Geberit Australia

The Problem

I ran national marketing for Geberit Australia — a B2B manufacturer selling concealed cisterns, drainage and bathroom systems through a long chain of plumbers, specifiers, builders and retail. The buying cycle stretched 6–18 months, and the funnel was opaque. Trade campaigns generated brochure downloads; specifier campaigns generated CPD attendance; retail campaigns generated co-op claims with no read on sales-through. The three audiences shared an $850K budget but not a shared definition of a qualified lead, so every channel reported its own version of success. One budget, three audiences, no agreed scoring — that was the gap I had to close.

The System

I built one lead-flow system that spoke three audience dialects. HubSpot became the single CRM; GA4 the single analytics layer; Google Ads and trade-press placements the paid channels. I designed a tiered scoring schema (specifier CPD attended > plumber installer-club join > retail product-page visit) and mapped each tier to a sales follow-up SLA. Specifier content (technical CPD modules, BIM downloads) sat on top of the trade backbone, sharing UTMs and attribution. The sales team accepted scoring because I sat with them weekly during the rebuild — not after.

The Outcome

Over two years the funnel tightened. Qualified leads — defined the same way across all three audiences — lifted 68% against the 2017 baseline. Cost per qualified lead dropped 23%. Specifier engagement (CPD completions plus BIM downloads) doubled. Combined campaign ROI lifted 42% versus the prior plan, measured against booked B2B sell-in and tracked retail sell-through. The $850K budget reallocated mid-year on attribution data, not on agency lobbying — the bigger structural win than the numbers themselves. I reported to the Country Manager and ran the function with one direct (marketing coordinator) plus a digital agency under retainer.

The bet I lost: the first iteration of the specifier-tier scoring assumed CPD attendance meant intent. Six months in, half the CPD attendees were CPD-point-collectors with no live project — they inflated the qualified-lead count without converting. I added a "live project named" gate to the specifier tier in v2, which dropped the headline lead count by ~15% but lifted SQL conversion materially. The number-down-quality-up move is the one I'd repeat anywhere.

What Transferred

The component I expect to translate to the next role is the unified scoring schema across audiences — a B2B funnel only works when sales and marketing agree on what "qualified" means before the campaign launches. The CPD-collector lesson is the same in any high-content B2B vertical: scoring on engagement signal alone over-counts; a project-named gate is cheap and converts the funnel from theatre to forecast.