Revenue Data Blueprint
A fictional example showing the level of clarity, prioritization, and technical detail included in a real engagement.
The decision Northstar cannot make today
The company cannot answer this reliably because campaign cost, lead source, opportunity, and closed-revenue data use different identifiers and attribution rules. Three executive reports currently produce three versions of customer acquisition cost.
Marketing activity is stored at contact level while revenue is stored at account and opportunity level.
Finance includes salaries and tools; marketing includes media spend only; the board sheet mixes both.
The current BigQuery environment can support a reliable first version without a platform migration.
What currently feeds the decision
The real Blueprint records ownership, refresh behavior, access, identifiers, and known quality issues for each source. This shortened example shows the decision-relevant subset.
| SOURCE | OWNER | KEY DATA | REFRESH | OBSERVATION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Revenue Operations | Contacts, companies, opportunities | Live | Original source is overwritten during imports |
| Google Ads | Demand Generation | Campaign, cost, clicks, conversions | Live | UTM naming changed twice this year |
| Partner spreadsheet | Partnerships | Referrals, partner name, submitted date | Weekly | No stable contact or account identifier |
| Stripe | Finance | Customer, invoice, recurring revenue | Daily | Customer ID not written back to HubSpot |
| Board reporting sheet | Finance | CAC, pipeline, new ARR | Monthly | Manual copy/paste with undocumented adjustments |
Why the dashboards disagree
| METRIC | MARKETING | FINANCE | RECOMMENDED DEFINITION | RISK |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer acquisition cost | Media spend ÷ new customers | Sales + marketing cost ÷ new customers | Publish both as Paid CAC and Fully Loaded CAC | HIGH |
| Sourced pipeline | First-touch campaign | Opportunity source field | Separate sourced, influenced, and self-reported views | HIGH |
| New ARR | Deal amount | Normalized subscription value | Use finance-normalized annual recurring value | MEDIUM |
| Lead | Any form submission | Not used | Report inquiry, MQL, and accepted lead separately | MEDIUM |
The smallest reliable system
Northstar already has BigQuery. The recommendation is to repair identity and metric logic inside the current environment—not introduce Snowflake, a new BI tool, or an attribution vendor.
What to do over the next 90 days
Reconcile the foundation
- Approve the metric dictionary
- Create the account identity map
- Preserve original source fields
- Standardize campaign naming
Ship decision reporting
- Build tested revenue models
- Publish sourced and influenced pipeline
- Separate paid and fully loaded CAC
- Add freshness and quality alerts
Improve attribution
- Capture self-reported attribution
- Measure partner influence
- Compare rule-based models
- Document budget experiments
What the proposed build would—and would not—include
Included
- HubSpot, Google Ads, partner, and Stripe models
- Account identity resolution rules
- Governed metric definitions and tests
- Executive and channel reporting
- Documentation, training, and handoff
Not included
- Campaign strategy or media management
- Migration away from BigQuery
- Machine-learning attribution
- Historical data repair before the agreed date
- Ongoing support unless separately requested
Your Blueprint will reflect your systems and decisions
This fictional sample is intentionally abbreviated. A real engagement includes the complete inventory, evidence behind each finding, implementation assumptions, and a fixed-price build proposal.
Discuss your data