Janhavi Nagarhalli

Whether you’re launching a new product or planning to expand in a new market, a great GTM strategy is your key to success.

However, a strategy is only as good as the metrics used to measure it. Tracking the right GTM metrics can provide actionable insights into customer acquisition, retention, and overall business growth.

In this guide, we’ll explore the top GTM metrics you should track, explain why they matter, and provide actionable examples to help you apply these insights.

TL;DR:

• This article covers the top GTM (Go-to-Market) metrics businesses should track to evaluate and optimize their strategies. 
• We discuss essential metrics like Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), Sales Cycle Length, Conversion Rate, Churn Rate, and more. 
• You'll learn why these metrics are important, how they impact your business, and actionable examples to help you apply them effectively.

What is GTM?

Before diving into metrics, let's define GTM. Go-to-market (GTM) refers to a company's process and strategy for bringing a product to market and reaching target customers. It encompasses marketing, sales, distribution, and customer service activities. A GTM strategy outlines how a company plans to sell and deliver its product to customers.

Why Are GTM Metrics Important?

GTM metrics are critical because they provide quantifiable insights into how well your GTM strategy is performing. These metrics allow businesses to:

• Identify areas for improvement in marketing, sales, and distribution.
• Align cross-functional teams with shared goals and performance indicators.
• Predict future performance and make informed decisions.
• Justify investments and budget allocations based on data-driven insights.

Tracking these metrics ensures that your GTM strategy is on the right path and helps you pivot when necessary.

Top GTM Metrics to Track

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

CAC measures the cost of acquiring a new customer. It includes all marketing and sales expenses divided by the number of new customers acquired during a specific period. A high CAC can indicate inefficiencies in your GTM strategy, while a low CAC suggests that you're acquiring customers cost-effectively.

Suppose your marketing expenses for Q1 were $100,000, and your sales expenses were $50,000, totaling $150,000. If you acquired 300 new customers in Q1, your CAC would be $500. By tracking this, you can evaluate whether your acquisition channels are efficient or need optimization.

2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

CLTV estimates the total revenue a customer will generate during their relationship with your company. Compared to CAC, it gives insight into the profitability of your GTM strategy. A higher CLTV suggests that customers find value in your product, leading to longer relationships and more revenue.

If a customer spends $200 monthly for 24 months, the CLTV is $4,800. If your CAC is $500, your customer is providing nearly 10x return on your acquisition cost, signaling a healthy business model.

3. Sales Cycle Length

The sales cycle length measures the time it takes to convert a lead into a paying customer. A shorter sales cycle means you're efficiently moving prospects through the pipeline, while a longer cycle may indicate friction points in your process.

Track the average time from the first interaction (e.g., demo request) to the closed sale. If the average sales cycle is 60 days, but top competitors close within 30 days, you should refine your sales approach.

4. Conversion Rate

The conversion rate measures the percentage of leads or prospects that convert into paying customers. This metric is essential because it directly impacts revenue and highlights the effectiveness of your GTM strategy.

If you generate 1,000 leads from a campaign and convert 100 into customers, your conversion rate is 10%. Analyzing conversion rates at different stages of the funnel can help you identify bottlenecks and improve your process.

5. Churn Rate

The churn rate measures the percentage of customers who stop using your product or service during a given period. A high churn rate can indicate problems with product-market fit, customer satisfaction, or customer support. Reducing churn should be a priority in any GTM strategy.

If you start with 1,000 customers in January and lose 100 by the end of the month, your churn rate is 10%. By tracking churn, you can implement strategies to improve retention, such as personalized onboarding or enhanced customer support.

6. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS measures customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking customers how likely they are to recommend your product or service to others. A high NPS indicates strong customer advocacy, while a low score suggests room for improvement in your product or customer experience.

After a customer purchases, send out an NPS survey. If your score is below industry benchmarks, you may need to re-evaluate your GTM strategy, focusing on enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

7. Market Penetration Rate

This metric measures the percentage of your target market that you’ve captured. Understanding how well your product is performing in the market and how much growth potential remains is essential.

If you’re targeting a market of 100,000 potential customers and have acquired 10,000, your penetration rate is 10%. Tracking this over time helps you assess the effectiveness of your GTM strategy and identify new growth opportunities.

8. Revenue Growth Rate

The revenue growth rate is a key indicator of your company's financial health and the effectiveness of your GTM strategy. It shows how quickly your revenue increases over time, which is crucial for long-term sustainability.

If your revenue grew from $1 million to $1.2 million in a year, your growth rate is 20%. Analyzing this metric alongside other GTM metrics can help identify the drivers behind your revenue growth.

9. Cost Per Lead (CPL)

CPL measures the cost of generating a new lead. It’s a vital metric for understanding the efficiency of your marketing efforts. A high CPL might suggest that your marketing channels are not cost-effective, while a low CPL indicates efficient lead generation.

If you spend $10,000 on a campaign that generates 500 leads, your CPL is $20. You can allocate your budget to the most efficient sources by comparing CPL across different channels.

10. Customer Retention Rate

The retention rate measures the percentage of customers who continue to use your product over time. A high retention rate indicates customer satisfaction and loyalty, while a low rate may signal that your product or service isn't meeting customer needs.

If you have 1,000 customers at the start of the month and 950 by the end, your retention rate is 95%. Tracking this metric helps you identify patterns and implement strategies to retain customers, such as loyalty programs or regular check-ins.

How to Effectively Track GTM Metrics

Now that you know the top GTM metrics to track, let's discuss how to track them effectively:

1. Set Clear Goals: Begin by defining what success looks like for each metric. For example, if your goal is to reduce CAC, determine a specific target, such as lowering CAC by 15% within six months.
2. Use the Right Tools: Invest in analytics and CRM tools that track and visualize your GTM metrics in real-time. Platforms like Google Analytics, HubSpot, and Salesforce can be valuable for monitoring various GTM metrics.
3. Regular Reporting: Create a regular reporting cadence to review your GTM metrics with your team. This could be weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on your business needs. Regular reviews help keep your strategy on track and allow you to adjust quickly when necessary.
4. Focus on Actionable Insights: Metrics alone won’t drive success. You need to derive actionable insights from them. For instance, if your churn rate is high, look into customer feedback to understand why and implement changes accordingly.
5. Align Metrics with Business Objectives: Ensure the GTM metrics align with your business goals. For example, if your objective is to grow market share, focus on metrics like market penetration rate and revenue growth.

