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Bridging the Divide
A Journey in Marketing & Sales Alignment (and the AI Challenge)
For over 25 years, I've navigated the dynamic landscape of technology marketing. This journey has taken me from the hands-on collaboration of early-stage companies to the complexities of larger organisations, often where teams have worked in siloes. However, a consistent theme throughout has been the challenge of misalignment, most noticeably between marketing and sales teams, but also involving other crucial departments like product development, operations, and customer success. In some instances, this lack of alignment even extends to our wider partner ecosystem, all of whom share a vested interest in driving growth and revenue.
Looking back to the early days, working with small businesses meant close collaboration with CEOs and Sales Directors. This gave me invaluable insight into the direct needs of sales. Back then, marketing was strictly focused on generating leads that delivered real business impact or ROI. With lean budgets, we focused on creative, customer-centric strategies like hosting intimate events, leveraging industry partnerships, and building brand credibility through PR and early SEO efforts. Everything was designed to deeply understand the customer and directly support sales in hitting their revenue goals.
Moving into larger organisations, however, that synergy became harder to maintain. Siloed teams, misaligned KPIs, and competing priorities made true collaboration more challenging. Despite shared overarching goals, the disconnect often diluted the impact of both marketing and sales efforts. The rise of vanity metrics and challenging quarterly targets only added to the misalignment, overshadowing the strategic collaboration so necessary for sustainable, long-term growth.
More recently, following the pandemic, the renewed emphasis on sustainable revenue generation, coupled with what feels like constantly rising targets, has significantly amplified the pressure on teams responsible for growth and profits.
Now, with the rapid adoption of AI, a new dimension is added to this landscape, presenting both exciting opportunities and potential challenges. AI certainly has the potential to enhance efficiency, enable better decision-making, and streamline processes. However, it cannot replace the crucial human elements of strategic thinking, genuine collaboration, and clear communication. Its true value lies in how effectively it supports a truly unified approach between marketing and sales, always grounded in a deep understanding of the customer.
The organisations that will truly thrive in this era are those that actively bridge divides, not just between marketing and sales, but across all teams, functions, and partners working together toward a shared revenue goal. By strategically integrating powerful tools like AI into this collaborative framework, they can harness technology as a powerful enabler, not a standalone solution. True alignment is, and will ultimately be, driven by culture, leadership, and a shared vision for sustainable growth.
Why Good Quality Data Is the Engine of a High-Impact GTM Strategy
Over the years, one pattern has remained clear in every B2B tech company I’ve worked with: the biggest blocker to sustainable growth isn’t a lack of tools or talent, it’s the consistent neglect of good quality data. It’s either missing, siloed, or simply not used to shape the go-to-market (GTM) strategy.
Even when businesses have access to good quality data, it’s often underutilised when it comes to shaping GTM strategy. Yet, when that data is intentionally harnessed and embedded into planning, aligned across teams, and activated through insight-led execution, it can become one of the most powerful levers for sustainable growth.
No matter how much you invest in sales, marketing, or partnerships, the true impact comes when those efforts are underpinned by shared, reliable data and when teams adopt a nearbound, ecosystem-aware mindset. With this foundation, every GTM motion becomes more precise, more aligned, and ultimately more effective.
In the B2B tech world, data isn’t just a resource. It’s your competitive edge. It should guide everything: from identifying and prioritising the right accounts, to engaging with precision, to scaling what works. But for it to deliver real value, it must be accurate, consistent across teams, and rooted in shared business outcomes.
When marketing, sales, and partners align around trusted data, GTM execution becomes more focused, more collaborative, and ultimately, more revenue-generating.
Start with One Source of Truth
Every effective GTM strategy begins with alignment on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This shared definition should guide the development of a single, unified target account list. Collaborating across marketing, sales, and alliances to build this list, enriched with signals from multiple data sources, creates a reliable foundation for targeting.
This level of alignment allows for precise segmentation, consistent messaging, and coordinated execution across teams. It also ensures that everyone is pulling in the same direction, reducing confusion and increasing impact at every touchpoint.
The Three Layers of GTM Data
To create a data-driven GTM engine, you need to bring together insights from three critical layers: internal, external, and ecosystem data.
Internal (1st-party) data is everything your organisation already collects: CRM records, web analytics, product usage patterns, and email engagement. But there are often overlooked sources here too, like sales call transcripts, support tickets, onboarding progress, and post-sale interactions. These can provide deep behavioural insight into your buyers and where they are in their journey.
External data provides an outside-in view. This includes both:
- 2nd-party data – data you obtain directly from another company through a partnership (such as website engagement data from aligned non-competing businesses).
- 3rd-party data – aggregated data from external providers or platforms who gather it from multiple sources.
Providers such as Cognism, Infuse, TechTarget, and Bombora offer valuable insights into buyer intent, broader industry trends, and account-level engagement activity. Intent data helps identify the small percentage of accounts that are in-market right now, often just 5%. But just as important is behavioural and demographic data that supports the nurturing of the other 95%, those still researching in the ‘dark funnel’.
Getting this balance right ensures you're not only capitalising on the opportunities in front of you but also building future pipeline with those still considering their options.
Ecosystem Data: Shared Insight That Scales
Partner and ecosystem data is increasingly critical yet still underutilised. When go-to-market partners collaborate and share account insights securely and strategically, they can uncover overlaps, identify mutual opportunities, and better coordinate GTM efforts.
This kind of data includes co-sell readiness, account mapping, and shared signals that help you tailor joint campaigns and improve win rates. Ecosystem-driven insight shortens deal cycles, strengthens relationships, and unlocks new growth opportunities.
Data-Driven Collaboration: The True Advantage
Great data on its own isn’t enough. GTM strategies succeed when teams work together around a shared vision, common metrics, and mutual trust. True collaboration internally and with partners requires a foundation of clean, unified data that everyone can rely on.
This type of collaboration enables shared definitions of success, unified reporting structures, and continuous feedback loops that improve performance over time. With better alignment comes faster decision-making, more targeted engagement, and higher conversion rates.
Strategic Alliances and Ecosystem Thinking
Strategic alliances - whether through GTM working groups, partner-led networks, regional peer forums, or cross-functional collaborations, play a key role in embedding best practices, aligning objectives, and scaling through cooperation. These spaces create room for marketing, sales, and partnership leaders to exchange insights, align on data strategy, and build joint success models.
By tapping into these collaborative environments, organisations gain access to diverse perspectives, stronger data integration techniques, and proven GTM methods - critical ingredients for scalable, ecosystem-led growth.
Automate What Works. Improve What Doesn’t.
Once you’ve established strong alignment and a centralised data foundation, automation and AI can supercharge your GTM execution. Triggered campaigns, multi-threaded outreach, and real-time ICP refinement are all within reach.
AI-powered tools help you prioritise accounts more intelligently, surface insights faster, and continually optimise performance. Combined with always-on feedback loops between marketing and sales, this leads to stronger engagement and more efficient revenue generation.
Better Data. Better Collaboration. Better Revenue.
High-impact GTM strategies don’t happen by chance. They’re built on a foundation of clean, centralised data, cross-functional alignment, and a culture of collaboration, both within the business and across the partner ecosystem.
Focus on building and maintaining a shared target account list. Blend intent signals with long-term behavioural data to support both short-term wins and long-term growth. Don’t ignore the data you already have, from onboarding journeys to support interactions, it’s all rich with insights.
And most importantly, foster collaborative planning and joint accountability with your partners. When everyone is aligned, success becomes scalable.