the fractional CMO audits the existing channel mix. What's running, what it costs, what it actually produces. This is not a brand audit or a creative review. It's a pipeline audit.

Which channels are generating qualified pipeline? Which are absorbing budget without contributing to the number? The output is a clear gap analysis: what current activity will produce versus what the revenue target requires.

#### How a Fractional CMO Deploys the Model

Onboarding

#### Establish the Number and Audit the Gap

Define the revenue target, reverse-engineer pipeline requirements, and audit existing channel performance to identify the gap between current output and what is needed.

Month 1

#### Build the Marketing Operating System

Set up tracking, reporting, and attribution infrastructure. Agree on definitions — what counts as an MQL, an SQL, a pipeline-stage opportunity — so the whole team measures the same things.

Quarterly Planning

#### Allocate Budget Against the Number

Assign spend across channels based on their expected contribution to pipeline. Set channel-level targets for volume and cost per acquisition. Prioritise the channels with the clearest path to the number.

Monthly Review

#### Measure Progress and Adjust

Review actuals against pipeline targets, not just traffic or impressions. Identify which channels are on track, which are underperforming, and where budget or effort needs to shift.

End of Quarter

#### Reforecast and Reset

Use monthly review data to reforecast the following quarter. If close rates have changed or a channel has outperformed, adjust the model before locking next quarter's budget.

### Quarterly Planning: Budget Allocated to Pipeline

Once the baseline exists, quarterly planning stops being a wish list.

It becomes a structured allocation exercise. The fractional CMO takes the pipeline requirement for the quarter — derived from the revenue target and the conversion rates established at onboarding — and works out how each channel will contribute. This is where the budget allocation work covered earlier in this guide becomes operational.

Each channel gets a target: a volume of leads or opportunities, at a cost-per-acquisition the model says is viable. Channels that can't justify their allocation get cut or reduced. Channels with room to scale get more resource.

The quarterly plan is not a creative brief. It's a resourcing document with numbers attached to every line — and it sets the benchmarks that make the monthly review meaningful.

#### Quarterly Planning in Practice

A B2B SaaS client needs 45 sales-qualified opportunities in Q3 to hit their revenue target. The fractional CMO's model shows that paid search historically converts at 12% from lead to SQL, while content-driven organic converts at 6%. Budget is allocated to reflect those rates — more to paid search where conversion is stronger, with content investment focused on building pipeline for Q4 and beyond. Each channel has a lead volume target and a cost-per-SQL cap. If paid search hits its target mid-quarter, budget is not reallocated arbitrarily — the model determines whether there is capacity to absorb additional spend at the same conversion rate.

### Monthly Reviews: Measuring What Moves the Number

This is where discipline either holds or breaks down.

In most marketing functions, monthly reporting covers traffic, social metrics, and campaign performance. In a make the number engagement, the review starts with one question: are we on track to hit the pipeline target for this quarter?

The primary reporting layer is pipeline data — leads generated, MQL-to-SQL conversion rate, opportunities created, cost per opportunity by channel. Vanity metrics don't disappear. They sit below the pipeline data and help explain pipeline performance. They don't replace it.

Where pipeline is behind, the fractional CMO uses the monthly review to diagnose why and make a call.

* Adjust the channel mix
* Address a conversion rate problem
* Or — if the gap is structural — reforecast the quarter and update the model

Where pipeline is ahead, the review confirms whether the conversion rate assumptions still hold, or whether close rates are drifting in a way that will affect the revenue outcome.

This cadence — onboarding, quarterly planning, monthly review — is the operating rhythm that runs inside a [fractional CMO engagement](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding). It's also what separates a fractional CMO from a retained consultant who produces reports. The model requires someone who owns the output, runs the cadence, and makes decisions between reviews when the data demands it.

> The cadence is where most fractional CMO engagements either prove their value or fail to. Running quarterly planning and monthly reviews against a documented pipeline model means every conversation is anchored to the number — not to opinions about creative or channel preference. That is what makes the function accountable.

### The Operating System Behind the Model

The make the number model doesn't run in isolation. It sits inside a broader [fractional CMO command centre](/fractional-cmo-command-centre) — the reporting infrastructure, the meeting rhythm, the decision-making framework that keeps the engagement coherent as the business changes.

The model sets the targets. The operating system keeps the team aligned to them week by week.

Together, they give marketing a clear mandate: generate the pipeline the revenue target requires, at the unit economics the business can sustain.

## Aligning Marketing and Sales Around a Shared Number

The make the number model only works when marketing and sales are operating from the same assumptions. That sounds obvious. In practice, it almost never happens.

