I'm facing some internal questions from my executive team as to why some of our leads wait days before they get a nurture email from us. Background: Before Marketo, we treated every form fill on our website the same. We had a drip marketing program in our CRM that was basic. There was no reporting, no scoring, no segmentation or personalization. When we decided to implement marketing automation, I felt strongly we could no longer treat every form fill equally. So I added a field to our website forms for our leads to indicate when they were looking to purchase. Answers that were within 3-6 months or sooner go to our CRM like they did before Marketo for sales to follow up and work. These also come into Marketo for BOFU nurturing (within 30 days) or MOFU nurturing (3-6 months). My sales team can pause the nurture emails from our CRM if it is a lead they are working. Answers to the timeframe field that are more than 6 months just go to Marketo for TOFU nurturing. If a lead completes a form on our website on Wednesday and the nurture program casts on Tuesdays, the lead may wait 6 days before they receive their first email. And those that just go into Marketo and not our CRM don't get any follow up from sales. This seems to me best practices for setting up a nurture program in Marketo and overall lead management. I've been looking for numbers/stats to back this up, but have not found anything yet. This is where I need your help: When did you set up your nurture program to send its first email to new leads? Does your sales team contact every lead no matter when a lead is looking to purchase? Why or why not? Any numbers or stats to back up what you've done? How did you convince your executive team that your setup was the best way? ... View more