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Campaign-to-Order (C2O) process

Process documentation sample

Shows how I document a marketing-to-sales process that spans marketing automation, CRM and CPQ. It mirrors the structure of my real process documentation at Nutanix, with company-specific details made generic for confidentiality.

Item Details
Process owner Marketing Operations and Sales Operations
Systems Marketing automation, CRM (Salesforce), CPQ, Integration platform (Boomi), ERP (NetSuite)
Audience Marketing ops, sales ops, business analysts, new joiners
Version 2.1 · Published
Approvers Process owner, lead business analyst
Last reviewed Quarterly

Overview

Campaign-to-Order covers the journey from a marketing campaign to a booked order. It explains how a response to a campaign becomes a lead, how the lead is qualified and converted, how the opportunity is quoted and approved, and how the won deal is handed off to Order-to-Cash.

Scope

In scope: campaign setup, lead capture and scoring, lead routing, qualification, opportunity management, quoting and approvals, and order booking.

Out of scope: invoicing and payment collection (see Order-to-Cash), and partner deal registration.

Process flow

flowchart TD
    A[Campaign launched<br/>Marketing automation] --> B[Lead captured<br/>and scored]
    B --> C{Marketing qualified?}
    C -- No --> N[Nurture programme]
    N --> B
    C -- Yes --> D[Lead routed to sales<br/>CRM]
    D --> E{Sales accepted?}
    E -- No --> N
    E -- Yes --> F[Converted to<br/>opportunity]
    F --> G[Quote created<br/>CPQ]
    G --> H{Approval needed?}
    H -- Yes --> I[Discount / deal desk<br/>approval]
    I --> J[Quote sent to customer]
    H -- No --> J
    J --> K[Closed Won and<br/>order booked]
    K --> L[Hand-off to<br/>Order-to-Cash]

Roles and responsibilities

Role Responsibility
Marketing operations Builds campaigns, manages lead scoring rules and syncs leads to CRM
Sales development (SDR) Works marketing-qualified leads and accepts or rejects them
Account executive Owns the opportunity, builds the quote and closes the deal
Deal desk Reviews non-standard pricing, discounts and terms
Sales operations Maintains routing rules, validates booked orders and supports CRM users

Process stages

1. Campaign setup

  1. Marketing operations creates the campaign in the marketing automation platform and the matching Campaign record in CRM.
  2. Campaign member statuses (for example Registered, Attended, Responded) are defined so responses can be reported on.

2. Lead capture and scoring

  1. Form fills, event lists and content downloads create or update leads.
  2. Each lead gets a behaviour score (engagement) and a fit score (company size, region, industry).
  3. Leads that cross the threshold become Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and sync to CRM.

3. Routing and qualification

  1. Assignment rules route the MQL to the right SDR by territory and segment.
  2. The SDR contacts the lead and marks it Sales Accepted or returns it to nurture with a reason code.

Common issue

Leads with a missing country or company size can't be routed and land in the Unassigned queue. Sales ops reviews this queue daily.

4. Opportunity and quote

  1. The lead is converted to an account, contact and opportunity, and the campaign is attributed to the opportunity.
  2. The account executive builds a quote in CPQ from the product catalogue.
  3. Quotes above the discount threshold go to the deal desk for approval.

5. Order booking and hand-off

  1. When the customer signs, the opportunity is set to Closed Won and the order is booked.
  2. The order syncs to ERP through the integration platform and the process continues in Order-to-Cash.

Key data handoffs

From To Data Trigger
Marketing automation CRM Lead, score, campaign response Lead reaches MQL threshold
CRM CPQ Account, opportunity, price book Quote created
CPQ CRM Quote lines, approved pricing Quote approved
CRM ERP (via integration platform) Order, customer, billing details Opportunity Closed Won

Controls and KPIs

  • MQL-to-SQL conversion rate – share of marketing-qualified leads accepted by sales
  • Lead response time – time from MQL to first sales touch
  • Campaign-influenced pipeline – opportunity value attributed to campaigns
  • Quote approval cycle time – time from quote submission to approval