The two commitments
An SLA only works when both sides commit to something measurable. Most versions fail because only marketing carries a number. Marketing commits to volume, sales commits to nothing in writing, and the first time follow-up is slow there is no way to name the problem. Write both sides.Marketing commits to delivering a stated quantity of leads that meet an agreed definition, in an agreed mix by segment. Sales commits to a response window, a minimum number of attempts, and a disposition on every record inside a stated period.
What to put on the marketing side
Volume by segment, since a total number lets marketing hit target by flooding the segment with the cheapest leads. Split the commitment by the segments the sales team is actually staffed against.
A quality floor. The cleanest version ties part of the marketing commitment to accepted leads rather than delivered leads, which makes marketing carry the consequence of poor fit rather than passing it downstream.
Routing accuracy. Marketing owns getting the record to the right owner with the right data attached. A correctly qualified lead sent to the wrong rep is a marketing miss.
Data completeness. Name the fields that must be populated before a lead is handed over. Incomplete records are the most common cause of slow follow-up, since the rep has to do research before they can act.
What to put on the sales side
A response window measured from creation timestamp, not from the moment a rep noticed the record. Anything measured from assignment hides routing delays.
A minimum working effort. State the number of contact attempts across channels before a lead can be dispositioned, and the period they must happen within. Without this, records get touched once and abandoned.
Mandatory disposition with reason codes. Every lead gets an outcome. Silent records are the version of failure nobody catches, and they poison win rate analysis because the denominator quietly changes.
Enforcing it without a fight
Publish one report both teams read, showing marketing delivery against target and sales response against target side by side. Separate reports produce separate stories and the meeting turns into a debate over whose number is right.
Review monthly at the leadership level and put a named owner on each miss. The purpose is not blame. It is that an SLA with no review becomes a document written once and cited never.
Watch what happens downstream. A healthy SLA shows up as steadier pipeline coverage and shorter time from lead creation to first meeting, which feeds directly into sales velocity. If the SLA is green and those numbers have not moved, the qualification definition is wrong and that is the thing to renegotiate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a marketing to sales SLA contain?
A volume and quality commitment from marketing, a response-time and working commitment from sales, a shared definition of what qualifies, a rejection path with required reason codes, and a review cadence where both sides look at the same report.
Should the SLA be measured in leads or pipeline?
Pipeline, with leads as a leading indicator. A lead volume target alone rewards marketing for producing quantity that sales cannot convert. Tying the marketing commitment to sales accepted opportunities or sourced pipeline aligns both sides to the same outcome.
What response time should the sales side commit to?
Whatever window the team can hold every day, measured from lead creation rather than from assignment. A commitment the team misses half the time is worse than a longer one it meets, because a missed SLA that carries no consequence teaches everyone to ignore the document.
How do you handle lead rejection?
Require a reason code on every rejection and review the codes monthly. Rejection without a reason is how the SLA dies, since marketing cannot fix a quality problem it cannot see and sales gains a way to discard leads without accountability.
Put these metrics to work
ORM builds custom revenue forecast models that turn concepts like marketing to sales sla into prescriptive action for your team.
Schedule a Demo