Ah, the good ol’ sales and marketing alignment. If it isn’t the elusive holy grail of B2B growth, whispered about in boardrooms and touted as the silver bullet to skyrocketing revenue. But if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve spent countless hours trying to bridge the gap—and it still feels like sales is playing from an entirely different playbook.
Here’s the most important thing you’ll take out of reading this post: alignment isn’t about everyone holding hands at QBRs. And to explain this, I invited Romi Davidor from Fiverr to talk all things (mis)alignment and how to turn it into a good thing.
TL;DR Is true sales and marketing alignment even possible? Yes. And no 😉 For the video version, see here:
Why the sales <> marketing tension exists—and why that’s okay
Marketers and sales teams are like siblings who grew up in the same house but couldn’t be more different.
- Marketers focus on the long game—building awareness, nurturing leads, and crafting messaging that attracts prospects.
- Salespeople want immediate wins, closing deals, and hitting monthly quotas.
Both teams are essential, but their metrics, goals, and mindsets often clash.
Sales: Why isn’t marketing handing me Opportunities that are ready to close?
Marketing: Why isn’t sales patiently following the process we worked so hard to map out?
And despite what we’re all thinking… Romi believes that this friction is actually healthy. Why? Because it forces both teams to focus on what really matters—and that’s delivering value to the ICP and driving revenue.
Marketing and sales alignment made possible
Step 1: Start by Understanding Sales’ KPIs
Here’s a hard truth: many marketers don’t fully understand how their sales team operates. And probably never will. But instead of letting it work the way it does (meaning, not working), try answering these questions:
- What’s the sales team’s quota this month and quarter?
- How many calls or demos do they need to hit their targets?
- How does your lead quality (MQLs) tie into their success metrics (SQLs or closed deals)?
If you can’t answer these questions, it’s time to sit in on sales team meetings. Review their CRM dashboards. Shadow an SDR for a day to understand the volume and type of leads they’re working with.
The goal here is not necessarily to befriend sales now. Or worse, sweet-talk them into bending their rules in your favor. Yes, SDRs and AEs can be your biggest allies, but they can also be your toughest critics–and there’s so much potential in that. Take time to understand their workflows, and you’ll spot those tiny inefficiencies that, with the right tweaks, can turn a sluggish lead pipeline into a conversion powerhouse.
Step 2: Build Collaboration Into Your Campaigns
One of the most common pitfalls in sales <> marketing alignment (feels like we’re just repeating ourselves…) is a lack of synchronization between campaigns and quotas. The two teams might meet during quarterly kickoffs, but after that, it’s often radio silence until someone raises a red flag–which is usually way too late.
At Fiverr, Romi introduced a really effective solution I’ll probably copy: dedicated Slack channels per campaign.
Here’s how it works for her:
- Create a shared Slack channel for each major campaign.
- Add all key stakeholders—marketing, SDRs, sales managers, and even sales ops.
- Proactively update the channel with key information, like campaign timelines, messaging, and ad previews.
This helps everyone stay in the loop without needing endless meetings or email threads. Plus, it prevents sales from feeling blindsided when new leads start rolling in.
Speaking of meetings… They’re there for a reason. So do make it a point to hold kickoff meetings with your sales team before launching any campaign. Cover things like:
- Campaign objectives and timelines,
- Lead generation goals, including volume and quality expectations,
- Messaging and positioning: what pain points you’re addressing, and how to handle objections.
But don’t stop there. Continue with frequent status meetings to ensure the leads you’re bringing in are of good quality and that sales are on track with their goals. And once the campaign ends, host a post-mortem meeting to assess what worked, what didn’t, and how to improve next time.
By the way, if your marketing campaign focuses on a long-term awareness play, but sales needs SQLs yesterday to hit their quota, you’re setting both teams up for frustration.
To avoid this, sit down with sales ops and leadership to map out:
- Quarterly sales goals and priorities.
- Campaign timelines and expected lead flow.
- Contingency plans if quotas aren’t being met (e.g., evergreen campaigns or re-engagement efforts).
This ensures that marketing isn’t just blindly feeding the sales pipeline.
Now, I’m not saying you should drop long term activities. After all, there’s no well-performing PPC without brand awareness.
Step 3: Fine-Tune Your Lead Handoff Process
Ah, the infamous lead handoff. It’s one of the most common sources of tension between sales and marketing.
Here’s the usual scenario:
- Marketing delivers leads to sales, but sales complains they’re low quality.
- Marketing fires back insisting that they meet the ICP criteria and that sales isn’t following up properly.
- Cue frustration on both sides.
To avoid this, you need clearer definitions and processes for your leads:
- Define MQLs and SQLs together: What makes a lead ready for sales? Agree on criteria like job title, company size, engagement level, or specific actions taken (e.g., requesting a demo), and all the other details marketing and sales usually tend to not agree on;
- Set SLAs: Define how quickly sales should follow up with leads, and how many touchpoints sales should deliver to keep leads warm;
- Provide context: Don’t just dump leads into the CRM—attach notes, activity history, and insights that can help sales tailor their approach. And yes, no one has time to do that manually, so use tools that help you automate that process (hint: HubSpot).
And remember, marketing’s job shouldn’t be done once the lead is handed off. See if sales have enough data and the right tools they need to close deals. Maybe there’s new content that can help convert leads further?
Step 4: Learn From the Sales Team
You know the process. We write some copy. Leadership tells us to amend, so we amend. Legal tells us to completely change, so we change. Now we don’t like it anymore, so we edit some more. We end up spending so much time refining the messaging, that we forget to check if it resonates… with the actual customers.
And that’s where Romi shared a valuable lesson from her time at Fiverr: Get on sales calls. Listen to how your SDRs pitch, how prospects respond, and what objections come up.
You might discover that the pain points you’re addressing in your campaigns aren’t the ones prospects actually care about—or that your messaging needs a tweak to reflect real-world conversations.
You know what’s even better? Including product marketing and customer success in these conversations as well. The more connected your messaging is to the actual customer experience, the better.
You know what’s even better-better? Something that Rebecca Herson recently shared on one of our events when she spoke about crafting your B2B messaging: live A/B those messages. Have sales tweak the pitch every time and look for differences. What works better, what hits that sweet spot, what’s important for whom. You can listen to it here:
Step 5: Build Personal Relationships With Sales
At the end of the day, alignment is about people.
Identify someone on the sales team who’s open to collaboration, and work with them to bridge the gap. This person can act as your internal champion, helping you:
- Push new ideas, insights and workflows.
- Flag issues before they escalate;
- Advocate for marketing’s role when tensions rise (and we know we all need that);
Why alignment is an ongoing process
At the end of the day, no matter how perfectly aligned your teams are today, misalignment will creep back in. Campaigns will shift. Quotas will change. And yes, someone will still skip steps in the process when Q4 pressure hits. Just remember that this healthy friction drives innovation, ensures accountability, and pushes both teams to perform at their best. Romi puts it best:
“There’s always going to be conflict, pushback, and not enough leads. But by building strong relationships and fostering collaboration, you can turn that tension into a powerful machine.”
Have your own tips or war stories about sales-marketing alignment? You know that’s what I like best 😉
