How Demand Gen Leaders Are Building Sales Alignment Through Shared Data and Team Structure
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This article is based on a conversation with demand generation marketing experts in a TrustRadius Leaders Tell All panel. You can watch Convergence of Hyper-Personalization, Brand, and Tech in Modern Demand Gen here.
Moving Beyond Source, Silos, and MQL Battles
For years, marketing and sales teams have struggled to stay aligned. Whether it was disagreements over lead quality, disputes over sourcing credit, or siloed tech stacks, the result was the same: fractured pipeline performance and frustrated teams. But forward-thinking demand gen leaders are taking a different approach—one rooted in shared data to build trust, and increase visibility across departments.
“We have shared pipeline goals with our sales organization,” said Kristen Hogan, now CMO at Apptio, an IBM company. “That doesn’t happen everywhere—that everyone is working toward the same goals.
“We’re all on the same page.”
Instead of operating in separate worlds, marketing and sales teams at Apptio and BloomReach are building unified go-to-market (GTM) engines. That means not just agreeing on outcomes and KPIs but reshaping how teams are organized to make collaboration real.
“We’re in pods where we’re actually aligned to a marketing [person], a salesperson, and a channel rep,” said Candace Gregg, Senior Director of Demand Gen at BloomReach. “It physically aligns us, but then also it just feels like we’re all one team… we’re working towards pipeline.”
Building a team structure centered around the same data removes ambiguity and streamlines accountability. It’s not about whether a lead came from sales or marketing—it’s about working together to move the deal forward.
Breaking the “Inbound vs. Outbound” Mentality
One of the most impactful mindset shifts came from abandoning the old debate about inbound versus outbound.
“Where I struggled for so many years was that inbound versus outbound mentality when I think we all believe that obviously we need both,” Candace shared. “We know that our sales team needs something to outbound on: they need messaging, they need campaigns, they need interesting announcements that we have.
“What really helped was we had a couple of champions who we would show the data—look at how good our conversions are when we outbound on events and set meetings and invite them to these bespoke experiences we do at our bigger events. Look at how well those convert into pipeline for your pods.
“We, at some point, just stopped talking about whether it was inbound or outbound.”
By showing the sales team data-driven results and bringing them into integrated programs, Candace’s team won buy-in without politics.
The Role of Trust and Visibility
Both Kristen and Candace emphasized that alignment isn’t just tactical—it’s cultural. It’s about building trust across teams.
“You need trust to build any kind of foundation from that,” noted Host Allyson Havener, CMO at TrustRadius. “You’re both using those words in how you’ve built trust with the sales team and shown up as a partner.”
Kristen’s team fosters that trust by being transparent and predictable with their data:
“There’s a dashboard everyone can go to at any one time,” Kristen explained. “We can talk through it at a macro level, we can also talk through it down to an individual seller level so that we can understand where we might need to pull different levers or put some other quick hit program that are aligned to the large orchestrated programs that are happening to better help that sales person.”
Getting Sales to Trust the Process
One of the most relatable challenges in B2B marketing is convincing sales that marketing’s actions will help—not hinder—their pipeline. Kristen shared how she tackled that directly.
“We are not going to over-market. We have a safety in place so that if you, Mr. Sales or Mrs. Salesperson, are working with that particular lead, there’s an opportunity. We’ll pull back our marketing, we’ll just do a very light surround where they might just see us digitally somewhere, but we won’t actively pursue them.” she said. “They are not going to be bombarded.”
Those assurances, backed by execution, helped earn credibility. Over time, sales started seeing the value.
“Once we started actioning those things… that’s when we got the groundswell of trust from the majority of sales,” Kristen added. “We still have lots of room for progress, but that’s really what helped turn the corner for us.”
The results? Faster response times, more meaningful buyer interactions, and a united front at every stage of the journey.
“It just feels like the morale around everyone working towards the same goal is there right now,” said Candace.
Today, sales and marketing alignment isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a strategic advantage. The teams that build shared structures, use shared data, and invest in shared trust will be the ones who move faster, execute smarter, and win more.
