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Here’s How to Measure Marketing Success Beyond Pipeline: From 3-Bucket Measurement to Multi-Touch ABM

BuildOps raised $127 million at a $1+ billion valuation, targeting a specific segment of the construction industry. The company targets commercial trade contractors doing MEP work, a segment that requires a very specific marketing approach. 

Colin Piper, their CMO, brings a unique perspective to this challenge. He spent 10 years building Autodesk's construction vertical, where he led a 100+ person global marketing team driving high growth in the construction software space. That experience at enterprise scale now inspires how he thinks about marketing at BuildOps. 

We sat down with Colin to understand how BuildOps approaches marketing to trade contractors. The conversation revealed some interesting tactics and frameworks that have helped drive their growth. 

How do you market to MEP trade contractors and hit unicorn status? Focus, measurement, and ruthless execution.

BuildOps’ CMO runs marketing in 3 buckets:

They win by:

Revenue drives today. Brand + lifecycle builds the moat.

He's observed this perception throughout his career, and it speaks to a bigger challenge around measurement. Marketing teams need to be able to clearly communicate the value they're creating, which means having a robust measurement framework that captures the full scope of what marketing actually does. 

Colin has developed a three-bucket framework for measuring marketing success at BuildOps. 

Colin measures marketing success across three distinct buckets.

This is what everyone tracks. Lead generation flows to opportunities, opportunities convert to closed deals. Demand gen and ABM fill the sales funnel. You can directly attribute results to ARR growth. 

You measure this through lead-to-opportunity conversion rates, opportunity-to-closed/won rates, marketing-sourced pipeline versus influenced pipeline, and CAC payback periods. 

This bucket focuses on longer-term positioning work that creates sustained competitive advantage. The metrics here have longer feedback loops and can be harder to quantify, but Colin sees this as essential work for construction tech companies. 

This includes G2 category rankings, Gartner Magic Quadrant positioning, share of voice in industry conversations, and top-of-funnel brand awareness. 

The value here is substantial. When buyers already know who you are and understand your category positioning, the sales process moves considerably faster. 

Colin believes marketing's role extends well beyond the point of sale. The work continues as new customers come through the door and begin their journey with the product. 

The goal here is turning new customers into advocates who market on your behalf, creating a flywheel effect that compounds over time. 

BuildOps tracks onboarding completion rates, time to first value, customer advocacy through referrals and case studies, and NPS driven by marketing touchpoints. They run systematic onboarding campaigns, invest in customer success content, and actively build community among their user base. 

The BuildOps path to unicorn status required excellence in all three buckets. Bucket 1 drives quarterly results. Buckets 2 and 3 drive sustainable competitive advantage. 

BuildOps targets a very specific segment: commercial trade contractors doing $5M to $100M in annual revenue. This means mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC service and installation companies. 

Colin learned something important when he transitioned from Autodesk's general contractor focus to BuildOps' trade contractor specialization. The marketing approach that works for this audience has its own unique characteristics and requirements. 

BuildOps has found significant value in contractor-focused regional conferences, local and state trade associations, Mechanical Contractors Association chapters, and Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors events. The strategy focuses on going where their specific audience already gathers. 

The logic makes sense when you think about it. At a trade-specific event, BuildOps can position themselves as a solution provider in a room full of their ideal customers. The focus remains on the specific challenges these contractors face, creating much more productive conversations. 

BuildOps invests heavily in direct mail as part of their 2024 marketing strategy, particularly for account-based marketing campaigns. 

The approach is methodical and data-driven. The team researches each target account's specific pain points, then customizes the mail piece to address those challenges directly. They follow up with multi-touch digital campaigns and continuously track response rates to iterate and improve

For target accounts, BuildOps coordinates across several channels to create a comprehensive engagement strategy. Programmatic display ads retarget website visitors across the web. Sales reps use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for personalized outreach. Direct mail provides a physical touchpoint to decision makers. Email sequences run multi-touch nurture campaigns. The approach culminates in inviting prospects to intimate dinners or local events where deeper conversations can happen. 

BuildOps operates with an aggressive testing cadence, launching new campaigns and iterating weekly or bi-weekly based on performance data. This allows them to fail fast and reallocate budget immediately when something shows strong signals or underperforms. 

The key insight here is understanding your specific audience deeply and meeting them where they actually are. For BuildOps, that means trade shows, direct mail, and in-person dinners rather than relying solely on digital channels. 

BuildOps recently released a comprehensive AI report surveying trade contractors. The headline finding was striking: 78% have already adopted AI in some capacity. That's nearly 4 out of 5 trade contractors actively using AI tools in their operations. 

