The B2B Field Marketing Playbook, From Someone Who's Lived It

This article is based on a conversation with Fabi Rocha, Field and Partner Marketing at Snyk, as part of our On The Field with ConvergeX interview series. Watch the full interview here: On The Field with Fabi Rocha

Most B2B field marketing advice sounds the same. Run events. Scan badges. Count leads. Report back.

Fabi Rocha, Field and Partner Marketing at Snyk, has spent the better part of eight years challenging that thinking across North America and EMEA, and the perspective she brings is one of the more honest, practical takes on what field marketing can and should be in 2025.

In a recent episode of On The Field with ConvergeX, hosted by Moaaz Nagori, Fabi shared the career lessons, event philosophy, and measurement frameworks that have shaped how she approaches the role. This article pulls together the key insights from that conversation.

From Generalist to Field Marketer: A Career That Wasn't Planned

Fabi's entry into field marketing was not a calculated move. She started her career wanting to do everything: email marketing, events, social media, digital. When a mentor told her to pick one thing and get really good at it, the advice made sense on paper but never quite fit.

"I was struggling to find that one thing," she explains. "So I decided to be a generalist, and it felt really exciting at first, but eventually it just felt like I was everywhere and nowhere at the same time."

The turning point came when she applied for a digital marketing role and was hired into a field marketing position instead. The hiring manager saw a fit she hadn't considered herself.

What she discovered was that field marketing is uniquely suited to someone who understands multiple channels, because the role is fundamentally about connecting those channels together. "You become a mini CMO of your region," she says. "And I love that."

It is a useful reminder for anyone building or hiring a field marketing function: the best people in the role often did not set out to be there. They evolved into it.

Why In-Person Events Are More Valuable Now, Not Less

One of the more counterintuitive points Fabi makes is that in-person events are becoming more important, not less, precisely because of AI.

"In the next few years, AI will be everywhere, so much so that people just won't know what's real anymore. And when people can't trust what they see online, they'll start craving what they can actually trust, which is human interaction."

The argument is straightforward: as content becomes easier to generate and harder to verify, the things AI cannot replicate become more valuable. Shaking a hand. Reading a room. Having an unscripted conversation. These are not soft benefits. They are the basis of trust, and trust is what moves B2B deals forward.

Field marketing is the only channel, in Fabi's view, that can shift a sales relationship from transactional to human. And that distinction matters more in a world where every other touchpoint risks feeling automated.

"Smart companies will pretty soon start to go back to the most basic form of marketing: in-person experiences."

The Biggest Mistake in B2B Event Marketing

If there is one pattern Fabi sees repeated across companies, it is this: confusing field marketing with conference sponsorships.

"Most people confuse field marketing events with just sponsoring 10 big, bold, flashy conferences per year."

Large third-party conferences have a role to play, she acknowledges, but that role is primarily brand awareness and thought leadership at the top of the funnel. The mistake is treating them as pipeline-driving activities and measuring them accordingly.

The more effective model is to use large events selectively for visibility, and to invest more heavily in smaller, targeted, bottom-of-funnel events where you control the narrative, the attendee list, and the follow-up. Executive dinners. Curated roundtables. Hosted dinners for named accounts.

"When you do that kind of event, you control the narrative, the attendance, the follow-up."

This is exactly the model we operate at ConvergeX Connections. Our curated virtual panels and executive dinners are designed to create the conditions for real conversations between senior decision-makers and the brands that want to reach them. Not badge scans. Relationships.

Vanity Metrics Are Killing Your Event ROI Story

The measurement conversation is where Fabi is most direct.

"I don't know how many times in my career I heard 'we scanned so many badges at that booth' or 'we generated X leads from that field event.' To me, these are all vanity metrics."

The number of leads generated from an event or how busy the booth looked are metrics that mask the real impact, because most of those leads will not be ready, will not be relevant, and many will not even remember the brand once the event is over.

