Marketing Isn't One Funnel. It's Three.

The biggest lesson I learned helping scale Passport from a relatively unknown startup to a successful $425M acquisition.

If you've spent any time leading marketing at a startup, you've probably heard some version of this question:

"So, how many qualified leads did marketing generate this quarter?"

It's a completely fair question. In fact, it's one I monitor closely on a daily basis.

But over the last few years, I've realized it's also one of the most limiting ways to measure marketing.

Not because sourced leads and pipeline doesn't matter—it absolutely does. Every marketing leader should know exactly how many conversations and how much pipeline their team is creating.

The problem is when that's all you measure.

At Passport, we spent the last three years rebuilding the company from the ground up. We repositioned the business, rebranded the company, expanded into Enterprise, launched new products, invested heavily in content, digital, events, partnerships, customer marketing, and thought leadership, and built a modern go-to-market engine that looked very different from the startup we first joined.

By the time Passport entered into an agreement to be acquired by Global-e for $425 million, one thing had become really clear to me:

Marketing wasn't creating value in one funnel.

It was creating value in three completely different ways.

And once we started measuring all three, we started making much better decisions.

Funnel #1: The One Everyone Measures

Let's start with the obvious one.

Marketing should absolutely be accountable for driving leads and creating pipeline.

During the first half of 2026, our team generated more than $9.1M in marketing-sourced pipeline and $2.64M in marketing-sourced bookings. Those are real dollars that originated directly from marketing programs, and they're some of the most important numbers we review every week.

If your marketing team can't answer those questions, that's a problem.

But I don't think that's where the conversation should stop. Because some of marketing's biggest wins never show up as "Marketing Sourced" at all.

Funnel #2: The Pipeline Marketing Helps Close

One of the biggest shifts we made was moving beyond attribution and starting to think about influence.

Think about all the moments where marketing makes a deal easier to win.

A prospect sees your CEO on LinkedIn six months before they ever book a meeting.

A BDR shares a customer story that marketing published.

A buyer attends a webinar, visits your booth at an event, downloads a report, then finally converts after talking with Sales.

Who gets credit for that?

Technically...probably not Marketing.

But did Marketing help create that opportunity? Absolutely.

That's why we started tracking influenced pipeline and influenced bookings alongside sourced pipeline.

During H1 2026 alone, one channel in our digital program influenced more than $17M in pipeline* and $5.12M in bookings*, while our events program influenced another $2M+ in closed-won revenue.

*Data shown is conservative as it's for only one channel, LinkedIn. Does not capture full influence scope of all Passport digital channels.

Marketing didn't have the last touch on those opportunities to take attribution credit for them, but they almost certainly closed faster—or closed at all—because Marketing was part of the journey.

That changed how we viewed ROI and how we tell the story of marketing's full impact.

Funnel #3: The One Salesforce Can't Measure

This is the fun one...

And honestly, I think it's the one startups undervalue the most. Because this is where brand lives.

Brand isn't just impressions or fancy creative.

It's what happens when your BDR or AE gets a reply because someone has actually heard of your company.

It's when a partner says yes because they've been seeing your content for months.

It's when more candidates want to work for you.

It's when outbound feels just a little bit easier because trust already exists before the first conversation.

Good luck finding that in a Salesforce report. And yet, those moments compound over time.

In my opinion, this is where the most innovative and forward-thinking startups separate themselves from everyone else. They're not just generating demand. They're making every other part of the business more effective.

I truly don't think Global-e would have entered into a $425M deal with Passport if we were the relatively unknown brand it was three years ago. Investments in the more modern look of the company's branding and website, along with thoughtful investments in brand awareness marketing, helped to not only put Passport on the map, but made us into the fast-growing challenger brand that the incumbent, Global-e, couldn't ignore any longer.

So, the biggest lesson I've taken away from the last few years is this:

Marketing's job isn't simply to generate leads. It's to create momentum.

Some of that momentum shows up as sourced pipeline. Some of it shows up as influenced revenue. Some of it shows up as a stronger, trusted brand that makes Sales, Partnerships, HR, and Customer Success all a little bit better.

If you're only measuring one of those, you're probably undervaluing the biggest investment your marketing team is—or should be—making.

Because marketing isn't one funnel. It's actually three, all working together to grab attention, influence, and convert.