This level of adoption has significant implications for how construction tech companies think about their go-to-market strategy. 

The messaging needs to evolve based on this reality. Trade contractors are actively seeking technology solutions that solve their specific problems. The conversation has shifted from whether to adopt technology to which technology delivers the best outcomes. 

The report revealed an interesting dynamic around how AI is being adopted within trade contracting companies. Gen Z workers are driving adoption from the bottom up, bringing these tools into their daily workflows naturally. 

The result is that larger, more mature trade contractors are investing heavily in data capabilities. They're hiring data scientists, building custom applications on top of platforms like BuildOps, and essentially operating like mini software companies within their core trade contracting business. 

With 78% of the market already using AI in some form, the competitive differentiation has shifted. What matters now is the specific business outcomes your AI delivers, the measurable speed and cost improvements over manual processes, and the clear ROI in dollars and hours saved. 

BuildOps leads with concrete outcomes in their messaging. They talk about how MEP contractors using BuildOps close more service calls per technician or reduce invoicing time by specific numbers of hours per week. The technology enables the outcome, but the outcome tells the story that resonates with buyers. 

Colin is paying close attention to how tools like Claude and specialized AI coding assistants are expanding what's possible for trade contractors. "Trade contractors can now build highly customized applications in days, not months. The ones who embrace this will have a massive competitive advantage." 

He's experienced this productivity unlock personally in his marketing work.

Construction tech marketing teams need to blend software expertise with deep industry knowledge, a combination that's rare but essential for success. 

Colin's team at BuildOps includes several key functions working together. Demand generation runs the full funnel across digital and offline channels. Product marketing handles positioning, messaging, and competitive analysis. Content marketing drives thought leadership, SEO, and industry research. Marketing ops manages analytics, attribution, and the tech stack. Creative and brand teams handle design, video production, and visual storytelling. Customer marketing focuses on onboarding, advocacy, and lifecycle nurture. 

"You need people who understand both software AND construction," Colin notes. "That combination is rare but critical." 

Colin's philosophy on marketing technology is pragmatic:

BuildOps runs on a focused set of core tools. Salesforce serves as their source of truth for all customer data. Marketing automation through HubSpot or Marketo handles email campaigns, lead scoring, and nurture sequences. Google Analytics and Mixpanel provide website and product analytics. An attribution platform enables multi-touch tracking across all channels. An ABM platform orchestrates account-based campaigns. Content management systems handle production and distribution. Event management tools track registration, follow-up, and ROI. 

The key principle Colin emphasizes: "Every tool needs to integrate cleanly with your CRM. If you can't track it back to revenue, don't invest in it

Here's what AEC tech founders and marketers can learn from BuildOps' path to unicorn status. 

Measure across all three buckets. Revenue marketing drives direct pipeline impact and quarterly results. Brand positioning builds your long-term competitive moat and makes future marketing more effective. Customer lifecycle marketing turns customers into advocates, creating a flywheel effect. Together, these three buckets create sustainable competitive advantage. 

Know your ICP at a deep level. Trade contractors have specific behaviors, preferences, and pain points that require tailored approaches. Test channels ruthlessly to understand what actually drives results for your specific audience. Meet them where they naturally gather, whether that's trade shows, direct mail, or intimate industry events. 

Respect your audience's sophistication. The 78% AI adoption rate among trade contractors shows significant technology savvy. Focus your messaging on concrete business outcomes rather than features or technical capabilities. Recognize that younger generations are accelerating tech adoption from within these organizations. 

Build for speed and measurement. Test new campaigns weekly or bi-weekly rather than waiting for quarterly planning cycles. Let data drive your decisions rather than assumptions about what should work. Fail fast when something underperforms, then double down on what shows strong signals. 

Hire for industry plus technical expertise. The combination of construction knowledge and software marketing skills is rare but essential for success in this space. People who understand both worlds can navigate the nuances that generic SaaS marketers might miss. Industry credibility matters as much as marketing capabilities. 

We’re curious about something: which marketing bucket are you focusing on right now? 

Many AEC tech companies excel at Bucket 1 with strong revenue metrics and pipeline management. Buckets 2 and 3 often get less attention, even though they build the foundation for sustainable growth. 

Reply to this email and tell us: which bucket is your weakest link, and what's stopping you from investing more there? 

We read every response, and we'll share more interesting insights in our forthcoming editions. 

Check out our conversation with Colin Piper here 👇👇👇

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