Measure your GTM efforts with Factors

Tracking the right GTM metrics is crucial for the success of your Go-to-Market strategy. By focusing on metrics like CAC, CLTV, churn rate, and conversion rates, you can gain valuable insights into your strategy's effectiveness and make data-driven decisions to optimize performance.

Remember, metrics are not just numbers; they are the pulse of your business. Regularly tracking and analyzing these GTM metrics will help you stay ahead of the competition, drive growth, and ultimately achieve your business objectives.

Book a demo to find out how Factors can help you effectively streamline your GTM strategy. 

Running LinkedIn ads isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. With the ever-changing algorithms and new updates, it can be hard for even the best marketing professionals to understand how to optimize their ads. Plus, targeting ads in Europe, where there is a wide range of linguistic barriers and time differences, can be complicated. 

That’s where LinkedIn ad agencies come in. But how do you choose the right agency for your business needs?

Not to worry; we’ve come up with a list of the top LinkedIn agencies in Europe that you can evaluate and partner with, to take your ad campaigns to the next level 📈

What to look for before investing in a LinkedIn ad agency

Before diving into the list, it's crucial to understand what makes a LinkedIn ad agency stand out. Here are some key factors to consider:

1. Proven Expertise in LinkedIn Ads

Look for agencies that specialize in LinkedIn advertising rather than offering it as part of a broader suite of services. Search for certifications, case studies, and client testimonials demonstrating their expertise.

2. Industry Experience

Different industries require different approaches on LinkedIn. Agencies with experience in your specific sector will better understand your target audience, messaging, and campaign strategies.

3. Customizable Service Offerings

A good LinkedIn ad agency should offer tailored solutions rather than one-size-fits-all packages. Flexibility is key when you need full campaign management or specific services like creative design or A/B testing.

4. Transparent Reporting

Transparency is essential in digital marketing. Ensure the agency provides detailed, easy-to-understand reports that track key metrics like CTR, conversion rates, and ROI.

5. Innovative Approach

LinkedIn’s advertising landscape is constantly evolving. Agencies that stay ahead of the curve by adopting new features, ad formats, and strategies will give your campaigns a competitive edge.

6. Client Communication

Effective communication is crucial for a successful partnership. The agency should be responsive, easy to reach, and proactive in providing updates and recommendations.

Top 5 LinkedIn Agencies in Europe

Now that you know what to look for, here’s our curated list of the top LinkedIn agencies in Europe, along with insights into their services and specializations:

1. Getuplead

Website: Getuplead

Overview: Getuplead is a digital marketing agency focused on driving B2B lead generation through various platforms, with a strong emphasis on LinkedIn. They offer a comprehensive approach to LinkedIn advertising, from account audits to detailed targeting and content strategies.

Why Choose Them: Getuplead's service is tailored for B2B companies looking to leverage LinkedIn's professional network to generate high-quality leads. They excel in creating customized ad campaigns that resonate with specific target audiences. Their methodical approach to campaign management ensures that every ad dollar is maximized for ROI.

Pricing: Specific pricing is not listed on their website, but they offer consultations to discuss potential campaigns and costs.

2. Eskimoz

Website: Eskimoz

Overview: Eskimoz is a leading LinkedIn Ads agency that focuses on helping B2B companies reach highly qualified audiences. Their services include precise targeting, ad creation, and continuous optimization of campaigns to ensure maximum ROI.

Why Choose Them: Eskimoz is known for its expert handling of LinkedIn's various ad formats, including Sponsored Messaging, Video Ads, and Dynamic Ads. They bring a deep understanding of LinkedIn's algorithms and targeting capabilities, making them a strong partner for companies aiming to improve their brand awareness and lead generation on the platform.

Pricing: Pricing details are not openly available, but they focus on providing value through performance-driven campaigns.

3. Fill My Funnel

Website: Fill My Funnel

Overview: Fill My Funnel is a specialized LinkedIn marketing agency dedicated to B2B businesses. Their services cover every aspect of LinkedIn advertising, from initial audits and strategy development to ongoing optimization and reporting.

Why Choose Them: Led by Tom Tigwell, one of the top 30 LinkedIn Ads experts globally, Fill My Funnel stands out for its deep expertise and proven track record in driving growth for B2B companies. They employ a holistic approach, integrating LinkedIn ads seamlessly into broader marketing strategies.

Pricing: They offer free consultations to discuss potential strategies and pricing based on the specific needs of your business.

4. Coseom

Website: Coseom

Overview: Coseom is a digital marketing agency with a strong emphasis on LinkedIn advertising for B2B companies. They provide end-to-end services, from strategy formulation to campaign management, with a focus on generating high-quality leads.

Why Choose Them: Coseom is particularly suited for companies looking for a comprehensive approach to LinkedIn marketing. They combine their expertise in digital marketing with a focus on LinkedIn’s unique strengths to create campaigns that drive engagement and conversions.

Pricing: Pricing information is typically discussed during consultations, tailored to the specific requirements of each campaign.

5. DGTL Base

Website: DGTL Base

Overview: DGTL Base is a digital marketing agency that offers specialized LinkedIn advertising services. They focus on creating targeted campaigns that help B2B companies reach their ideal audience on LinkedIn.

Why Choose Them: DGTL Base is known for its data-driven approach to LinkedIn advertising, ensuring that every aspect of a campaign is optimized for the best possible performance. Their expertise in managing LinkedIn’s ad formats and targeting options makes them a valuable partner for businesses aiming to enhance their LinkedIn presence.

Pricing: DGTL Base provides custom quotes based on the scope and objectives of the campaign.

Want to run ads in-house? AdPilot to the rescue

Choosing the right LinkedIn ad agency can significantly impact your marketing success. Whether you’re looking for a data-driven approach, creative excellence, or specialized industry expertise, the agencies listed above offer some of the best LinkedIn advertising services in Europe. Take the time to assess your specific needs, review each agency’s strengths, and select the partner that aligns best with your business goals.

