Your B2B co-marketing isn’t broken. But it’s not driving enough revenue.
When I ask AI research tools to describe the future of B2B sales and marketing, not one prediction involves silos. Neither does our own experience. Today I’ll share Knack’s five-part game plan for driving partner co-marketing and co-selling motions that are aligned, unified, and centered on buyer needs. For hyperscalers and their partner ecosystems, it’s the most reliable and in-demand path to revenue growth.
B2B demand generation and conversions: Faster to farther (but still fast)
Perhaps you’ve heard the adage “You may go faster on your own, but you’ll go farther together.” It holds. In 2025, more of our marketing clients than ever before have their goals set against revenue. This is pushing deep, strategic collaborations with sales—and for sales to take a more vested interest in marketing as well. The results have included process revisions, technology upgrades, and rising demand for increasingly precise, channel- and conversation-specific assets that meet buyer needs, from the upper and mid-funnels to sales enablement motions. We share the marketing and sales urgency, which is why we’re so enthusiastic about co-marketing and co-selling alignment.
Before proceeding, here are our thumbnail definitions of co-marketing and co-selling. When we talk about co-marketing, we mean pooling resources across multiple companies in order to drive shared success. This often involves lead generation and related upper-funnel motions that are funded by a combination of marketing development funds (MDF) and incentive dollars. Co-selling is when companies combine sales resources and buyer intelligence to convert leads and high-probability prospects into customers. Successful co-marketing and co-selling allow companies to leverage their marketing and sales investments in order to expand their impact.
Here's a common scenario
Frequently, when we kick off a co-marketing campaign with a hyperscaler and one of their partners, we speak with their marketing teams, but seldom anyone from sales. The brief outlines lead generation targets, content assets, media budgets, and KPIs. The campaign launches, the leads come in… and then?
Silence.
A few months later, we hear that the sales team “didn’t accept the leads.”
But why? Were they the wrong buyers? Was sales ready to engage them? Did marketing qualify them properly? Were they ever followed up with at all?
This disconnect between marketing and sales is one of the biggest barriers to revenue growth.
Today’s reality
Marketing alone doesn’t create revenue. A campaign without a sales strategy is just a brand awareness exercise.
Sales alone can’t close deals. Without marketing warming up buyers and providing “strategic air cover,” sellers are left cold calling into a void.
Partner programs without alignment fall flat. Co-marketing without co-selling means lost deals, wasted MDF, and a pipeline that never materializes.
Based on this reality—as well as decades of experience working with some of the biggest tech brands to build co-marketing campaigns that actually convert—we’ve seen what works, along with what absolutely doesn’t.
Our five-part game plan for aligning co-marketing and co-selling to drive real revenue
Begin with clear expectations and visibility.
Success in co-marketing and co-selling is directly related to shared visibility regarding how, where, and why your KPIs need to evolve in the year ahead. This means aligning on how you’ll capture BANT, define MQLs and SQLs, establish benchmark conversion rates, and uplevel your ability to target and convert buyers. As has been proven for as long as Knack has been in business, time invested in upfront expectations being set across sales and marketing teams creates a path to larger time savings and revenue growth as the year progresses.
Prepare a detailed plan for content and campaigns.
Fail to plan and you’ll end up with low face-to-face ROI. When we guide clients through plans for how to capitalize on sales and marketing alignment, we always start with sales. Our preference is workshops where joint value props and messaging frameworks can be hashed out in real time, where voices can be heard, and urgency expressed from all sides. Where B2B content marketing strategy, formats, media channels, campaign audiences, budgets, goals, and calendars can be drafted and refined for quick implementation. And from which details can be assembled, whether annually, quarterly, monthly, or weekly. In an AI-driven world where personalization is rewarded with SQLs and opportunities, your content and campaigns will need to be more precise and concise than ever before. Your plan is your ticket: Punch it fast, collaborate broadly, and hold your teams accountable for making it real.
Double down on handoffs.
If you’ve watched a track and field relay race, then you may have noticed that the difference between winning and losing is often the handoff of the baton. The fastest team in the world wins only when the baton is passed cleanly—drop it once and you’re out. This is why the most consistent and successful relay teams focus on handoffs. They practice until they can execute them without looking, offering a hand while running full speed, relying on a teammate to transfer without breaking stride. It’s beautiful to watch. And it’s no less beautiful when sales is ready for qualified leads to be passed their way. When sales and marketing teammates are clear on buyer needs, solution narratives, and the content and campaign investments most likely to pay off, ROI awaits like a gleaming gold medal. This is why we emphasize the need to review sales and marketing sequences again and again, optimizing where needed. We replace assumptions with practice, intuition with data. And repeat.
Integrate data to target the most ideal accounts.
Marketing teams tend to cast a wide net and optimize for lead volume, while sales focuses on a narrower set of accounts they consider more likely to buy. The underwhelming result? Leads that don’t convert because they weren’t from the right accounts, sales ignoring marketing-generated leads because they’re mismatched with sales priorities, and wasted marketing spend on buyers who were never going to be in-market. The fix? Leverage joint data (partner + hyperscaler intent signals) to align upfront on high-probability accounts.
Our recommendations:
• Use cloud marketplace and partner data (Microsoft, AWS, Google) to identify accounts already engaging with your ecosystem, as well as your partners’ ecosystems.
• Overlay first-party partner sales data to pinpoint the buyers who are actively evaluating solutions.
• Leverage AI-powered intent signals (search behavior, content consumption, product trials) to prioritize accounts showing real buying interest.
• Align on a shared target account list before launching co-marketing campaigns and co-selling motions—ensuring that every lead has a higher likelihood to close.
The ideal results:
• Marketing is laser-focused on high-intent accounts, reducing wasted spend and increasing MQL-to -SQL conversion rates.
• Sales teams get contacts they want to work, eliminating those feedback loops of “but these leads aren’t qualified.”
• Tighter collaboration between marketing, sales, and partners, so that everyone is working toward the same revenue goals—as well as the opportunities that will get them there.
Report and optimize weekly.
The world moves too fast for monthly reporting to be as beneficial as it once was. When marketing and sales connect at a high cadence, and commit to that cadence over the long term, they’re able to reinforce how and where their plans, content, campaigns, handoffs, and tech are performing. They can see what’s working and not working, where AI isn’t being put to use, and where breaks are appearing in their closed loop of data and insights. They can shore up, share best practices, and turn ideas into revenue using repeatable, scalable tactics. Which means that weekly sales performance analytics should definitely be on your ‘start doing’ or ‘keep doing’ list.
Better together
If you’re going to co-market but not co-sell, or vice-versa, then you’re not optimized for revenue growth in 2025. You’re leaving sales on the table and limiting your company’s growth opportunities. You’re siloed. And silos, as we know, are not good for business. Choose instead to redefine better together for what sales and marketing can become, rather than refresh based on what they’ve too often been. You will go farther for it.
Need help with co-marketing, co-selling, and the ideas mentioned above? Knack is a full-service, concept-to-revenue B2B demand generation agency specializing in strategy, creative, content, campaigns, account-based marketing, and media for today’s top B2B brands. We’re happy to discuss the many ways we can assist you and your team.
To connect with Knack, reach out via email.
Also, be sure to check out our work at knackcollective.com.