Yes, but alongside the lead number rather than instead of it, and only where marketing can see the pipeline it is being held to. A pipeline target handed to a team that gets a monthly export is not a target, it is a verdict.
The case for the change is simple and mostly correct. A lead count rewards volume, the threshold is the fastest variable to move when the number is short, and the team that controls the threshold is the team measured on the count. Attach the target to pipeline and that incentive disappears.
The case against is not that the argument is wrong. It is that the implementation usually fails for reasons nobody discussed in the meeting where it was agreed.
What changes when the target moves
| Lead volume target | Pipeline created target | |
|---|---|---|
| What improves it | More records | More records sales agreed were real |
| Fastest way to hit it | Lower the threshold | Improve fit, timing or handoff |
| Who can verify it | Marketing alone | Both teams, from the same record |
| Lag before you know | Days | Weeks |
| Fails when | Volume is rewarded over fit | Marketing cannot see the pipeline |
| Argument it causes | These leads are bad | Which stage counts as created |
The two failure rows are the whole implementation problem. One target fails for a reason everybody understands and the other fails for a reason that takes a quarter to surface.
The three things that have to be true first
Marketing can see the pipeline, not a report about it. Which opportunities came from which activity, what stage they reached, and the reason attached to the ones that died. A team held to a number it can only read once a month has no feedback loop, and a target with no feedback loop produces anxiety rather than behaviour change.
"Created" has one written definition. The stage at which an opportunity counts, who sets it, and whether it can be moved back. This sounds pedantic until the first quarter ends two percent short and the definition becomes the most interesting topic in the business.
The lead number survives. Pipeline created is a lagging number with a multi-week delay. A team needs something it can move this week, and a count of qualified records is exactly that. Remove it entirely and you take away the only weekly signal marketing has.
The version that works for most growing teams
Two numbers, not one.
Leads accepted by sales, which is the lead count with the soft threshold removed. Marketing can still influence it weekly, and inflating volume no longer helps, because an unaccepted record does not count.
Pipeline created from marketing activity, which is the number the business actually cares about.
The first keeps the work legible day to day. The second keeps the first honest. Between them they close the gap described in marketing says 400 leads, sales says 12 are real, because a count of accepted records is a number both teams can check against the same list.
The objection worth taking seriously
Marketing does not control conversion, so a pipeline target holds them to an outcome that depends on somebody else's work. That is true, and it is the reason the target has to stop at pipeline created rather than running through to closed revenue.
Created is the last point where marketing's influence is still the dominant input. Past that stage, the rep, the pricing, the competitor and the buying committee matter more than the campaign did, and a target that reaches into that territory is a target the team can lose through no fault of its own. Hold the line at created and the number is demanding without being arbitrary.
There is also a scale caveat. A team creating a handful of opportunities a month will find a pipeline target too noisy to steer by: one large deal lands and the quarter is made, which teaches nobody anything. Below that volume, accepted leads plus a qualitative read on fit is the more honest arrangement, and the pipeline number can wait until the sample is big enough to mean something. For how the sales side of that planning works, see pipeline coverage for a 2027 number.
What makes it possible rather than theoretical
The requirement that stops most teams is the first one: marketing cannot see the pipeline.
Where the campaign, the record, the first contact attempt, the opportunity and the stage history all sit on the same account in Empiraa Signal, the question "what did this campaign create" is a filter rather than a project, and the rejection reasons are visible to the team whose work caused them. That is the difference between a shared number and a number one team gets told about.
It is worth being blunt about the sequence. Give marketing the pipeline target before giving them the pipeline view and you have moved the blame without moving the capability, which is a worse arrangement than the lead count you started with.
Related reading: marketing says 400 leads, sales says 12 are real, and what is an MQL worth if sales never calls it.
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