Gifting isn’t magic. It won’t make pipeline appear out of thin air, no matter what the sales tech hype machine says. But done right—and tracked properly—it can help open doors, accelerate deals, and make your team stand out. The trick is proving it. This guide is for sales, marketing, and RevOps folks who want to actually measure whether those clever cookies, coffee cards, or branded mugs are moving the needle, using Reachdesk.
Why bother measuring gifting?
If you’re spending real money on gifts, your boss (or your finance team) will eventually ask: “Is this working?” Relying on anecdotes or “good vibes” isn’t enough. You need to show:
- How gifting impacts pipeline (not just opens or clicks)
- Which campaigns or tactics are worth repeating
- Where you’re wasting budget
Measuring this stuff isn’t rocket science, but it does take some upfront work and a willingness to be honest about what’s working—and what’s not.
Step 1: Get your basics in order
Before you fire off another box of brownies, make sure you have these fundamentals sorted.
1.1. Sync Reachdesk with your CRM
You can’t measure what you can’t track. Connect Reachdesk to your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, whatever you use). This ensures every gift sent, delivered, and accepted is logged against the right contact or account.
Pro tip: Double-check that your CRM fields are mapped correctly. If gifts aren’t showing up on the right records, your data will be useless.
1.2. Standardize how you tag and name campaigns
Don’t let your team go wild with campaign names like “Q2 blitz 🍕” or “Random swag drop.” Set up a clear naming convention in Reachdesk and your CRM. This makes reporting cleaner and helps you compare apples to apples later.
What to ignore: Vanity metrics like “number of gifts sent” or “delivered.” These say nothing about impact.
Step 2: Define what “impact” means for you
This is where a lot of teams get lost. Decide up front what “pipeline impact” means in your world. Some common definitions:
- Influenced pipeline: Any deal where a gift was sent and the prospect engaged
- Sourced pipeline: Deals that wouldn’t have happened without gifting
- Accelerated pipeline: Deals that moved faster after a gift was sent
Be realistic. Most gifting programs are better at influencing pipeline than sourcing it out of nowhere.
Pro tip: Align with sales and marketing on your definitions early. Otherwise, you’ll end up arguing over what counts as “gifting impact” every quarter.
Step 3: Set up your tracking and reporting
Now for the grunt work. Here’s how to actually track gifting’s impact on pipeline, step by step.
3.1. Use Reachdesk campaigns (not just one-offs)
Every gift should be sent as part of a tracked campaign in Reachdesk. This links the gift activity to a specific goal, audience, and time period. It also makes reporting easier later.
- Create a new campaign in Reachdesk for each new initiative (e.g., “Q3 ABM Warmup”)
- Assign each gift to the right campaign
What to ignore: Ad-hoc, one-off sends without any campaign context. They muddy your data and make it impossible to see trends.
3.2. Track key metrics
Here’s what you actually want to measure:
- Gift acceptance rate: Of the gifts you sent, how many were accepted? (If no one’s accepting, something’s off.)
- Meetings booked post-gift: Did your gift help you land more meetings than your usual outreach?
- Pipeline created or influenced: Total dollar value of opportunities tied to gifted contacts/accounts
- Deal acceleration: How long deals took to progress before vs. after gifting
Set up dashboards or reports in your CRM to track these. Most of the heavy lifting comes from good campaign tagging and CRM integration, not complicated tech.
3.3. Use multi-touch attribution (but keep it simple)
Don’t get lost in attribution rabbit holes. Multi-touch attribution can help you see if gifting was one of several touches that led to new pipeline—but keep your model straightforward.
- First-touch: Did a gift kick off a new conversation or opportunity?
- Last-touch: Was a gift the final nudge before a meeting or deal?
- Multi-touch: Was gifting one of several touches along the way?
Honest take: Attribution is never perfect. Use it for trends, not gospel truths.
Step 4: Compare results against a control group
If you want to get a little more scientific, set up a control group:
- Pick a similar set of accounts or contacts that don’t receive gifts
- Compare their pipeline results to the group that did
This helps you isolate the impact of gifting vs. your regular outreach. You won’t get lab-grade results, but it’s better than guessing.
Pro tip: Don’t overthink the control group. Just make sure the accounts are similar in size, industry, and stage.
Step 5: Review, adapt, and ditch what’s not working
Once you’ve run a few campaigns, step back and look at the data:
- Did gifting actually create or accelerate pipeline?
- Which tactics (timing, gift type, messaging) worked best?
- Where did you waste budget? (Be honest.)
Share real numbers with your team. Kill off the campaigns or tactics that aren’t delivering. Double down on what works. And don’t be afraid to pause gifting for a cohort as a test—it’s the fastest way to see if it’s actually making a difference.
Common pitfalls (and how to avoid them)
- Assuming every gift leads to a deal: Most don’t. Even great gifts are just one touch among many.
- Overvaluing “delivered” or “opened” rates: Only pipeline matters.
- Ignoring timing: Sending a gift too early (or too late) kills momentum.
- Letting sales run wild: Rogue gifting clouds your data and blows your budget.
- Not closing the loop: If you’re not updating opportunity records with gift activity, your reporting will be off.
Tools and integrations that make this easier
If you’re serious about measurement, don’t try to cobble this together in spreadsheets. Use:
- Reachdesk CRM integration: Get gift activity logged automatically
- CRM dashboards: Build custom reports for pipeline influenced, deals accelerated, etc.
- Sales engagement tools (like Outreach/Salesloft): Sync gifting steps into your sequences for better tracking
- Attribution tools: Optional—keep it simple unless you really need to get granular
When gifting doesn’t move the needle
Sometimes you’ll find that gifting just isn’t working for your audience or at your deal size. That’s okay. Gifting is a tactic, not a silver bullet. If your data says it’s not creating pipeline, don’t force it. Try something else—or save the budget for when it matters most.
Wrapping up: Keep it simple, iterate fast
The real secret to measuring gifting impact with Reachdesk is to keep things simple, be honest about what’s working, and adjust as you go. Don’t get caught up in vanity metrics or overcomplicated attribution models. Focus on pipeline, run clear experiments, and let the data (not the swag catalog) guide your next move.