However, if you want to take things in-house, look no further than Factors LinkedIn AdPilot! From intent based impression control to automated campaign management, AdPilot can help you save ad spend while doubling your LinkedIn ROI! Book a demo today to see how AdPilot can be a game-changer for your LinkedIn campaigns.

Looking for Lead Forensics competitors to better identify and enrich anonymous accounts engaging with your business? You're in the right place. Here's our review of the top 10 Lead Forensics alternatives in 2024

In this article, we’ll cover:

• Lead Forensics' features, limitations, and pricing
• Top 9 Lead Forensics competitors — including their features, limitations, and pricing 
• Factors you should consider when investing in an account intelligence tool

About Lead Forensics

Lead Forensics is a popular visitor identification software that works with over 60,000 customers worldwide. The tool helps businesses identify companies visiting a website using reverse IP-lookup technology.

Some of its key features include:

• Real-time website visitor tracking
• Large database regularly updated with B2B IP addresses 
• Access to contact-level data such as email IDs and phone numbers

Lead Forensics offers two plans: Essential and Automate

Although there’s not much clarity about the pricing on their website, here’s our comprehensive breakdown of Lead Forensics Pricing

Why look for a Lead Forensics Alternative?

Lead Forensics is a widely used tool in the account intelligence space. That being said, no solution is without its flaws. Here are a few reasons why B2B marketers and sales folk consider Lead Forensics competitors. 

Lack of Granularity in Data: Users have stated that they prefer to gain access to deeper insights with the data collected by the tool 

Steep Pricing: Customers across review platforms have stated that Lead Forensics can be relatively pricey for SME businesses looking for cost-effective solutions

Learning curve: Users on G2 have reported that the tool presents certain complexities, leading to a slightly steep learning curve

What to Look for in a Lead Forensics Alternative

• Granular Data: Look for a solution that offers in-depth insight into when a high-fit and high-intent account visits your website. This means access to technographic and firmographic data as well. 
• Real-Time Notifications: Ensure your sales and marketing teams act right when target accounts visit your website. Select a tool that sends real-time alerts on Slack and MS Teams instead of just emails. 
• Robust Integration Options: Invest in a platform that allows flexible integration with existing tools in your tech stack. 
• Ease of Use: Make sure you select a platform that is easy to navigate and has a clean UI 
• Broader ABM functionality: While identifying web visitors is one part, taking actionable steps with this data is equally important. Opt for a tool that gives you the ability to execute your ABM strategy without the need to switch between multiple platforms
• Account and Engagement Scoring: Find a tool that tells you how much your prospects engage with your website so you can appropriately target your marketing and sales efforts
• Intent Data from Multiple Platforms: Your LinkedIn and G2 profiles are lead-generation goldmines, so invest in a solution that gives you 

Top 10 Lead Forensics Competitors in 2024

There are many Lead Forensics competitors in the market today, but we’ve researched and hand-picked the best ones for you. Here’s all you need to know about the top 10 visitor identification and account intelligence tools among B2B companies ⬇️

1. Clearbit

Clearbit is a marketing intelligence tool for B2B businesses that offer users visitor deanonymization, along with intent data, contact data of leads & firmographic data. The tool offers users a large collection of data sets, using publicly available data on the internet, proprietary data, and a large language model (LLM) that organizes unstructured data into usable, standardized modes of information.

Key Features‍

Clearbit offers B2B companies a three-part solution: Enrich, Reveal, and Capture.

• Enrichment: Clearbit’s vast database comprises over 250 data sources and millions of data points, allowing users to easily obtain novel leads.
• Reveal: The tool uses AI-powered deanonymization with data in multiple languages to help users recognize lucrative advertising initiatives and high-intent accounts.
• Capture: Clearbit’s seamless integration capabilities allow it to capture all relevant information from your CRM and streamline sales and marketing processes. 

💡Check out Factors’ new partnership with Clearbit

Limitations

• Relatively high pricing compared to other tools offering similar capabilities

• Users find Clearbit’s integrations immensely useful. However, they find that its data accuracy levels could be higher.‍

Pricing

TrustRadius lists Clearbit’s pricing as $20,000 annually, but the company does not have publicly available pricing information on its website. Clearbit offers flexible pricing on its website, which depends on the user’s contact creation needs, web traffic, and database size.

2. Visitor Queue

Visitor Queue is a visitor identification tool that businesses use to identify prospective clients. You can then use it to reach out to decision-makers from the companies that you’re targeting. 

The tool also provides names, contact information, location, and social media links for the businesses visiting your website. It ensures compliance with local and international privacy laws by relying entirely on publicly available data pulled from a variety of sources.

Key Features

Visitor Queue offers its clients:

• Real-time visitor identification
• Website personalization
• Anonymous website visitor tracking.

Limitations

• It does not have as large a database of companies as many competitors
• It sometimes identifies internet service providers (ISPs) as visiting businesses.

Pricing

Visitor Queue offers five payment tiers depending on the number of leads a client requires from them per month. Here are Visitor Queue’s payment plans:

3. Factors.ai

Factors is an account intelligence and analytics solution that connects with industry-leading data partners to provide IP-based deanonymization. It also provides robust account analytics functions including multi-touch attribution, account scoring, path analysis, and more.

Key Features

Factors offers its clients versatile, comprehensive features, including:

• IP-based B2B account identification across the website, product reviews & ad impressions, with match rates powered by 6sense and Clearbit
• Real-time alerts across Slack & MS Teams to stay on top of high-intent accounts are live and engaging 
• Account scoring where you can create your own scoring rules to score and qualify and segment high-intent accounts based on cross-channel engagement
• G2 and LinkedIn intent signals to identify how prospects are engaging with your profile 
• Workflow automation that allows you to push high-fit and high-intent prospects to mail sequencing tools, push to LinkedIn retargeting audience, and more with webhooks
• Robust analytics and attribution that gives you complete overview on how buyers act at each stage of the customer journey.
• ‍

💡Check out how Factors helped Drivetrain 3x their sales engagement 

Limitations

• Factors doesn’t offer native contact enrichment unlike other the more established platforms on this list but integrates with major enrichment tools like Apollo and Zoominfo 

Pricing

Factors offer a free plan along with 3 other tiers:

• Free
• Basic
• Growth 
• Custom

Learn more about our pricing here

4. Happierleads

Happierleads’ visitor identification tool enables you to reach out to, and target leads that aren’t currently converting into clients. Happierleads’ automated solutions enable users to follow up with visitors and retarget them on autopilot. Its large database of companies also makes for quicker, easier visitor identification.

