REVOPS TRAINING

Dark Funnel

The buying activity that happens where analytics cannot observe it — private communities, peer conversations, group chats, word of mouth.

Why it matters operationally

A meaningful share of B2B evaluation occurs before any trackable interaction. Buyers arrive already shortlisted, and attribution assigns that decision to whatever touch happened to be visible — usually a branded search.

How to work with it

You cannot instrument it, but you can ask. Self-reported attribution on forms and in discovery calls consistently surfaces channels the analytics never see. It is imprecise and it is better than pretending the invisible does not exist.

One question, high value

Adding "how did you hear about us?" as a free-text field routinely reveals the gap between what is measured and what is working.

RELATED TERMS

Buyer Intent

Signals suggesting an account is actively researching a purchase, drawn from on-site behaviour or third-party data.

Attribution

The methodology connecting marketing touchpoints to revenue outcomes, so investment can be allocated on evidence rather than on preference.

Demand Generation

The discipline of creating awareness and interest in a category and a product, as distinct from capturing demand that already exists.

FURTHER READING

Attributed Credit and Incremental Effect: What Multichannel Attribution Models Can Establish

Attribution models assign credit; they do not measure causation. The distinction is established in the marketing research literature and is routinely lost in practice, with consequences for how budget is allocated.

Learn how to apply this: RevOps 101: Revenue Operations Foundations

Definitions are the vocabulary. The courses are where you learn to operate it, with the interactive audit tools.

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