Should Customer Advocacy Sit Under Marketing, Sales, or CS?
The strongest programs treat advocacy as a cross-functional growth motion with shared goals—anchored in customer outcomes, fueled by marketing distribution, and activated by sales. Here’s how to structure it for scale.
Put program ownership in Marketing (Customer/Advocacy Marketing) for scale and distribution, with embedded CS partners for outcome signals and dotted-line alignment to Sales for references and pipeline impact. Govern it through a revenue council that sets shared KPIs (review rate, reference capacity, referral pipeline, win-rate lift) and funds plays that convert outcomes into proof.
Trade-offs by Org Home
The Advocacy Operating Model
Use this sequence to align teams, protect customers, and convert outcomes into scalable proof and pipeline.
Define → Instrument → Orchestrate → Prove → Ask → Route → Amplify → Govern
- Define ownership & SLAs: Advocacy Marketing leads; CS controls eligibility; Sales requests references; clear response times and caps.
- Instrument signals: Activation, TTV, NPS/CSAT, support health unified in CRM/MAP with persona & industry tags.
- Orchestrate moments: Trigger asks after milestones; rotate review/reference/referral types; suppress during risk events.
- Prove value: ROI snapshots & outcome recaps; secure logo/quote permissions.
- Ask with precision: In-app, email, and CSM plays that match context (e.g., feature adopted → relevant review site).
- Route proof: Tag stories for ABX, SDR sequences, partner co-marketing, and paid retargeting.
- Amplify & measure: Track reuse, win-rate lift, cycle time reduction, and referral pipeline.
- Govern monthly: Revenue council reallocates budget to top-performing plays by outcome.
Advocacy Ownership: RACI & KPI Matrix
| Capability | Owner | Support | From (Ad Hoc) | To (Operationalized) | Primary KPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Signal & Eligibility | CS | RevOps | Manual lists | Automated milestones & suppression rules | Eligible Accounts, Time-to-First-Advocacy |
| Advocacy Engine | Marketing (Customer/Advocacy) | CS | One-off asks | Sequenced review/reference/referral plays | Advocacy Conversion %, Review Velocity |
| Proof Management | Marketing Ops / Enablement | Sales | Unsearchable assets | Tagged stories by persona, vertical, use case | Asset Reuse, Win-Rate Lift |
| Reference Desk | Sales | Marketing | Last-minute scrambles | Request queue with capacity caps & SLAs | Reference Fill Rate, Cycle Time |
| Attribution & Funding | RevOps | Finance | Click-only views | Pipeline & retention influence model | Referral Pipeline $, Net Expansion % |
Client Snapshot: Coordinated Motion Wins
Cross-functional orchestration—clear SLAs, governed data, and repeatable plays—transforms scattered efforts into growth. For an example of disciplined enablement and scale, see: Transforming Lead Management: How Comcast Business Optimized Marketing Automation and Drove $1B in Revenue
Ground your ownership decision in the Key Principles of Revenue Marketing, align metrics using Execution & Playbooks: What Metrics Belong in a Revenue Marketing Dashboard?, and connect it to What Is Revenue Marketing? Pedowitz RM6 Insights.
Frequently Asked Questions: Advocacy Ownership
Stand Up a Cross-Functional Advocacy Engine
Assess your maturity, align ownership, and launch the plays that convert outcomes into reviews, references, and referrals.
Take the Revenue Marketing Assessment (RM6) Download the Revenue Marketing Kit