The Bottom-Up Expansion Forecast
Your CX team touches customers every day, and each touch can open an expansion opportunity. This model builds the expansion forecast from the ground up — counting those touches and the rate each converts — rather than setting it as a percentage of your base.
Every Upsell Starts With an Opened Opportunity
Why this mattersThere are several ways to close an upsell, and closing is real work. But whichever model you choose, closers need a steady flow of opened opportunities to work. Opening is the step that's easiest to leave unbuilt — and it sets your expansion number before any closer gets involved.
CSM closes
The CSM who owns the relationship carries the upsell. Cheapest model, but commercial tension can strain the trusted-advisor seat.
Dedicated Upsell AE
A specialist rep works the installed base full-time. Clear accountability and a real outbound motion, at the cost of a quota-carrying head.
Original AE keeps it
The rep who closed the new logo keeps the account. Continuity is strong, but attention drifts to new pipeline when the month gets tight.
Pick a closing model and move on. What determines your expansion number is how many opportunities get opened each month, and from which channels. That's what the rest of this page builds.
Where a Top-Down Percentage Breaks Down
A common way to plan expansion is to forecast upsell revenue as a percentage of the customer base. It looks like a model, but it has no inputs you can act on — it's an estimate rather than a calculation.
“We think we'll get to 20% adoption by year end.”
A top-down percentage has no inputs, no owner, and no lever to pull when you're behind. If it misses, there's nothing underneath to inspect or fix.
The bottom-up modelBuild the forecast from the ground up, using every touch your CX org already makes. Each touch type has a monthly volume you can count and a conversion-to-opportunity rate you can measure. Touches × conversion = opened opportunities. Opened opportunities × win rate × deal size = expansion revenue. Every number has an owner and a lever.
Build the number from the touches you already make, and every miss points to the channel that caused it.
Every Customer Touch Can Open an Opportunity
Your CX org touches customers every day — implementations, support tickets, CSM check-ins, outbound calls, email cadences. Each one is a chance to open an opportunity. The model is those channels, counted honestly, with a conversion rate on each. It has two layers: the human-to-human foundation, and the leverage channels built on top of it.
The Human-to-Human Foundation
Volume × conversion = opps / moImplementations
Volume questionHow many implementations go live each month?
Conversion questionHow many surface a moment to sell — a new team, module, or use case?
Support Tickets
Volume questionHow many tickets come in each month?
Conversion questionHow many reveal a need the next tier or product solves — and get flagged?
CSM Touches
Volume questionWhat's the cadence — weekly, monthly, quarterly — and how many touches does that total?
Conversion questionHow many check-ins and QBRs end with a qualified expansion conversation?
Upsell AE Outbound
Volume questionWhat does the outbound calling motion into the base look like — dials and connects per month?
Conversion questionWhat's the connect-to-opportunity rate?
Email Cadence
Volume questionHow many customers enter an upsell sequence each month?
Conversion questionWhat's the sequence's conversion-to-opportunity rate?
The Leverage Channels
Built on top of the foundation, not instead of itCustomer Marketing
Volume questionWhat campaigns run into the base — webinars, newsletters, launches — and how many engage?
Conversion questionHow many engaged accounts convert to an opportunity?
In-Product Funnel
Volume questionHow many usage signals fire monthly — limit hits, locked-feature views, upgrade clicks?
Conversion questionHow many signals become a routed, worked opportunity?
Customer marketing and in-product funnels are well-documented motions with plenty of tooling — use them. But they amplify the human-to-human connections your team makes every day; they don't replace them. A funnel email lands differently when a CSM was in the account last week. Build the foundation first, then layer leverage on top.
Build the Forecast From the Ground Up
Put a monthly volume and a conversion rate on every channel. The totals below update as you type — replace the sample numbers with yours. When the forecast misses, you'll see which row missed, who owns it, and which of the two inputs to fix: more touches, or better conversion.
You won't know your conversion rates yet — that's expected. Estimate conservatively, instrument every channel, and replace the estimates with actuals as the data comes in. A ground-up model with rough inputs is still more useful than a top-down percentage, because every miss points to the input that was off. The sample numbers above are illustrative placeholders, not benchmarks.
Run It on a Cadence
The model is only as good as the instrumentation behind it. Four habits keep it honest.
Instrument the source
Every expansion opportunity gets a required source field: implementation, ticket, CSM touch, outbound, email, marketing, or in-product. An opportunity without a source doesn't get logged.
Count the opens
Review opportunities opened by channel against the model. Behind on volume? That's an activity problem you can address this week.
True-up conversion
Compare actual conversion rates to the model's assumptions, channel by channel, and update the assumptions to match.
Re-forecast from actuals
Rebuild the expansion forecast from trailing actuals. That figure is what goes into the plan.
How to Roll This Out
- Pick your closing model — CSM, dedicated Upsell AE, or original AE — write down who owns opened opportunities, and leave the choice settled.
- List every touch type your CX org makes in a month and put a real monthly volume on each, counted from your systems rather than estimated.
- Add the required source field to expansion opportunities in your CRM before you do anything else.
- Train implementation and support teams on what a sell-to moment looks like — and give them a one-click way to flag it. Their job is to open opportunities for a closer to work.
- Set the model's first conversion rates conservatively, then replace every estimate with a trailing actual as measurement data accumulates.
- Build one dashboard: opps opened by channel × month, with model vs. actual. This is the first slide of every expansion review.
- Retire the “% of base” line from your plan. If someone asks for the expansion number, show them the channel build-up behind it.