Most organisations have two separate versions of reality running in parallel. Different definitions of what a good lead looks like. Different views on pipeline health. Different ideas about what marketing is actually responsible for delivering. And both teams have data to back themselves up.

A fractional CMO stepping into an engagement hits this misalignment fast. Sales says marketing sends bad leads. Marketing says sales doesn't follow up. The model breaks that cycle by establishing one agreed revenue target, one pipeline requirement built from shared inputs, and one set of definitions both teams commit to before a single pound of budget is allocated.

> When marketing and sales argue about lead quality, they are usually arguing about definitions — not performance.

### The Most Common Misalignment Patterns

We see the same patterns come up across audits and engagements. Different businesses, same problems.

**Differing lead definitions.** Marketing counts a lead as anyone who fills out a form. Sales counts a lead as someone ready to buy next quarter. Neither is exactly wrong — but when the definitions don't match, the numbers each team reports will never reconcile. Marketing reports strong lead volume. Sales reports a dry pipeline. Both are telling the truth from where they're sitting.

**Conflicting pipeline assumptions.** The conversion rates that feed a pipeline model need to come from actual historical data both teams agree on. When sales uses its own close rate figures and marketing works from something different, the maths diverges.

One team thinks the pipeline is healthy. The other knows it isn't.

**Attribution disagreements.** Deal closes. Marketing points to the campaign that generated the original enquiry. Sales points to the relationship that closed it. Without an agreed attribution model, neither team trusts the other's data — and the numbers you need to improve performance become unreliable.

**Disconnected planning cycles.** Marketing plans in campaigns. Sales plans in quarters. When those cycles don't line up, marketing is often optimising for metrics that don't map to the periods when sales actually needs pipeline.

### Creating a Single Source of Truth

The make the number model resolves this by making the revenue target the starting point for everything. Once the target is fixed, the pipeline requirement, lead volume, and channel allocation all flow from shared inputs. There is no separate marketing plan and sales plan. One number. One model. One view of how each function contributes to hitting it.

That requires a deliberate alignment conversation before any strategy work begins. A fractional CMO's first job isn't to audit the website or review the campaign calendar. It's to get marketing and sales leadership working from the same data and agreeing on the definitions that will underpin the model.

#### Alignment Conversation Checklist for Fractional CMOs

* Confirm the revenue target for the period and who owns it
* Agree on the definition of a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
* Pull actual historical conversion rates from MQL to SQL, SQL to opportunity, and opportunity to closed-won
* Agree on average deal size — segment by product line or customer type if there is significant variance
* Confirm the average sales cycle length and how it affects pipeline timing
* Establish which attribution model will be used (first touch, last touch, or multi-touch) and where it lives in the CRM
* Agree on how pipeline coverage will be reported and at what frequency
* Identify any existing lead sources that sales considers unworkable, and find out why
* Confirm which team owns the handoff process between MQL and SQL, and what SLAs apply
* Set a shared dashboard or reporting view that both teams will use going forward

Working through this before the model is built prevents the most common failure mode. Weeks spent on strategy, only to find marketing and sales were solving for different targets the entire time.

### The Trade-Offs of Shared Accountability

Running both functions from a shared number creates real clarity. It also changes how each team operates. Worth being direct about that.

#### Pros

* Eliminates the blame cycle — when both teams own the same number, disputes about lead quality become conversations about shared inputs rather than finger-pointing
* Makes budget decisions easier to defend — every channel allocation is tied to a pipeline requirement both teams have agreed to
* Gives the fractional CMO a clear basis for prioritisation — activity that doesn't contribute to the number gets deprioritised
* Creates a feedback loop between sales and marketing — real conversion data flows back into the model and improves accuracy over time

#### Cons

* Requires sales leadership to engage with the planning process, not just receive leads — some sales leaders resist this
* Historical conversion data is often incomplete or inconsistent, which means the first version of the model relies on estimates that need to be refined
* Shared accountability can create tension when results are missed — agreeing on the number upfront means there is nowhere to hide, which not every organisation is culturally ready for
* Maintaining a single source of truth requires CRM discipline that many early-stage businesses haven't yet built

None of those cons make the model unworkable. They're practical realities to navigate. Usually by setting expectations clearly at the start and building the data infrastructure incrementally where it's missing.

### What Alignment Actually Looks Like in Practice

When the alignment conversation goes well, something concrete shifts. Instead of marketing reporting impressions and sales reporting pipeline in separate meetings, both teams are looking at the same funnel, measured at the same stages, against the same targets.

The conversation changes.