"Field events should be deal accelerators. They build trust. They shorten sales cycles. They make every other future touchpoint work better."

The logic is simple: would you rather bring 100 leads that turn into nothing, or close one deal because your event put your sales rep in front of the right person at the right time?

"If done wrong, you're going to end up with a spreadsheet full of contacts, but no meetings, no deals, no pipeline. Nothing but a very expensive CSV file."

For more on how to think about event ROI in a way that actually ties to business outcomes, see our article on B2B event audience acquisition and quality vs quantity.

How to Actually Measure Field Marketing Performance

Fabi's approach to event metrics is deliberately simple. Too many metrics, she argues, means you end up tracking nothing.

Her recommended framework is full-funnel, focused on what actually moves the needle:

• Lead to MQL: Are the people coming in qualified at all?
• MQL to meeting booked: Are those conversations converting to proper sales engagement?
• Meeting booked to opportunity: Is there real pipeline being created?
• Opportunity to closed-won or closed-lost: Did the deal close, and if not, why?

That last conversion is the most telling. If a deal stalled at the end of the funnel, was it a product fit issue? A competitive loss? Or did it die because sales did not follow up? Each answer points to a different problem, and only some of those problems belong to marketing.

"These are things that you in marketing cannot control. So that's how you're going to actually build your narrative when you are reporting your events performance."

The bottom line for Fabi is always pipeline metrics: meetings booked as a result of the event, new opportunities generated, deals accelerated, and total pipeline influenced. Those are the numbers that tell you whether the event moved the business forward.

Sales and Marketing Alignment: Making It Actually Work

The sales-and-marketing tension is a familiar story in B2B. Marketing says sales is not following up. Sales says marketing is sending bad leads. Fabi's view is that the solution starts with marketing being proactive, not reactive.

That means understanding what sales is trying to achieve: which accounts they are targeting, what a good lead looks like from their perspective, and what happens when a lead lands in Salesforce. Knowing that path makes every handoff more useful.

"When you actually hand off that lead to your sales team, you're also giving them a post-event game plan with clear and actionable next steps, because how they follow up on those leads is actually what's going to dictate if your event was successful or not."

The goal is a relationship where sales trusts that marketing will bring leads worth their time, and marketing trusts that sales will follow through. That trust is built through consistent delivery, not through claiming credit.

What Separates Good Field Marketers from Great Ones

Field marketing is often treated as an execution role: manage the booth, handle the swag, process the badge scans. Fabi's point is that it should be a strategic role, and the difference in output is significant.

"The difference between someone who's just organising an event and a field marketer is that the field marketer is always going to be thinking about how that event is going to close deals."

Great field marketers connect dots across channels. They run events, yes, but they also manage webinars for top target accounts, align outreach with ABM strategy, and build programmes that support specific sales objectives. The channel is not the point. The outcome is.

Advice for Aspiring Field Marketing Leaders

Fabi's advice for anyone building a career in field marketing is consistent with everything else she shares: focus on learning, not positioning.

"This industry evolves so much, changes so much every single day, that what you learned one or two years ago is probably not even effective anymore. Be curious. Put your name out there. Discuss with other people that are already in the industry so that you learn something new every day."

The implication is that the best field marketers are the ones who treat the role as a craft, not a checklist.

Watch the Full Conversation

This article captures the highlights, but the full conversation with Fabi Rocha covers more ground, including specific examples from her time running field programmes at Snyk and her take on where B2B event marketing is heading.

Watch the full interview here

About On The Field with ConvergeX

On The Field is an interview series by ConvergeX Connections, where we sit down with field marketing leaders to unpack what is truly driving impact in B2B events and field programmes.

At ConvergeX Connections, we host curated virtual panels and executive dinners for B2B and SaaS organisations, helping brands build meaningful relationships with senior decision-makers. Our focus is simple: create environments where real conversations, and real business, happen.

Explore more from the ConvergeX Blog for practical insights on B2B event marketing, audience development, and field marketing strategy.