How Do Sales and Marketing Align in Revenue Marketing?

Run alignment like a governance program, not an initiative. Stand up a revenue council with clear decision rights, one scorecard, and timeboxed agendas (metrics ≤ 15 minutes, decisions & blockers for the rest). Publish start/stop/scale outcomes so planning and funding follow evidence—not opinions.

Plan together, execute together. Build a joint GTM calendar where campaigns, ABM waves, partner motions, and enablement land on one timeline. Each play names an exec sponsor, sales owner, marketing owner, segments, buying-group roles, and success metrics (pipeline created, velocity lift, win rate change).

Make handoffs binary and coachable. Use shared MQL/SQL/SAO definitions and strict SLAs; capture dispositions with standardized codes to power recycle paths and content feedback. If you haven’t formalized this yet, start with the lead handoff playbook.

Treat enablement as a co-owned factory. Marketing owns narratives, proof, and competitive content; sales owns talk tracks and rep practice. Maintain a searchable “live asset index” mapped to stages (discover, diagnose, decide). Require a one-page spec for each asset (persona, problem, proof, where it wins, expiry).

Align data, tech, and attribution. Lock a single attribution model for reporting (e.g., time-decay or W-shaped) and protect original-source fields. Sync CRM↔MAP taxonomies, enforce UTMs/campaign IDs, and publish an overlap view so totals don’t exceed 100%. New to this? See multi-touch attribution and pipeline influence.

Incentivize the same outcomes. Tie SDR and AE scorecards to accepted meetings, pipeline, and win rate, not just volume. Give marketing variable comp on sourced/influenced revenue and velocity targets to reduce gaming toward low-quality lead counts.

Make feedback loops automatic. Pipe call outcomes, loss reasons, and content gaps back to campaign targeting and asset roadmaps. Run a monthly “growth retro” to turn these insights into backlog items with owners and due dates.

Prove impact with board-safe metrics: pipeline contribution (sourced & influenced), median time-in-stage, overall velocity, win rate, and ASP by segment. When comparing plays, highlight days saved per stage and conversion lift, then shift budget toward programs that accelerate decisions. For methodology, see measuring deal velocity impact.

Avoid common pitfalls: dueling dashboards, undefined rejection codes, regional exceptions to SLAs, and “pilot purgatory.” The fix is boring—but powerful: one scorecard, one taxonomy, one model, and a cadence where leaders actually decide.