It stops being "what did marketing produce this month?" and becomes "where are we against the number, and what does the model tell us to do next?" That's the point. The make the number model isn't a planning exercise that lives in a deck and gets dusted off quarterly. It's a live tool that marketing and sales use together to make decisions on budget, activity, and focus throughout the period.

Alignment isn't a one-time event. It's the ongoing condition the model is built to maintain.

## Build a Marketing Plan That Starts With the Number

Most marketing plans are built backwards. Teams set budgets, plan campaigns, pick channels — and then hope it all adds up to something meaningful for revenue.

It rarely does.

The make the number model flips that. You start with the revenue target, work backwards to define the pipeline you need, and then allocate budget and resource to hit that requirement — with enough channel coverage to make it reliable.

Throughout this guide, we've covered how to translate a revenue target into a pipeline number, how to allocate budget based on actual contribution capacity rather than habit, and how to run the model inside a fractional CMO engagement where speed matters. We've also covered why aligning marketing and sales around a single shared number removes the ambiguity that causes both functions to underperform.

The model itself isn't complicated.

What makes it hard is discipline. Holding the number constant. Letting it drive every decision — on spend, on channel mix, on headcount, on timing. Most marketing teams don't have the structure or external pressure to maintain that discipline quarter after quarter. That's the gap where this approach makes a practical difference.

So here's the honest question worth asking: does your current plan give you a clear line of sight from budget to pipeline to closed revenue?

If it doesn't, you now have the framework to build it properly.

### Deploy the Make The Number Model With Crank

Work with our team to build a revenue-first marketing plan inside your next engagement. Start with the number.

[Talk to Crank](/contact) 

You might also find helpful

[ The Fractional CMO Operating System How fractional CMOs structure engagements, decisions, and reporting into a repeatable operating system. ](/fractional-cmo-operating-system) [ What Does a Fractional CMO Actually Do? A practical breakdown of the fractional CMO role, responsibilities, and how engagements run day to day. ](/what-does-a-fractional-cmo-do) [ How to Build a Marketing Plan That Drives Revenue A step-by-step guide to building marketing plans that connect directly to pipeline and revenue outcomes. ](/marketing-plan-that-drives-revenue) [ Fractional CMO vs Full-Time CMO: Which Is Right for You? Compare the two models on cost, speed, accountability, and fit for different business stages. ](/fractional-cmo-vs-full-time-cmo) 

Who this guide is for

## Written in B2B language. The maths works for B2C too.

Every example on this page uses deals, win rate, opportunities, and sales cycle — a B2B / SaaS funnel. The model itself is just reverse-engineering from a revenue target. For a store that is AOV and conversion rate, use the ecommerce calculator.

[Open the B2C calculator](/revenue-to-pipeline-calculator?mode=b2c)[Open the B2B calculator](/revenue-to-pipeline-calculator)

Crank Engine

## See this in a live dashboard

Clients get our reporting platform as standard — campaign performance, pipeline, and attribution, updated automatically. Open a sample B2B account before you talk to us.

[See the live demo](/live-demo?example=b2b)

[Back to Fractional CMO hub](/fractional-cmo)

## In this section

[Revenue-to-Pipeline CalculatorInteractive tool: back-solve revenue into deals, opportunities, and MQLs.](/revenue-to-pipeline-calculator)[How the calculator worksThe logic, inputs, and failure modes behind a revenue-to-pipeline model.](/make-the-number-marketing-model/revenue-to-pipeline-calculator)[Budget & Scenario PlanningTranslate growth assumptions into investment envelopes and scenarios.](/make-the-number-marketing-model/budget-scenario-planning)

## More on Fractional CMO hub

[What Is a Fractional CMOThe complete buyer guide to the fractional CMO model.](/what-is-a-fractional-cmo)[Fractional CMO Operating SystemOne coherent model for strategy, decisions, delivery, and evidence.](/fractional-cmo-operating-system)[Fractional CMO FieldcraftTacit portfolio-CMO operating knowledge made explicit.](/fractional-cmo-fieldcraft)[The CMO Command CentreA decision system and cross-client executive control plane.](/fractional-cmo-command-centre)[Client OnboardingA repeatable way to enter a new account and establish control.](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding)[Scale a Fractional CMO PracticeIncrease leverage without becoming the delivery bottleneck.](/scale-fractional-cmo-practice)[Practice InfrastructureOperational hygiene that protects scope, continuity, and client control.](/fractional-cmo-practice-infrastructure)[Growth Squad PodOptional execution layer under the fCMO when capacity is the constraint.](/growth-squad-pod)[Partner Case StudiesDelivery evidence that reduces partner-selection and reputation risk.](/fractional-cmo-partner-case-studies)