Less than a third of B2B marketers feel ‘understood’ by sales

Conflict is common in business, but when it comes to one of the closest professional relationships in B2B – between marketing and sales – is there resolution in sight?

More than two-thirds (68.2%) of the 450 marketers responding to Marketing Week’s 2025 State of B2B Marketing survey report a close working relationship with sales. However, less than a third (30.4%) feel completely understood by the sales team.

Naturally, this lack of understanding is causing problems, with more than a third (35.4%) of B2B marketers regularly finding themselves in conflict with sales.

There are multiple sources of frustration. When asked why they think their relationship with sales colleagues isn’t better, over half (54.8%) say sales don’t understand the marketing team’s priorities. Indeed, half (50.8%) claim their business believes marketing exists purely to serve sales.

More than two-fifths (44%) feel the sales team think they could do the job of marketing better than the marketers, or they believe they know the customer better (43.1%).

Sales are focused on the here and now. Marketers have got to have one eye on what’s going to happen next year and the year after as well.

Brian Macreadie, Addleshaw Goddard

Some 41.9% of respondents claim the sales team think marketing is only about lead generation, while over a fifth (27.4%) say sales regards marketing as a cost rather than an investment.

In the free text, one respondent talks about how “sales is still overpowering marketing” and while cooperation has improved in their organisation, information still does not easily flow between departments.

Former global head of marketing for asset management at Goldman Sachs, Anouschka Elliott, recalls an initial meeting with the head of sales at an employer earlier in her career.

“We had a coffee and he said to me: ‘Well, of course, I’m your client.’ Fortunately, I’d been in the role for a long time and I was very close to the executive team. I looked at him across the table, smiled and I said: ‘No, you’re one of my channels to market,’” she says.

Elliott notes in many B2B organisations there is a legacy assumption marketing is a support to sales and the CEO wants sales to oversee marketing as a result. Marketing reporting into sales should be a red flag, she argues.

“That’s not to say you can’t have a great relationship with sales, but it’s just making sure that you are positioning marketing beyond being a sales support function,” says Elliott.

“What it means for marketers is deeply understanding the funnel. Deeply understanding and using data to articulate which parts are not necessarily working, where you need to be thinking about building campaigns to enhance that. Whether it’s between awareness and consideration, whether it’s between consideration and preference. Focus your attention both on top of funnel, as well as bottom.”

‘A perfect storm’: Exploring B2B’s ‘lead gen crisis’

She warns if marketers aren’t having those kinds conversations they face a losing battle and will end up the first port of call when sales wants to add sparkle to a deck.

Head of marketing at law firm Addleshaw Goddard, Brian Macreadie, agrees if marketers let themselves get into a position where they are simply tactically supporting sales they’ve missed something.

He believes marketers should be spending 10% to 20% of their time on market and customer research to feed back not just to sales, but to the CEO, executive team and board.

“Only the board and the executives can change everyone’s priorities. Actually, it’s that audience I find in my experience the most critical. I’ve never, ever met a CEO or a managing partner in a business that doesn’t want to hear what the market is telling you,” Macreadie explains.

While the relationship with sales is “absolutely critical” and he spends most of his time investing in that bond, Macreadie insists it can’t be exclusive. When marketers come armed with intel on how to help the business grow that is the catalyst to change the dynamic with sales, as well as with the rest of the organisation, he states. Suddenly everyone from the board down starts seeing marketing with “new eyes”.

“Sales is focused on the here and now. Marketers have got to have one eye on what’s going to happen next year and the year after as well,” Macreadie points out.

Proof of concept

According to the State of B2B Marketing data, well over half (60.7%) of marketers in large B2B organisations (250 employees and over) say their business believes marketing exists to serve sales. Almost half (46.7%) of this cohort claim sales do not understand the marketing team’s priorities.

The picture flips within SMEs, with more than two-fifths (41.6%) reporting a belief within the sales function that marketing operates to serve them. Some 62.4% of SME marketers agree the sales team do not understand marketing’s priorities. 

Concerningly, almost half (48%) of B2B CMOs and marketing directors say their business thinks marketing exists to serve sales, while 45.3% claim the sales team think marketing is only about lead generation.

That’s not to say you can’t have a great relationship with sales, but it’s just making sure you are positioning marketing beyond being a sales support function.

Anouschka Elliott

For James Hannaford, chief growth officer at payments firm Sokin, demonstrating the role marketing plays across various go-to-market motions could help redress the balance.

Marketing is responsible for customer touchpoints across Sokin’s three go-to-market pillars – direct sales, direct marketing (performance) and partnerships, which refers to its embedded sales and tech solutions. The latter includes the fintech’s multi-year deal to become Manchester United’s official global business payment solutions partner, signed in August.  

From this perspective, the success of sales and marketing are intertwined, Hannaford notes.

“If you’ve got a high performing sales team and therefore there’s a lot of attention on the sales team that empowers them, that’s great. What a great problem to have. Your role as a marketer is to empower the further success of that sales team through product marketing, sales enablement,” he states.

“You can demonstrate you can improve the conversion through the funnel by doing X, Y, Z, producing sales enabling material, making sure sales understand how to talk about product, product marketing, which falls within the remit. That’s all good stuff.”

However, the work doesn’t stop there. Reporting against each pillar helps elevate marketing beyond simply facilitating direct sales, says Hannaford. Presenting metrics which demonstrate marketing’s impact on each stage of the funnel builds the business case for investment.

While results won’t come overnight and limited resources are a consideration, if marketers truly understand the funnel they can shift their strategic credentials beyond simply generating leads for sales.

“Starting somewhere is key, because like we did here at Sokin, you have to prove your concept first,” says Hannaford. “That is with small numbers in a small segment, but it’s still achievable.”

Read all the State of B2B Marketing series so far here.