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) Revenue Marketing eGuide