Key Features

Happierleads offers users four solutions:

• Web Visitor Identification, which helps clients understand which visitors to target
• Prospector, a solution that enables users to contact decision-makers for over 60 million companies
• Enrichment, which adds missing information about leads
• Outreach Software, which sends cold emails to target prospects

Limitations

• Users have reported that the platform can be unintuitive and difficult to navigate 

• Does not offer dedicated engagement analytics

Pricing

Happierleads offers 4 different pricing plans based on the company’s growth stage:

5. KickFire (now part of Foundry)

KickFire identifies leads who are engaging with your company and segments them according to intent. KickFire allows you to prioritize leads based on intent segmentation. It also allows users to see which types of content resonate the most with their target audiences. It is now a part of Foundry as of 2024. 

Key Features

KickFire offers users the following features:

• Data verified by humans and normalized across the sales and marketing platforms
• Prompts that offer actionable sales and marketing insights
• Easy installation and buyer identification.

Limitations

• Customers have reported that the filtered results aren’t accurate and lack granularity when compared to other tools in the market

‍Pricing

KickFire does not offer pricing information publicly.

6. LeadLander

LeadLander’s visitor identification solution gives you employee contact information for priority leads. The tool offers users contact profiles and key data points that can help companies close more deals. It also provides user journey information and the web pages each visitor has seen.

‍Key Features

• De-anonymization
• Customer behavior and journey data
• Key contact information for high-priority leads‍

Limitations

• Sometimes gives cable or ISP addresses in place of visitor data
• Account scoring and engagement scoring capabilities are limited

Pricing

LeadLander offers 2 pricing plans:

7. LeadInfo

LeadInfo de-anonymizes website visitors for B2B clients using their extensive data set. They match the visitor’s IP address against their vast database. Their clients obtain an overview of website users, the companies they belong to, and their behaviors.

It offers users various one-click integrations and worldwide coverage to ensure seamless lead generation. It also lets B2B companies view website visitors in real-time.

‍Key Features

Leadinfo’s key features include:

• A vast dataset of companies
• Global coverage
• 60+ one-click integrations
• Real-time website visitor information‍

Limitations

• Limited dashboard capabilities
• Users state that pricing is slightly on the higher end compared to tools with similar capabilities‍

Leadinfo Pricing

Leadinfo’s pricing model uses a sliding scale based on the number of unique companies recognized per month on their clients’ websites.

8. Albacross

Albacross’s account intelligence offerings help users nurture leads visiting their websites. They help clients discover unseen purchasing intent through their deanonymization feature, thereby generating more pipeline and accelerating sales.

Key Features

Albacross offers its users:

• Visitor deanonymization
• Real-time alerts for priority prospects
• A global database of companies

‍Limitations

• Albacross doesn’t offer as many integrations as its counterparts
• Software has a relatively steep learning curve
• Doesn’t offer workflow automation  

Albacross’s interface helps users organize data intuitively. However, small businesses have found that the tool may be more suited to larger organizations due to informational gaps in Albacross’s database.

Pricing

Albacross offers users two pricing models: Self-service and Growth.

9. Leadfeeder (now Dealfront)

Leadfeeder’s visitor identification capabilities help users convert page views into valuable pipeline.

Leadfeeder’s four-step plan to uncover hidden leads visiting their users’ websites is to identify, qualify, collect, and send leads. This ensures that their users obtain high-value leads that have a better chance of converting.

Key Features

Leadfeeder’s features include:

• Website visitor tracking
• Account-based marketing, and
• Sales prospecting.

‍Limitations

• Limited integrations
• Does not offer real-time alerts for website visitors
• Lack of engagement scoring  and workflow automation

Pricing

Leadfeeder offers users two payment plans:

💡Compare‍ Albacross and Leadfeeder

10. Warmly

‍

Warmly is a sales orchestration platform that uses AI to identify, track, and connect with website visitors who are actively looking to buy. They offer workflow features that automate sales prospecting for SMB-sized revenue teams.

Key Features

• Autonomous Sales Orchestration
• Automated Intent-Driven Outreach
• Website deanonymization

Limitations

• Massive pricing jump from the free plan
• Customers have mentioned they would like additional filters to better segment their data
• Users have reported that the tool has a steep learning curve

Pricing

Warmly offers a free plan along with a business plan for $1200/mo and an enterprise custom pricing.

Choose the Right Account Intelligence Tool For You 

Deanonymization is essential for B2B companies to expand and target high-value prospects. Your account intelligence tool should also help you qualify and activate high-intent accounts visiting your website. Factors analytics and attribution platform helps you evaluate and iterate your sales and marketing campaigns so you can turn prospects to paying customers in no time. 

Its no-code integrations and robust reporting make for an easy user experience with a minimal learning curve.

Get in touch with us today to find out how Factors’ account intelligence capabilities can help your company minimize pipeline leakage and increase efficiency and revenue.

"Marketing isn't sending us quality leads," "Sales can't close the deal fast enough" – sound familiar?

With conflicting opinions and an ongoing blame game, sales and marketing are always at war, but the only thing getting killed is your chance to drive revenue. 52.2% of sales professionals find that sales and marketing team misalignment results in lost pipeline and revenue. 

We're here to tell you everything you need about B2B sales and marketing alignment to foster healthy collaboration and avoid losing revenue. This blog covers:

• Reasons for Sales and marketing misalignment 
• Why sales and marketing alignment is a must
• Must-try sales and marketing alignment strategies 

First off, What does Sales and Marketing Alignment even mean?

Sales and marketing alignment is the strategic integration and collaboration between sales and marketing teams to boost business efficiency and drive growth. It ensures that both departments eliminate silos by communicating effectively and working in tandem toward common objectives.

