AI
20. October 2026
Use AI to align sales and marketing around the right customers
Sales knows what customers ask about and why they say no. Marketing knows what generates enquiries. With AI, you can bring that knowledge together and use it to attract more relevant customers and win more of them.
Marketing does not see what happens once the lead has landed
When I speak with B2B companies about the interplay between sales and marketing, I most often see the same thing: They are not working towards the same end result. Marketing thinks in leads, trade shows, and branding activities. Sales thinks in quotes, win rate, and won customers.
For example, I have seen marketing teams in companies with multi-million turnover not know how many marketing leads sales rejects, what the win rate is, or how long it takes from first contact to a signed deal.
When marketing does not know the sales numbers, they can only manage by volume. And ultimately, the people who own the marketing budget are sales and management. They want to know what the effort delivers in return. You cannot answer that if you only look at the number of leads.
The missing knowledge typically already exists. It is just scattered across the CRM, the sales team’s notes, and marketing data. This is where AI can help you spot patterns in sales assessments, connect marketing data with the CRM, and identify which enquiries end up becoming customers. In this post, you will get three places to start.
1. Use sales experience to attract more relevant customers
If sales repeatedly receives enquiries from companies you cannot help, marketing needs to know why. It is difficult to act on the message “we need better leads”.
Instead, collect examples of relevant and irrelevant enquiries along with the sales team’s reasons. Ask AI to find the differences and suggest what marketing should make clearer in ads and on the website.
Perhaps some customers expect a lower price than you can offer. Perhaps they are asking for a service you do not provide. When the AI points to concrete examples, marketing has something to act on—and sales can see their input is being used.
Marketing can then align customer expectations and address common objections in marketing materials and on the website. This gives sales a better starting point for the conversation and more time to work with relevant customers.
2. Ask questions across sales and marketing data
If marketing measures enquiries and sales measures won customers, you may end up prioritising differently. That is the blind spot I describe in the video above.
With AI connected to both the CRM and marketing data, marketing can see what happens to a lead once it has landed with sales: how many turn into quotes, how many sales rejects, and how long it takes before a customer says yes.
You can also ask AI to find sales opportunities that are stuck in the quote stage and examine which marketing activities they can be linked to.
That way, you can plan and evaluate based on each other’s reality: Marketing can see whether activities create opportunities sales can progress, and sales can see what generates interest.
At Morningtrain, we have developed Morningbrain to connect AI with, among other things, CRM, GA4, and our marketing channels. Morningbrain manages access, masks personal data, and logs queries, so employees only use AI on data they are authorised to access.
3. Find out which enquiries become customers
Enquiries only have value when they turn into relevant sales opportunities and customers. That is why you need to follow them beyond the contact form.
AI can help you determine which marketing data and CRM information you should compare, and then identify patterns in the material.
Ask AI to examine which enquiries most often become customers, and how quickly it happens. Have it point out missing information and explain how reliable the basis is. When months pass from first contact to signature, a snapshot can give a misleading impression of which channels work.
This can give you a shared answer to which enquiries sales should prioritise—and which ones marketing should work to generate more of.
However, there is one thing AI cannot solve: data that was never recorded. If sales does not note why a lead is rejected or lost, AI cannot see it either. Agree, therefore, on which information sales must record in the CRM. If you have not yet connected your CRM and marketing data, you can read how to get started here:
Start with one shared problem
Choose the problem that is costing you the most right now—for example:
- Too many irrelevant enquiries
- Too little insight into what happens once the lead has landed with sales
- Lack of visibility into where customers come from.
Use AI to bring together and examine the knowledge you already have in sales and marketing. Then agree on what you will change and how you will follow up.
If you recognise the challenge, please get in touch. I would be happy to discuss where you can start.
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