The debate surrounding the optimal organizational structure for go-to-market (GTM) strategy, particularly whether sales should report into marketing, has been reignited within the business community. Matt Heinz, a prominent voice in the marketing and sales enablement space, recently found himself at the center of this discussion following a public challenge from Sangram Vajre, CEO of GTM Partners. While Heinz initially proposed that sales functions should align under marketing for a more cohesive GTM approach, he acknowledges that his previous analogy to the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) model has its limitations. However, Heinz asserts that the underlying rationale for marketing’s GTM ownership is, in fact, even stronger within the Business-to-Business (B2B) landscape due to shared customer insights, buying committee dynamics, and market intelligence.
The catalyst for this renewed debate was a livestream event hosted by Vajre, where he directly addressed Heinz’s stance. Friends of Heinz, who attended the event, informed him of Vajre’s critique, which, while respectful, articulated a clear disagreement with Heinz’s assertion that marketing should indeed lead GTM initiatives. Heinz had previously commented on Vajre’s content, suggesting that a properly executed GTM strategy necessitates sales reporting into marketing. This sentiment, far from being retracted, has been reinforced by Heinz, who now intends to further elaborate on his position.
The Foundational Argument: Marketing as an Active Verb
Heinz’s core belief rests on the definition of marketing as an active verb – the strategic process of activating a market, rather than merely producing marketing collateral. He has previously articulated this perspective, emphasizing that marketing, in its truest sense, encompasses the overarching strategy for engaging and capturing a market. Within this framework, sales is viewed as one critical channel for executing that strategy, alongside other vital components like partnerships, product-led growth, and customer success. The fundamental principle is that the function responsible for designing the commercial motion should also bear accountability for its success.
The CPG model, Heinz initially posited, exemplifies this principle. The brand manager for a product like Tide, for instance, is not solely responsible for advertising campaigns. Instead, they are entrusted with the comprehensive ownership of the Tide market and its entire go-to-market strategy. This model, he argued, offers a proven blueprint that could be effectively adapted to B2B environments.
Deconstructing the CPG Analogy: Nuances and Limitations
While the CPG brand management model served as an initial point of reference, Heinz concedes that the analogy is not without its complexities. He identifies three primary areas where the comparison becomes "messy" and potentially misleading:
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Divergent Responsibilities: Heinz points out that the CPG brand manager’s role, as conceptualized by companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G) since its inception in 1931 to establish "a single point of accountability for the brands at the center of the business model," doesn’t fully align with the modern B2B marketing leader’s scope. P&G’s own career descriptions highlight distinct and separate responsibilities for brand management and sales. Crucially, trade spend, distribution agreements, and pricing negotiations at the retail level fall under the purview of the sales department in CPG. This division means the CPG model doesn’t inherently support the idea of a single entity controlling all GTM levers.
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Integration in the Opposite Direction: Heinz notes that P&G’s historical evolution in structuring its commercial operations offers a counter-example. In the late 1980s, P&G transformed its sales department into "Customer Business Development," integrating functions like logistics, finance, IT, and marketing within the sales organization. This shift effectively positioned sales as the integrator of various business functions, rather than marketing.
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The Chief Growth Officer Experiment: The wave of Chief Growth Officer (CGO) appointments across major CPG companies like Coca-Cola, Mondelez, Colgate, Coty, and Kellogg’s represented a concerted effort to consolidate commercial strategy under a single leader, with marketing often at the core. However, the subsequent elimination of Coca-Cola’s global CMO role, only to reinstate it two years later, suggests that this centralized model faced challenges and was not a sustainable solution for integrated GTM ownership.
These observations lead Heinz to conclude that while the CPG model provided a useful starting point, it was built on a different set of market dynamics that necessitate a distinct organizational approach. The core reason for the CPG split between marketing and sales lies in the inherent structural differences of their respective markets, a distinction that B2B companies do not necessarily share.
The B2B Landscape: A Different Paradigm
Evidence from industry surveys and analyses paints a compelling picture of the current state of marketing responsibilities in B2B. The CMO Survey, conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, which surveyed 308 marketing leaders, predominantly VPs and above (with roughly two-thirds from B2B organizations), reveals a significant disconnect. When asked about their primary responsibilities, marketing leaders reported high ownership of brand (94%), digital marketing (93%), and advertising (87%). However, responsibility for pricing was cited by only 28%, and sales accountability by a mere 19%. This data suggests that, in the vast majority of companies, marketing is primarily responsible for the "noise-making" aspects of going to market, but not the strategic execution.
Further reinforcing this trend, Forrester’s analysis of Fortune 500 companies indicated a decline in the executive-level presence of CMOs in B2B companies, dropping from 48% to 42% in a single year, with B2B leading this reduction. Spencer Stuart’s research notes that approximately 31% of S&P 500 companies lack a chief marketing officer altogether, with software companies increasingly opting for a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) role instead.
Survey data from Anteriad, which polled 631 B2B marketing decision-makers, sheds light on reporting structures. 36% of senior marketing leaders report directly to the CEO, while 33% report to a sales leader. Although the latter category bundles CROs, presidents, and chief sales officers, it still indicates a significant portion of marketing functions operating under sales leadership.
Despite the perceived organizational silos, the Duke survey also highlights a surprisingly strong working relationship between marketing and sales. Sales scored the highest among all functional pairings, with an average rating of 5.79 out of 7, and two-thirds of respondents scoring it a six or seven. This indicates a high degree of collaboration, exceeding that with finance or HR. Heinz interprets this positive relationship not as a sign of alignment issues, but rather as evidence that the problem lies not in interpersonal dynamics, but in the lack of a clear owner for GTM outcomes.
