GTM 145: What Happens When a CRO Owns the Entire Customer Journey, How to Build a Unified GTM Engine | Marcy Campbell

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May 7, 2025

In this insightful discussion, Marcy Campbell, Chief Revenue Officer at AppFolio, shares her expertise in aligning sales and customer service to enhance the entire customer journey. She emphasizes the evolving role of the CRO and why a unified customer experience is crucial for vertical SaaS success. Marcy discusses the significance of cross-functional "stream teams" for accelerating go-to-market strategies and offers tactical advice for early-stage startups. Her commitment to inclusive leadership and mentorship for rising female leaders shines through, making her a remarkable voice in revenue leadership.

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INSIGHT

CRO's Broader Role Advantages

A CRO owning all customer-facing operations enables unified, end-to-end customer journey oversight.
This alignment improves acquisition, adoption, and customer value delivery significantly.

INSIGHT

Every Touchpoint is Branding

Treat every customer touchpoint as a brand interaction shaping perception.
Viewing the customer journey holistically removes friction across marketing, sales, and service.

ADVICE

Use Stream Teams for Orchestration

Use cross-functional stream teams for orchestration of marketing to service initiatives.
Track campaigns end-to-end, including onboarding, support needs, and churn metrics.

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Marcy Campbell is the Chief Revenue Officer at AppFolio, where she leads sales and client services with a focus on delivering unified, end-to-end customer experiences. With over 30 years of experience scaling revenue teams across FinTech, SaaS, cloud computing, and communications, Marcy has held executive roles at Boomi and PayPal—where she led an 800+ person global team. Her deep expertise in aligning sales, customer success, and operations makes her a standout leader in the GTM space.

What happens when a CRO owns the entire customer journey

Discussed in this Episode:

How AppFolio’s Unified Customer Experience (UCE) platform aligns marketing, sales, and customer service.
The evolving role of the CRO and the importance of owning the entire customer journey.
Why customer experience is a competitive differentiator in vertical SaaS.
Tactical tips for early-stage startups on aligning go-to-market motion with product-market fit.
The importance of cross-functional “stream teams” for accelerating GTM initiatives.
How Marcy builds inclusive leadership cultures and mentors rising female leaders.
Why how you make the number matters as much as making the number.

Highlights:

10:30 The Chief Revenue Officer's (CRO) responsibility to understand and optimize the entire customer journey.

12:30 How the Unified Customer Experience (UCE) platform was formed and how it works.

16:00 End-to-end GTM orchestration across sales, marketing, product, and CS.

22:00 Results from the UCE initiative: accelerated deal velocity and customer retention.

26:30 Advice for startups: identifying your ICP and fixing pipeline fundamentals.

29:00 How to scale with customer empathy and GTM precision.

31:00 Advocating for women in sales leadership and building inclusive teams.

36:00 Marcy’s communication strategy for managing a 600-person org.

39:00 Marcy's favorite business leadership tactic: “Take a beat” before reacting.

40:00 What’s outdated: The belief that only numbers matter in sales.

Guest Speaker Links (Marcy Campbell):

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcyc/
Appfolio: https://www.appfolio.com/

Host Speaker Links (Sophie Buonassisi):

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/
Newsletter: https://substack.com/@sophiebuonassisi

Where to find GTMnow (GTMfund’s media brand):

Website: https://gtmnow.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow/
Twitter/X:

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.