While operating in silos would’ve worked in the past, it’s crucial for B2B sales and marketing teams to unify their go-to-market efforts.

Why is B2B Sales and Marketing Alignment Important?

Here are 5 reasons why B2B sales and marketing alignment is important:

1. Deliver a Unified and Seamless Customer Experience

The B2B customer journey is non-linear and complex. With countless marketing and sales touchpoints to analyze and optimize, it’s no surprise that businesses still struggle to understand it. Plus, when your sales and marketing teams are misaligned, it only complicates the situation further. 

Aligning customer engagement across marketing and sales efforts leads to a more holistic view of the customer journey map and allows both teams to execute their strategies coherently while offering a seamless customer experience.

2. Improved Understanding of Your Ideal Customer

Sales and marketing interact with buyers differently, which means they have completely different understandings of their customers. For example, marketers have a more holistic understanding of aggregate buying behavior across a large number of buyers. but sales has more personal knowledge of each buyer. 

Sales understands the major pain points and objections buyers overcome before investing in a product. Marketing uses insights from market research, website analytics, and social media data to craft content aligned with the buyer's journey. By combining these insights, you'll gain a much better understanding of your customer. 

3. Clearer and More Productive Feedback

Let’s say marketing fails to inform sales about a lead they gain from a blog about SOC II compliance. As a result, sales doesn’t highlight the tool’s compliance feature, prompting your prospect to look for a secure alternative. 

When your teams are aligned, it opens doors to clearer communication. 

An open line of communication allows you to focus on refining strategies and keeps the team receptive to constructive feedback. 

For instance, when your sales team receives insight from their sales calls about your competitor's product being too complicated to use, marketing can use this to create content and launch campaigns that highlight your product’s ease of use. 

“Our strategic approach to teamwork entails focused measures at RecurPost. For example, the teams engaged in joint planning sessions for introducing a new subscription plan where such messaging was coordinated making the customer journey seamless.

Using a shared feedback loop in everyday meetings was effective. During a recent content campaign, sales generated customized messaging which ultimately raised lead engagement by 20% after one week.” – Debbie Moran, Marketing Manager at RecurPost

4. Improves Team Performance

When marketing and sales focus on divergent KPIs and metrics (Eg: Marketing focuses on MQLs and Sales focuses on revenue), there's much more room for conflict and blame.

When both teams align on metrics like "pipeline/revenue generation," it's in their interest to collaborate to optimize ROI and pipeline.

5. Higher ROI from GTM Efforts 

When the sales and marketing GTM motions are misaligned, you risk losing opportunities to close deals and create the potential for infighting among teams. 

Alignment between sales and marketing is crucial to executing a successful GTM strategy. According to Forrester when your company aligns on tech, processes, and people, you can see 36% more revenue growth and 28% more profitability. 

This is because smarketing empowers:  

• Better experience for each member of the buying group
• Engagement with more members of the buying committee
• Relevant, aligned messaging across marketing and sales channels
• Better brand recall and perception amongst buyers that your brand is an expert

Why is Sales and Marketing Alignment Difficult? 

While occasional disagreement between sales and marketing is natural, certain red flags indicate misalignment. There are many tell-tale signs for when your B2B sales and marketing teams aren't aligned, such as:

• The sales team repeatedly blames marketing for "low-quality" leads. 
• SDRs disqualify the majority of MQLs right off the bat. 
• Marketing collateral goes unused by the sales team. 
• Your marketing and sales team operates in silos

We believe there are 4 main reasons for this misalignment:

1. Lack of Strategic Function in Marketing

Marketing is often known just to write blogs and create pretty infographics while not directly contributing to revenue. It has always been seen as a service function instead of a strategic one. This is because marketers have a one-track mind to measure success – getting leads. 

Rather than ending their responsibility at leads, where they might not care about what happens after they are passed to sales, marketing must be held responsible for:

• New Customer Acquisition - all the way from getting leads to account engagement, opportunity acceleration and revenue generation
• Expansion and Upsell Revenue - engaging and educating existing customers to get additional revenue
• Retention and Churn prevention - Product Education to help customers realise value from the product and hence drive retention 

2. Misaligned Priorities

Even though sales and marketing have common goals of increasing revenue and improving CLV, they use different metrics to measure success, with sales carrying the major burden of bringing in revenue. An aligned strategy begins with the shared goal of prioritizing customer value. Use this commonality to jointly create campaigns that target the same audiences and accounts while ensuring an overlap in your teams' measurement and KPIs.

3. Ownership of Customer Data

We can access customer data at our fingertips today but said data has minimal value when left in disparate systems. 60% of sales reps say marketing and sales don't co-own customer strategy and data, and 25% say customer data is still owned in silos by marketing and sales. 

For example, if you use CRM tools and marketing automation platforms, ensure they're easily linked. By uniting their data, both teams will gain more insight into the full process and a clearer picture of campaign efforts that drive the most ROI.

4. Operating in Silos

The most common challenge when aligning sales and marketing teams is balancing "healthy competition" and collaboration. 

When deals are attributed as "Marketing" or "Sales," it creates an "us" vs. "them" mentality between the two teams, and each of them is under immense pressure to perform. The elimination of silos and the establishment of a collaborative, cross-functional, and revenue-generating unified team is a key driver for future success as the typical buyer journey continues to evolve.

The best way to break down these silos is by having constructive conversations with both teams to answer the following:

• What does marketing need from sales?
• What does sales need marketing?
• What does the typical customer journey look like?
• What does our ICP look like?
• What does a qualified lead look like?
• What can each team do better?

"Given that many marketing and sales misalignments stem from in-fighting over attribution, a multi-touch attribution model that accounts for sales and marketing efforts can help." Joe Kevens, Director of Demand Generation at PartnerStack and the Founder of B2B SaaS Reviews

▶️Learn more about multi-touch attribution models here.

8 B2B Sales and Marketing Alignment Best Practices You Must Follow 

1. Agree on a Common Buyer Persona

Creating a sales and marketing alignment strategy without a clear understanding of your target buyer is like driving in the dark without headlights. Sales and marketing teams must collaborate to understand their buyers, tailor their messaging, and pitch accordingly to win deals.

