How our Canada based luxury holiday client saved their Marketo instance - and turned email into a revenue engine

For our luxury holiday client, this wasn’t a “nice-to-have” optimisation project. It was an existential one. Email performance was flat. Marketo was under scrutiny. And the CEO had made it very clear: Prove the value of the platform and the team behind it in 2025, or both were gone.

That put the Marketing Operations team in an unenviable position. They didn’t just need incremental improvement. They needed a visible, defensible, board-level turnaround... and fast.

That’s when they partnered with Sojourn Solutions.

What followed was a complete rethink of lifecycle strategy, data flow, measurement, and how email actually contributes to revenue. Not vanity metrics. Not “engagement.” Real pipeline and bookings.

The result? Nearly double the number of sales-ready leads, a 92% increase in Email-Influenced Opportunities, and a 74% year-over-year increase in Email-Influenced Bookings. Marketo didn’t get cut. It became indispensable.

The challenge: Email had no credibility

Before Sojourn got involved, email was struggling to justify its place in the marketing mix. Marketo was live, campaigns were being sent, but the impact wasn’t clear or trusted. Sales didn’t believe the leads were ready. Leadership couldn’t see a straight line from email activity to revenue. And without that connection, the platform itself became an easy target.

The CEO’s mandate was blunt: If email and Marketo couldn’t demonstrate measurable value in 2025, the subscription, and the team supporting it, would be eliminated.

The clock was ticking.

Phase one: Fix the foundations, fast

The first priority wasn’t more campaigns. It was control.

Sojourn started with a full strategic and operational audit of both the email channel and Marketo. This surfaced the usual suspects: Lifecycle stages that didn’t reflect reality, inconsistent lead assignment, data gaps between Salesforce and Marketo, and reporting that looked busy but proved nothing.

From there, the focus shifted to building a lifecycle model the business could actually stand behind.

Lead lifecycle programs were redesigned to reflect how prospects really move from early interest to sales-ready, with clear definitions that both marketing and sales agreed on. Salesforce and Marketo sync issues were resolved, ensuring leads flowed cleanly, ownership was clear, and no one was chasing ghosts.

Email templates were standardised and rebuilt to support scalability, while the their team received hands-on Marketo training and ongoing on-demand expertise.

This wasn’t about dependency. It was about confidence.

By the end of phase one, Marketo wasn’t just “working.” It was finally trustworthy.

Phase two: Lifecycle-based nurture that actually nurtures

With the foundations in place, attention can now turn to what email was always meant to do: move buyers forward through more relevant, timely communication.

Having established a lifecycle model to identify where individuals are in their buying journey, the next phase will focus on building lifecycle-aligned nurture streams that deliver deeper, stage-specific personalisation. Sojourn will be working closely with the their team to design and activate nurtures that respond to buying intent and behaviour, ensuring email communications are most relevant at key decision points.

Using behavioural signals and expressed intent, emails will become more tailored to what prospects are actively looking for. For example, once someone reaches the quote stage, they will receive messaging aligned to their specific interests, products, or use cases, rather than generic follow-ups. This ensures email plays a meaningful role in influencing progression, without prematurely over-engineering nurture programs.

Behind the scenes, data quality, integration, and QA will ensure that this personalisation is accurate, scalable, and reliable. This work lays the groundwork for future lifecycle-based nurtures, while immediately delivering more relevant, buyer-aligned email experiences that reflect how people actually buy - not how marketing wishes they do.

Measurement: Proving email’s impact on revenue

One of the biggest turning points in this engagement was measurement.

Sojourn helped them move beyond surface-level email metrics and set up reporting that tied email engagement directly to pipeline and bookings. Email-influenced opportunity and booking reporting was configured to show how email contributed across the lifecycle, not just at first touch.

This gave leadership something they’d never had before: Clear visibility into how email supported revenue creation over time.

Instead of arguing about opens and clicks, the conversation shifted to influenced opportunities, bookings, and year-over-year growth. Email stopped being a cost centre and started showing up as a revenue driver in its own right.

And once that happened, the CEO stopped asking whether Marketo should be cut, and started asking what else the platform could do.

The results: From survival to sustained growth

The impact was immediate and sustained.

Year over year, the Canada based client delivered additional bookings, representing $13.3M in incremental revenue - an 83% uplift. Email-Influenced Opportunities increased by 92%, driven by a near doubling of sales-ready leads.

Just as importantly, performance became consistent. Instead of relying on seasonal spikes, FY2025 delivered strong results quarter after quarter. Growth stabilised. Forecasting improved. Confidence returned.

Email wasn’t just back in favour. It had become a core pillar of revenue generation.

What the client had to say:

“Can’t say enough wonderful things about your team. These guys are amazing. They are bright and smart and work well together. They understand each other’s strengths and are super collaborative. There is no stress on the project. I’ve worked with ******* and ***** and you are hands down the best agency I’ve worked with. We’re getting our ROI! 100 more bookings than last year this quarter.” - **** ******, Marketing Operations Manager

The takeaway

This wasn’t about saving a tool. It was about proving impact.

By fixing lifecycle strategy, tightening data and measurement, and building nurture programs rooted in how buyers actually behave, our Canada based client transformed email from a liability into leverage.

Marketo didn’t just survive the CEO’s scrutiny. It earned its place at the table. And that’s what real Marketing Operations success looks like.