“If Attribution Worked, Nobody Would Fight About It” – with Matthew Sciannella

Feb 24, 2026

Matthew Sciannella, VP of Innovation at Refine Labs and demand-generation expert, explains why attribution falls short and advocates for incrementality testing. He discusses why better product marketing drives demand, how AI can amplify bad motions, and why clean data and fundamentals like thoughtful outreach matter more than noisy metrics.

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ANECDOTE

When Leadership Forces The Wrong Motion

Carolyn recounts being forced by leadership to pursue a lead-gen play that didn't fit their enterprise motion and Refine Labs pushed back.
The agency agreed to run the requested tactic but warned they'd never run it that way again, illustrating tensions between constraints and strategy.

ADVICE

Design Ads For Platform Realities

Tailor ad creative and offers to platform constraints like mobile-heavy LinkedIn traffic.
Matthew notes LinkedIn impressions are mostly mobile, so conversion paths must be frictionless and mobile-optimized (single-line forms, lead gen forms).

ADVICE

Balance Performance Plays With Long Term Brand

Balance short-term performance (offers, sales alignment) with long-term brand work and model both timelines for finance.
Use experiments and historical modeling to show brand improves marketing ROI period over period, even with long sales cycles.

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In this episode of GTM Live, Carolyn sits down with Matthew Sciannella, VP of Innovation at Refine Labs, for a candid conversation about the flaws of B2B marketing measurement and why so many teams keep fighting the same losing battles.

They dig into why attribution has made a generation of marketing leaders worse at their jobs, what great demand generation actually requires (hint: it starts way upstream with product marketing), and why slapping AI onto a broken system just makes the noise louder.

Episode highlights:

Why attribution doesn't tell you what's actually driving pipeline and how to move toward incrementality testing instead
The real reason win rates are so low at most companies (and why more pipeline isn't the answer)
Why great product marketing is the single biggest common denominator across every high-performing demand program Matt has seen
How AI is disrupting outbound and why scaling a broken motion with AI just makes it worse faster
Why companies with messy data are the ones struggling most to make AI work for them
The case for measuring brand spend against contribution margin instead of source or attribution
Why fundamentals (e.g. in-person, intentional outreach, real buyer research) are making a comeback in the age of AI noise

If your pipeline dashboards aren't giving you straight answers, this episode is a good gut check on where to look first.

🔗 RESOURCES:

Spots are open for Passetto's April sprint cohort. It's a 2-week marketing and pipeline audit designed to give GTM teams real clarity before Q2 [Work With Us]
Follow Carolyn on LinkedIn
Follow Matt on LinkedIn
Book a [FREE] 1:1 Revenue Visibility Assessment to find out why you can't answer the pipeline questions that matter most. Schedule Your Session

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This episode is powered by Passetto. If your pipeline dashboards aren't giving you straight answers, you're in good company. Most GTM teams simply don't have the visibility to understand what's truly driving pipeline and revenue, what's slowing them down, or where to focus next.