"We create buyer personas in Cisco to identify the perfect buyer, the perfect person that we could target with a marketing message based on segments, job descriptions, and based on where a person is currently in the buyer journey." – Carola Van Der Linden, Global Virtual Marketing Manager, Cisco

2. Set Shared Goals and KPIs 

Marketers and sales teams have their eyes on different metrics and short-term goals. Getting them to agree may require a new focus point for both groups. Technically, marketing and sales teams share the same goal: converting new leads. However, this process can seem like two separate stages because of the perceived handoff from marketing to sales. Encourage your teams to think about the sales funnel as one process rather than two different processes.

"Concerning key KPIs for gauging sales and marketing alignment success– revenue growth, lead conversion rate, and customer acquisition cost are amongst the classic ones. To ensure these KPIs truly mirror the impact on revenue and customer satisfaction, I recommend organizations to use tools that track customer lifecycle value and provide a holistic view of the customer journey." Will Yang, Head of Growth & Customer Success at Instrumentl

The new sales-marketing relationship should be guided by shared metrics, which reveal an organization's data agility and ability to hand off real-time data insights. Shared metrics encapsulate the state of the current relationship, alignment initiatives, collaboration technology, and outcomes. They keep everyone on the same page and determine how to redefine the relationship.

3. Prioritize the Right Buyers with Account Scoring 

When you’re scoring leads based on their interest in your business, their current place in the buying cycle, and their demographic fit, you can ensure that your sales reps are talking to the right leads at the right time. Your marketing and sales teams should get together to determine score thresholds—at what score does a lead get sent to sales?

Scoring accounts also helps the marketing and sales team prioritize "sales-ready" accounts and work together to target a focused pool of targets as opposed to casting a wide, uncertain net.

Snowflake has a “one team GTM” with an account-based marketing strategy that combines intent data, personalized touchpoints, and collaboration between sales and marketing teams. This strategy has been successful in targeting and engaging key accounts.

▶️Check out our latest guide on Account Scoring here

3. Promote Clear Communication and Collaboration

Ensuring collaboration doesn't mean creating a Slack channel with SDRs and marketers or sending each other multiple links. There are many ways you can nurture a good relationship between both teams. Some ideas include:

• Joint meetings and training sessions
• A day where marketing shadows the sales team and vice versa
• Collaborative exercises where the teams work together

"A specific initiative that yielded remarkable results at Synthesis AI Studio was our 'Customer Journey Mapping' exercise, where sales and marketing collaboratively analyzed and mapped out the entire customer journey, leading to a more cohesive customer experience strategy.

Our pivotal moment was when we restructured our approach to product launches. By involving both sales and marketing from the inception stage, we ensured that marketing strategies were in sync with sales objectives. This alignment led to one of our most successful product launches, with a 40% increase in lead conversion rates." – Oliver Goodwin, Founder & CEO at Synthesis

4. Use Technology to Bridge the Gap

You must build a solid tech stack to manage your data and progress toward your smarketing goals. Here’s how Factors can help you propel sales and marketing alignment in your organization:

• Identify and engage with anonymous, high-intent accounts engaging with your brand across marketing and sales touchpoints 

• Identify points of friction and optimize conversions with AI-powered customer journey insights 

• Monitor marketing ROI with Revenue Attribution to scale campaigns that get results 

• Complete visibility of customer data and pipeline for sales and marketing teams by integrating with existing tools.

▶️Check out how Factors.ai helped Klenty increase conversions by 34%

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6. Ensure Consistency In Your Messaging

Unclear messaging creates a subpar brand experience–and hampers win rates. Both sales and marketing should understand and reinforce your product's value proposition. 

Your messaging must fall into three sections:

• What we do;
• How we do it;
• Why do we do it.

When what, how, and why are aligned, you have a filter to help you make marketing and sales decisions about your core message. 

"There was one time that our sales and marketing team used different messaging. Once we noticed that, we created this guidebook for a shared language and developed a unified messaging framework. This involved joint workshops to ensure that marketing materials and sales pitches were aligned. Now, we come up with consistent messaging. This has improved customer understanding– we know that as there are as we've observed a drastic reduction in clients seeking confirmation about our offerings." -- Andre Oentoro, CEO of Breadnbeyond

7. Create Useful Sales Enablement Content

Even before talking to a salesperson, a prospect is more than halfway through their buying journey. Marketing teams create lead-generation content and campaigns to drive interest in their services and products.

However, they need in-depth insights from sales on the types of content your prospects care about. Customers aren't impressed by a landing page listing endless features, they want to know how your solution resolves their pain points, and who better to ask about customer pain points than your sales team? 

Encourage your marketing team members to shadow sales calls. While time-consuming, the exercise can provide customer insights for marketing initiatives and new content ideas. Marketing can also suggest improvements to sales call scripts.

Meanwhile, your sales team can also suggest new content ideas. If there's an urgent need for a content piece, request marketing to prioritize the subject in the content calendar.

8. Create a Systematic Process for Working With Leads

Sales and marketing operate on two different levels, with marketers focusing only on obtaining MQLs and sales focusing on closing SQLs. When you have multiple funnels and lead nurturing processes, both teams operate at different paces toward different goals.

Consider these aspects when reworking your process of working with leads: 

Routing: Where do the leads go between marketing and sales? 

Priority: What's the order in which we reach out to our leads?

Timing: How quickly should you reach out to prospects, how often, and over what timeframe? 

For example, leads from review or comparison websites can be contacted within two hours, while leads from lead gen forms can be contacted within six hours. 

It is also crucial to know at what stage each team must engage with the lead to avoid bombarding customers with information overload. To help divide engagement responsibilities between sales and marketing teams, you can use a "Fit & Intent" matrix.

• Fit is how well your product solves the needs of the customer.
• Intent is how motivated your prospect is to invest in your product

Here's the breakdown of how marketing and sales can handle each lead according to each quadrant:

Low fit, low intent: This area focuses on nurturing leads, which can be handled by either marketing or sales, depending on the lead source. 