Why B2B Presents a Stronger Case for Marketing GTM Ownership
The fundamental difference between CPG and B2B, according to Heinz, lies in their customer structures. In CPG, marketing typically owns the relationship with the end consumer, while sales is responsible for managing the retailer. These are distinct entities with separate locations and objectives, making a division of labor logical. A brand manager in one city cannot negotiate shelf space in a distant retail headquarters, nor can an account team effectively execute a national advertising campaign. This inherent structural division is precisely why CPG companies historically integrated functions within sales and why the CGO model faced sustainability challenges.
B2B, however, operates under a unified customer model. The entity being researched is the same entity being sold to. This means a single market, a single commercial motion, and no inherent structural impediments to a unified GTM strategy. The argument for marketing ownership gains traction because marketing, by its nature, is deeply invested in understanding this unified market.
Marketing professionals are positioned to possess the most profound customer insights within an organization. They are the ones conducting win/loss interviews, engaging with advisory boards, analyzing review sites and community forums, and dissecting churn reasons and competitive intelligence. This constant immersion in market dynamics equips marketing with a nuanced understanding of which market segments are ripe for engagement, which are experiencing stagnation, and the underlying reasons for these trends.
The traditional "Four Ps" of marketing – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion – are more closely aligned with marketing’s domain in B2B than they ever were in CPG. In B2B, there are no retail shelves to secure, no trade spending to negotiate, and no retail buyers dictating pricing. Product development is a continuous dialogue informed by market needs. Pricing becomes a strategic consideration tied to product packaging and positioning. "Place," or distribution, translates to channel strategy – direct sales, partnerships, product-led growth, and marketplaces – all of which are fundamentally market-driven decisions long before they become sales execution tactics.
Navigating the Channel Partner Landscape
The role of channel partners, including resellers, integrators, and independent software vendors (ISVs), presents a common objection to marketing’s GTM leadership. These partners can introduce an intermediary between the vendor and the end buyer, seemingly echoing the CPG split. However, Heinz argues that this perspective misses a crucial distinction.
A partner channel, he contends, is a means of distribution, analogous to a direct sales team – a route to the end customer, not a different customer. The critical difference lies in control. While a direct sales representative can be coached and aligned immediately before a client meeting, a partner’s representative operates with a degree of autonomy, their messaging influenced by onboarding and their own organizational priorities.
In the context of diminished direct control, the importance of message discipline becomes paramount. Marketing’s role in defining which accounts to target, which members of the buying committee are experiencing pain points, and what value proposition to emphasize is most critical when dealing with indirect sales channels. This strategic messaging, built over extensive market research, is vital for ensuring that the market receives a consistent and impactful message, even in meetings where marketing personnel are not physically present.
Entrusting the channel to a function with limited visibility into the end customer often results in generic partner programs characterized by superficial logo pages, product-centric pitches, and outdated sales collateral. A more effective approach, as exemplified by a CMO who shared her company’s system, involves dedicated forms for partner referrals, integrated tracking within the CRM, and consistent scoring and routing of leads. Deals involving resellers, often treated as separate entities, can still benefit from a marketing-led approach to ensure consistent messaging and feedback loops, especially in segments with less direct visibility and potentially higher stakes.
The principle of accountability is key. The perennial marketing excuse of "sales didn’t follow up on leads" becomes obsolete when marketing owns the entire GTM motion. This ownership implies carrying a number, a tangible outcome that transcends campaign effectiveness. The trade-off – taking on direct revenue accountability in exchange for strategic control – is viewed as a fair exchange, with the ultimate goal being a more cohesive and effective commercial strategy.
The Indispensable Role of Sales Leadership
It is crucial to clarify that advocating for marketing’s GTM ownership does not diminish the vital role of sales leadership. Heinz is not suggesting that CMOs should be responsible for building compensation plans, setting territories, managing deal desks, or directly coaching individual sales representatives through the closing process. These are specialized crafts that require deep expertise and dedicated careers. The emphasis is on hiring and empowering skilled sales leaders who can execute within a strategically defined framework.
Similarly, the expertise of a channel chief in recruiting, enabling, and managing partner performance remains indispensable. The core question is not about operational execution, but about strategic direction: which market segments to pursue, which channels to leverage, what messaging to employ, and what pricing strategies to adopt. These are inherently market-centric decisions, and the function best equipped to make them is marketing.
Concluding Thoughts: A Principle Redefined
The CPG model, while flawed as a direct precedent, provided Heinz with a crucial principle: the need for a single point of accountability for market outcomes, coupled with commensurate authority. McKinsey’s research supports this, indicating that marketing organizations built around generalist integrators achieve higher organic growth than those relying on specialized silos. The executive integrator role, when endowed with genuine influence and not merely a coordination function, proves effective.
Conversely, the trend of marketing reporting into a CRO represents a fundamental shift in perspective, framing the commercial motion primarily as a sales challenge with marketing as a supplementary function. While this structure may be viable for some organizations, it contributes to the declining presence of CMOs in B2B and the broader retreat from dedicated marketing leadership.
Heinz remains steadfast in his conviction. He posits that sales can indeed report into marketing in companies where marketing is willing to operate as a business unit with strategic ownership, rather than merely a service provider. As Sangram Vajre accurately observed, this concept is still nascent, lacking extensive historical data or widespread precedent. However, the logic of unifying market understanding and commercial execution under a single strategic leader in the B2B context is compelling and points towards a future where marketing’s role in defining and driving go-to-market success will become increasingly prominent.
This post originally appeared on Matt Heinz’s Substack.
