What 12-month retention says about fit, focus, and spend
This week: Why your NRR is the only true measure of product-market fit, how to prove marketing’s revenue impact when 74% of leaders can’t, and how AI agents are turning CRMs into background databases. And why your first agentic AI project is the one you can’t afford to fail, plus where to place your ad bets as budgets shift to performance and events.
The rapid acceleration of AI is forcing a return to fundamentals. While AI agents can automate workflows and build products faster than ever, they can’t build trust or fix a broken strategy. The bottleneck for growth is no longer code; it’s go-to-market. This week’s data shows that winning leaders are focusing on the un-automatable: achieving true product-market fit, building a GTM engine grounded in a unique point of view, and proving their impact on the only metric that matters—revenue.
The most successful companies are not just adopting AI; they are rethinking their entire operating model. They are building leaner, more efficient teams that blend human strategy with AI-driven execution. This means moving beyond vanity metrics to measure what truly drives pipeline, doubling down on channels that deliver high-intent buyers, and understanding that in a skeptical market, transparency is the ultimate differentiator.
Your NRR Is Below 50%? You Don’t Have Product-Market Fit
Hypergrowth can mask a weak product, but as Des Traynor warns, "reality bats last in software." Early traction and a flurry of new customers are often mistaken for product-market fit, a misconception that leads founders to make costly hiring and spending decisions on a shaky foundation.
The real measure of PMF isn’t how many customers you acquire; it’s how many you keep and grow. According to founder Asia Orangio, you don’t truly know if you have PMF until you have at least a full year of retention data.
If your 12-month net revenue retention is below 50%, something is fundamentally broken. This metric, more than any qualitative survey, reveals whether your product delivers enough value to sustain a business. It’s a hard truth that requires patience to measure correctly. This is why HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan advises founders to "fall in love with your customers, not your hockey stick curves."
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BIG IDEA: Product-market fit isn't a one-time event; it's a lagging indicator proven by a full year of strong net revenue retention.
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WHY IT MATTERS: Scaling your GTM engine before you have validated PMF through retention data is the fastest way to burn cash on the wrong customers.
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- Brian Halligan advises making Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) your core metrics, even bonusing your team on them instead of just logo growth.
74% of Marketers Can’t Link Revenue to Efforts. Here’s How to Fix It.
In a market where every dollar is scrutinized, marketing teams are under immense pressure to prove their contribution to the bottom line. Yet, according to a RevSure e-book, a staggering 74% of marketers struggle to connect their efforts to revenue.
This disconnect often stems from a reliance on outdated attribution models that fail to capture the complexity of the modern B2B buyer journey. The problem with traditional last-touch attribution is that it oversimplifies a long and winding path. As HockeyStack explains, B2B buyers interact with multiple touchpoints—ads, blog posts, webinars, peer reviews—before ever speaking to sales.
Attributing a deal solely to the final click on a demo request form ignores the crucial brand-building and educational content that influenced the decision along the way. This leads to misallocated budgets and a marketing engine optimized for short-term conversions, not long-term growth. To gain credibility with the C-suite, CMOs must shift from vanity metrics to revenue-focused KPIs. This means adopting multi-touch attribution models that provide a more holistic view of the entire funnel.
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BIG IDEA: If you can't connect your marketing activities directly to pipeline and revenue, you're measuring the wrong things.
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WHY IT MATTERS: In a budget-conscious environment, the ability to prove marketing's ROI is no longer a nice-to-have; it's essential for survival and growth.
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AI Agents Are Turning Your CRM into a Lonely Data Warehouse
For years, the CRM has been the central nervous system of go-to-market teams. But as AI agents become more sophisticated, that is starting to change. According to SaaStr founder Jason M. Lemkin, AI is a "pretty big threat to CRM"—not to the need for a customer database, but to its role as the primary user interface.
The shift is happening because AI agents are taking over the front-line work. Instead of living in Salesforce or HubSpot, sales and marketing teams are interacting with agents that automate lead scoring, draft personalized outreach, and manage follow-ups. As Lemkin notes from his own experience deploying over 11 agents, the CRM becomes a background utility, a "lonely data warehouse" that feeds the agents.
This trend is central to the rise of Generative CRM, which uses AI to provide actionable insights rather than just storing raw data. This has profound implications for marketing leaders and their tech stacks. The focus of team training will likely shift from mastering complex CRM interfaces to orchestrating a suite of AI agents. For CRM incumbents like SAP and Salesforce, the race is on to own the agentic layer.
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BIG IDEA: The primary interface for GTM teams is shifting from the CRM to the AI agents that sit on top of it.
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WHY IT MATTERS: Your team's productivity will soon be defined not by their CRM proficiency, but by their ability to effectively manage and orchestrate AI agents to drive revenue.
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From Dabbling to Mastery: How to Move Your Team from Prompts to Agentic Workflows
The biggest barrier to adopting agentic AI isn’t the technology—it’s the strategy. While AI can accelerate product development, it doesn’t automatically accelerate trust or adoption. As Box CEO Aaron Levie explains, AI will redefine job requirements, not just make current tasks more efficient.
This means success requires a fundamental rethinking of workflows, not just plugging in a new tool. Many companies are stuck in pilot mode, with teams dabbling in prompts but failing to build true agentic systems. Oren Greenberg warns that much of what is marketed as "agentic AI" is just a series of automated workflows.
True agentic systems involve multi-step reasoning and require new skills to build and manage. This is why, as Jason M. Lemkin cautions, failing with your first agentic project can kill momentum and confidence across the organization. For CMOs, the path forward is to focus on process and training. Instead of chasing shiny objects, start by mapping AI capabilities to existing GTM motions, as demonstrated in a recent AI sales strategy session.
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BIG IDEA: Successful AI adoption is about transforming workflows and upskilling your team, not just implementing new tools.
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WHY IT MATTERS: The companies that win with AI will be those that build a culture of strategic experimentation, starting with small, successful projects that demonstrate value and build momentum.
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With CPCs Rising, Your Marketing Can’t Afford to Be Mediocre
The B2B advertising market isn’t shrinking; it’s reallocating. While some operators report softness, the data shows that budgets are decisively shifting away from traditional channels and toward measurable performance. This is creating more competition and raising the stakes for every campaign.
According to a recent IAB forecast, budgets are flowing away from linear TV and into digital formats like social media and CTV. At the same time, B2B events are making a strong comeback, with major organizers like Informa and Emerald posting robust revenue growth.
This confirms that a diversified portfolio balancing digital scale with the high-intent engagement of in-person events is the winning strategy for 2025. However, this shift also means more advertisers are competing for the same eyeballs on platforms like LinkedIn, driving up costs. In this environment, "checklist marketing" is a recipe for failure. As Peep Laja, CEO of Wynter, bluntly puts it, "mediocrity is very competitive."
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BIG IDEA: As ad budgets flow to performance channels, differentiation and a strong point of view are no longer optional—they are essential for survival.
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WHY IT MATTERS: With rising CPCs and longer sales cycles, you can't afford to waste budget on generic campaigns that don't cut through the noise and attract high-intent buyers.
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Sound Bites
That’s all for this week. The throughline is clear: AI is a powerful accelerant, but it can’t fix a flawed strategy. The leaders who will win in 2025 are those who are doubling down on the fundamentals—a deep understanding of their customer, a differentiated message, and a relentless focus on proving their impact on revenue.
What’s one "human speed" marketing activity you’re doubling down on to cut through the AI noise?