Low fit, high intent: A lead in this quadrant wants more information to gauge if your product can help them. The marketing team has primary responsibility here, with support from sales as required.

High fit, low intent: This quadrant needs joint ownership and support from marketing and sales. Examples of this can include MoFU content, sharing pricing plans, or demo calls with sales representatives.

High fit, high intent: A lead in this quadrant is ready to buy, so it's time for sales to own the process and drive the conversion.

Align Your Sales and Marketing Team Today

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is B2B sales and marketing alignment. Only when sales and marketers work from the ground up to collaborate and understand their buyers while focusing on providing value to prospects – can you see tangible results.

Sales and marketing have seen a shift over the years, with account-based selling and account-based marketing taking the world by storm. But what if we could combine both these approaches? 

Enter account-based everything, a strategy that operationalizes sales and marketing efforts to target and convert high-value accounts.

This article provides a detailed overview of how to take the account-based everything route for long-term pipeline growth. 

Why Shift to an Account-Based Everything Approach?

While alignment is one piece of the puzzle, the larger goal for any organization is driving revenue. Sales, marketing, and customer success must work together across the customer lifecycle to drive growth. Everyone knows about ABM, but there’s a new kid on the block: account-based everything

Account-based everything, or ABE/ABX, is a strategy that empowers sales, marketing, and customer success to collaborate and focus on high-value accounts. It personalizes engagement, aligns teams, and maximizes ROI by tailoring efforts to specific target accounts, fostering stronger customer relationships, and driving revenue growth.

Think of ABE as a refined, all-encompassing version of ABM, where your company aims for a smooth transition between all phases of the sales cycle. The core principle of ABE is that every customer touchpoint is an opportunity to convey that your product is the best fit for them.

“The approach companies take with ABM today isn’t as personalized, and the focus is not much on the buyer experience, hence the new movement for "everything .” – Dan Renyi, Founder at Klear B2B

ABE ditches the siloed approach and helps align departments, identify and sync tactics, and segment personalization efforts.

To execute ABE, you’ll need specialized assets depending on the account you target. The resources required to fuel your ABE strategy with the right content can balloon quickly, which is why it’s so important to define your ABE strategy upfront and choose your target accounts wisely.  

Here's Gartner's framework for account-based everything. It's a great starting point for teams to gauge the extent of alignment and commitment required to succeed with an account-based go-to-market strategy. 

Here are 5 steps you must follow to implement an account-based everything program in your organization:

1. Align target accounts across teams

When marketing and sales don’t have a common understanding of target accounts and ICP, building pipeline can get tricky Creating an ideal client profile is a foundational, company-wide decision that impacts downstream sales and marketing efforts. 

You can start by identifying what a high-value account looks like and create a target account list of 100-500 such companies. You can conduct account research as per these aspects:

• Markets: Competitors, regulatory changes, regional developments
• Companies: Organizational hierarchy, financials, key initiatives and challenges

Once you have your list, you gain clarity on the accounts you need to focus on. 

While it’s one thing to know who your ICP is, it’s also critical to establish who doesn’t qualify as your ICP. 

Ensure you lay down proper specifications for who exactly comes under your ICP. For instance, if you’re selling a recruitment automation platform and a talent acquisition specialist reaches out to you, you’d prioritize them over someone in customer service or legal.

You can use this matrix to identify how to prioritize your inbound requests:

Marketing and sales should collaborate and agree upon the following questions:

When you answer these questions, all teams can work in sync to target the right accounts and provide a seamless buying experience. 

2. Analyze Marketing’s Role in Driving Engagement 

Once you have chosen which accounts to target, figure out how your marketing team will engage with each account. Should you engage with a prospect who visited your blog in the same way you would with a webinar attendee? 

The level of engagement required also varies on the stage of the funnel. For instance, you can initiate a nurture sequence if someone new to your website books a demo. If they've already invested in your tool, just email them product updates to keep them engaged.

Not to mention, it also depends upon the tier of the company you’re engaging with. When a Fortune 500 company and a seed startup contact you, it's obvious to focus on the big brand because it’ll significantly impact revenue growth. 

3. Focus on Engagement Quality

When marketing engages with an account, interacting with decision-makers alone doesn’t cut it. Quality engagement with end users, champions, and adjacent teams like finance, IT, etc. is equally important if you want to seal the deal.
Let’s say you’ve engaged with two or more decision-makers like the CEO and Director, your engagement quality is high, but if you’ve only been able to speak to one end user, you’d need to level up your game.  

You can use engagement scoring to gauge how marketing can best engage with high-value accounts in different customer lifecycle stages.

4. Drive Awareness Across the Customer Lifecycle

Marketing creates content on various topics for every stage of the customer lifecycle, whether it’s case studies, ROI calculators, or the help docs on your website. The ultimate goal is to drive awareness with product-led content, and you can categorize your content in “topic clusters” to share it with your prospects. 

While many organizations encourage prospects to schedule a demonstration, most buyers are not ready to speak to sales yet. 

Instead of pushing them to talk to sales, you can create high-value plays that are likelier to incite buyer participation and engagement. Offer something of value such as a custom report or a presentation with findings relevant to that particular account or their peers.

Once they’re solution aware, you need to make them “your solution aware,”. This is where sales can share their demo call insights with the marketing team so that they can create personalized content for the account in question. Some ideas include:

• Personalized sections in landing pages based on an ICP’s company
• A chatbot that recognizes the account
• Sharing templates that streamline their workflow 

5. Use Account Intelligence Tools

Leveraging an account intelligence platform (Hint: Factors.ai) can be a game changer in terms of how you engage with accounts in your pipeline and close deals. Here’s how we help marketing and sales teams implement account-based programs:

Our list-building and segmentation feature filters and segments visitors based on the type of companies or behavior you’re interested in. Plus, you also get MS Teams or Slack notifications any time an account that matches your ICP visits your site.

Sales teams can use this information to tailor email campaigns, sales calls, and other efforts to target those accounts individually and improve engagement and conversions

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You can prioritize accounts and close deals faster with our cross-channel account scoring feature that uses machine learning to qualify and target the right accounts based on website engagement, intent signals, and firmographics.

