Rethinking B2B Marketing Performance with the CLEAR Framework
Marketing teams need to adjust their performance measurement to the changing landscape. Consider the CLEAR framework as a good starting point.
Hey there! 👋
In our last newsletter, we discussed the importance of tracking impact over activity. We are following up with more details by introducing the CLEAR framework we created and why it is the best path forward for measuring marketing impact today.
Cheers!
Nate
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B2B Marketing Needs to Rethink Performance, Fast
For the last decade, B2B marketing has operated under a narrow definition of performance. We’ve optimized for last-click conversions, paid efficiency, and platform-level reporting. However, that model is outdated, and AI is continuing render it obsolete.
Today, your buyers don’t just click Google ads or fill out lead forms. They’re getting recommendations from ChatGPT. They’re browsing roundups in newsletters, social posts, and community threads. They’re seeing which companies show up when they ask Perplexity or Claude about the best vendors in a category.
That visibility has little to do with ad spend or keyword ranking. It’s driven by your brand’s reputation, authority, and presence across channels, which requires a more comprehensive way to measure marketing.
At Ten Speed, we built the CLEAR framework to solve this. It stands for Conversion, Loyalty, Engagement, Awareness, and Reputation. It’s how we are helping teams shift from surface-level reporting to measuring real business impact.
The Illusion of Precision
Performance marketing made it feel like everything was trackable. But attribution has always been imperfect, and it’s only gotten worse. GA4 shook up the model. Cookie deprecation made it more difficult to track user behavior. And now with AI changing how people search, the entire journey is more opaque.
You can’t measure the impact of a LinkedIn comment that influences a buyer weeks later. You can’t track when your company is cited by name in an AI response (yet). But these things are shaping perception and driving decisions.
That’s why measurement needs to expand. The old model didn’t break overnight, but AI accelerated the collapse. CLEAR is the model to replace it.
Conversion: Move Beyond the Form Fill
Conversions still matter. But most teams only focus on easily tracked bottom-funnel actions. That gives an incomplete view of what’s working.
With CLEAR, conversion is part of the picture, but always in context. What led to the conversion? Was it high-quality? Was it influenced by other less trackable touchpoints, like reputation or thought leadership?
This isn’t about throwing out conversion metrics. It’s about understanding them in the context of quality and influence, not the whole story.
Loyalty: Track What Happens After the Sale
Expansion and retention often drive the most revenue in B2B. Yet marketing rarely measures its role here.
Are customers engaging post-sale? Are they referring others? Are they renewing without needing to be convinced? These are loyalty signals, and they matter just as much as new logo acquisition.
Loyalty is also a visibility driver. Brands that retain customers earn more word-of-mouth and citations, human and machine.
Engagement: Measure Resonance, Not Just Reach
Engagement isn’t about vanity metrics. It’s about quality attention. Are people consuming, sharing, or responding to what you put into the world?
High engagement signals relevance. It shapes how your content is interpreted by both your audience and LLMs trained on that public data.
You don’t need a viral post. You need meaningful interaction that indicates trust and authority.
Awareness: Are You in the Right Places?
Traffic and impressions don’t tell you if your brand is top of mind. Awareness is about presence in the conversations, platforms, and sources your buyers already trust.
That includes being cited in AI answers. It includes showing up in roundups, Slack communities, and influencer content. It’s about being seen before someone searches for you directly.
Track where and how you’re showing up, not just how often.
Reputation: Your Most Valuable, Least Measured Asset
Reputation is the throughline of all the other metrics. It’s the reason your brand gets recommended. It’s what makes AI tools reference you over a competitor.
This used to be seen as a qualitative, hard-to-measure area. But now there are tools and signals—from sentiment analysis to share of voice to citations in public datasets that make it measurable.
Reputation isn’t just a PR concern anymore. It’s a core performance lever.
The Path Forward
B2B marketing leaders need to align with leadership and redefine what performance means, not just for reporting, but for resourcing, incentives, and strategic planning.
The CLEAR model gives teams a way to measure the things that actually drive durable growth, across every stage of the buyer journey and every kind of visibility: human or AI-driven.
The old way of measuring is fading fast. The question is whether your team is ready to step into what’s next.
📚 What the Ten Speed team is reading…
Google June 2025 core update rolling out now (Search Engine Land)
Does Ranking Higher on Google Mean You’ll Get Cited in AI Overviews? (Ahrefs)
Does AI Search Traffic Convert Better Than Traditional Search? (Ahrefs)
July 13, 1985 - Dual-venue Live Aid concert reaches 1.5B viewers & raises $100m+, proving that cause marketing can be both global and profitable for media partners.
July 16, 1995 - Amazon.com goes live and sells its first book, showing brands how a pure-play website plus relentless customer focus can upend entire retail categories.
July 15, 2006 - Twitter opens to the public, introducing real-time, 140-character updates and giving marketers a new, always-on conversation channel.
July 6, 2016 - Pokémon GO launches, flooding streets with players and highlighting AR’s power to drive offline foot traffic for partnered retailers.
Brain MAX by ClickUp - We have been doing more with ClickUp Brain and Brain MAX is a really interesting example of a non-AI-native company quickly pivoting to have a compelling offering that is deeply integrated into their core product. (Learn more) - not a sponsor or affiliate link; just a cool product