What's the highest-revenue path?

Why deal size varies dramatically by journey pattern

A lead that comes through a Google Ads click on a generic keyword might produce a $4,000 deal. A lead that comes through a conference introduction, gets a personalized demo, and goes through a consultative sales process might produce a $28,000 deal. The product is the same. The pricing might be the same. But the journey is completely different.

High-revenue paths often share common characteristics: the lead came from a high-intent source (referral, partner, industry event), the sales process included a discovery call where needs were mapped, and the proposal was scoped around the customer's specific problems. These journeys take longer and cost more in sales time, but the revenue per deal justifies the investment.

If you are treating all leads the same, you are either over-investing in small deals or under-investing in the ones that could be big.

How to find your highest-revenue path manually

1. 1
   Export closed-won deals from HubSpot

   Go to CRM → Deals. Filter for Closed Won, last 6 months. Export with Deal Name, Amount, Original Source, Original Source Drill-Down, Create Date, and Close Date.

2. 2
   Group deals by lead source and journey type

   In your spreadsheet, create categories based on the Original Source field: Organic Search, Paid Search, Social, Referral, Direct, Email, etc. For each group, calculate the average deal size.

3. 3
   Map touchpoints for the highest-revenue group

   For the group with the highest average deal size, open each deal in HubSpot and record the activity timeline. Look for common patterns: did they all include a discovery call? Was there a multi-stakeholder demo? Did the proposal include custom scoping?

4. 4
   Verify with QuickBooks invoice data

   Go to Sales → Invoices in QuickBooks. Search by customer name for each high-revenue deal. Verify that the deal amount matches the invoice amount (it often does not due to scope changes). Check if the invoice was paid in full.

5. 5
   Calculate true revenue per path

   Use the QuickBooks invoice data (not just CRM deal amounts) to get the real revenue. Some deals close for $20K in the CRM but the actual invoiced amount is $16K after scope was adjusted.

What it takes to track revenue by journey every month

The highest-revenue path shifts as your market changes. Monthly tracking requires:

• Re-exporting deal data and regrouping by source and journey type.
• Cross-checking CRM deal amounts against actual invoice amounts in QuickBooks.
• Comparing this month's revenue-per-path to last month's to catch shifts.

The two-system reconciliation (CRM deal amount vs. accounting invoice amount) is what kills this analysis. Without it, you are working with deal estimates, not actual revenue.

Or see your highest-revenue path automatically

Bottomline connects to both your CRM and QuickBooks. It groups closed deals by journey pattern, uses actual invoice amounts (not CRM deal estimates), and ranks paths by average revenue per deal.

Because Bottomline uses actual invoice data from QuickBooks rather than CRM deal amounts, the revenue figures are real. You see what customers actually paid, not what the sales team estimated during pipeline management.