▶️Read our guide to account scoring 
Factors also offers users complete visibility of the account journey across known and anonymous users so you can identify touch points that improve conversion and optimize points of friction and drop-offs.

Our platform helps you determine engagement quality thanks to the ABM analytics feature which enables custom dashboard creation that ensures reliable account-level reporting across marketing campaigns & sales activities. 

Operationalise Sales and Marketing Alignment with Factors Today

Buyer expectations are at an all-time high, and it’s up to your business to refine its playbook to meet and exceed those expectations. B2B sales and marketing professionals should find a way to begin implementing ABE at their company to enable early engagement with multiple stakeholders and drive real results.

‍Book a demo to find out how we can help you engage and convert target accounts at scale. 

Are you tired of unsolicited, spammy emails in your inbox? Well, all that will (to an extent) end in February 2024 as Google implements new guidelines for bulk email senders to make your inbox safer and spam-free.

Google will require bulk email senders (people who send over 5,000 emails per day to Gmail inboxes) to follow certain best practices requiring strong authentication, easy unsubscription, and lower spam rates.

“It’s clear that email has become an essential part of daily communication. And whether you’re submitting a job application or staying in touch with a loved one, your emails should be safe and secure.” –  Neil Kumaran Group Product Manager, Gmail Security & Trust

Let’s dive into understanding these best practices and what these new policies mean for your cold outreach strategy in 2024.

Summary of Bulk Email Sender Guidelines

Here is a quick gist of Google’s email sender guidelines and the best practices they recommend for bulk email senders: 

1. Requirements for Authentication

Ensure email authentication for each of your sending domains at your domain provider by settling up the following:

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): This basic authentication method verifies if an email was sent from an authorized server. Bulk senders need to configure their domain to use SPF.
• DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail): This adds a digital signature to each email, allowing Gmail to verify the email's authenticity and integrity.
• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): This builds on SPF and DKIM by providing reporting and enforcement mechanisms. Bulk senders must publish a DMARC policy that states what Gmail should do with emails that fail authentication.

• ARC(Authenticated Received Chain): it shows the previous authentication status of forwarded messages and previously failed authentication. Senders must use ARC authentication if they forward emails regularly.

Google recommends always using the same domain for email authentication and hosting your public website. Senders must have valid forward and reverse DNS records for these sending domains and IP addresses.

2. Requirements for Easy Unsubscription

If you send over 5,000 marketing and sales emails daily, your marketing and subscribed messages must support one-click unsubscribe.

• Unsubscribe links: Every email must contain a clear and readily available unsubscribe link. This link should be placed in a prominent location, such as the footer of the email.
• Preference centers: Bulk senders can offer preference centers where users can manage their subscription preferences and easily unsubscribe from specific email lists.
• Confirmation process: Unsubscribe requests should be confirmed promptly, and users should not receive further emails after opting out.

Google suggests that you only send emails to people who want to get your messages, so they’re less likely to report messages from your domain as spam.

3. Spam Rate Monitoring

You can track your spam rate using Postmaster tools. Ensure it stays below 0.10%, and avoid reaching a spam rate of 0.30% or higher.

Here are a few tips to avoid having your emails land in your receiver’s spam: 

• Don't mix different types of content in the same message. 
• Don't impersonate other domains or senders without permission. 
• Don't purchase email addresses from other companies.
• Some countries and regions restrict automatic opt-in. Before you opt-in users automatically, check the laws in your region.

Bulk senders who fail to comply with the guidelines may face various consequences, including reduced deliverability rates, warnings, suspension of email-sending privileges, or even legal action. 

How Does This Affect Your Cold Email Strategy?

Even if your sales/marketing team has these parameters in place, Google's refreshed bulk email sender guidelines signal that mass mailing prospects may slowly be on the decline. While this may sound like not-so-good news for your outbound marketing efforts, here's why this may actually be a blessing in disguise.

Email marketing, if implemented correctly, can continue to be one of the best B2B sales channels in your GTM strategy. The key, however, will be to adopt a systematic, intent-based approach as opposed to spray-and-pray tactics.

Let’s say you’re selling software that streamlines candidate assessment, and your buyer personas are hiring managers and CHROs.

If your sales team sends out emails to thousands of CHROs at random — without any insight into whether or not they’re in-market for your product, you’re bound to receive replies, if any, such as: “Sorry, we’re not currently looking to buy” or worse still, “unsubscribe 😠.” 

Not only does this high-volume approach result in little result from lots of effort, but cold outreach may also leave a bad taste in the mouth of prospects who may be looking to buy down the road. 

What’s the alternative to this? Intent-based, account-level outreach, of course! 😎

On average, only 4% of website visitors convert via sign-ups, but what if you could identify, qualify, and target the remaining 96% of anonymous website traffic with outreach based on intent? What if you could carefully research engagement amongst high-intent buyers and send them personalized cold emails highlighting exactly how your tool can meet their requirements?

Our experience working with hundreds of B2B teams finds that this results in far more conversions with far fewer emails.

Factors is an IP-based account intelligence and activation platform that:

• Identifies anonymous accounts visiting your website, viewing your LinkedIn, or interacting with your G2 pages 
• Qualifies high-intent ICP accounts based on firmographics and cross-channel engagement 
• Enriches sales-ready accounts with Apollo-fuelled contact data before activating outreach by integrating with your marketing automation platform. 

Here’s a little about how it works:

First, our account intelligence feature allows you to uncover anonymous traffic with IP-based intelligence & enrichment. 

Next, you can qualify ICP buyers based on their firmographics and score accounts based on their engagement across the website, G2, and LinkedIn intent signals. 

Finally, create a list of accounts ready to buy and send emails with a compelling pitch to win sales-ready accounts over in no time. Want to learn the basics of account scoring? 

▶️Check out our guide: An Introduction To B2B Account Scoring

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Wrapping Up

Google has taken a much-needed step to establish these bulk email sender guidelines. Whether you’re executing cold outreach or email marketing campaigns, you must monitor your bulk emails and ensure basic email hygiene to create a secure email ecosystem. 

If you want to ditch the cookie-cutter bulk email strategy and want to restructure your cold outreach efforts by focusing on high-intent buyers, book a demo with us today!