The reasons sales aren’t converting leads (and what marketing can do)

5 tips for marketers to help sales convert your leads

Have you ever been completely sold by a movie trailer, only to watch it and think… it wasn’t that good?

That’s often how sales execs feel when there’s misalignment with their marketing cohort: sellers love to see a busy marketing pipeline, but excitement quickly becomes exasperation when its leads arrive without shared context, confidence, or continuity.

To be clear, it’s not for lack of trying from marketers, and there’s no blame game to be played. It’s simply the case of too much chaos across the business, from poor data hygiene and fragmented tech to a lack of ownership or standardized processes.

Whatever the reason, moving from chaos to coherence is only possible when marketing and sales teams can shape demand as a single unit. That means carrying shared insight, narrative, and intent from one end of the pipeline to the other.

You may think your own teams are already aligned, but here’s the kicker: while 82% of the B2B business and tech C-suite claim alignment between sales and marketing teams,¹ 65% of those teams say the opposite is true in practice.²

So, why the misalignment? While there’s a litany of possible reasons, here are five frequent roadblocks that we’ve helped plenty of marketing and sales teams overcome.

1) Sales teams are stretched too thin

Here’s an unfortunately common scenario: it’s the last week of the quarter, and the whole sales team is already at capacity. No points for guessing their answer to the question of handling 3,000 MQLs, all under a three-day SLA.

What can marketers do about it?

• Time requests effectively by being aware of the sales team’s other demands, plus their peaks and troughs for activity.

• Go for MQAs, not MQLs. This will let you show sales execs how entire accounts are engaging, not just one person within that account.
• Score MQLs on things like persona seniority or number of engagements, giving sellers a ranking system as well as insights on the best angles to take.
• Incentivize landing multiple meetings in the same account, building sellers’ understanding of specific accounts for higher conversion chances.
• Provide ready-to-use assets that build on topics MQAs have engaged with, giving sales and marketing something valuable to share instead of a generic “just following up.”

2) Sellers think they don’t need marketers

As much as we’re in this line of work for the love of the game, we’re also in it to hit targets. And when sellers have been managing that without taking on your leads, they may want to keep it that way.

What can marketers do about it?

• Convert the converters. Give sales teams a compelling story and messaging that makes it easy for them to take on your leads. Best to test it with a small group or even outsource it before shooting your shot.
• Offer money for their time on your campaign. One day a week for 1/5^th of their commission package is a good way to go about it.

3) A lack of visibility

It’s all well and good having a flashy campaign asset that catches eyes. But if there’s no context explaining what the prospect did to become a lead or, worse, if sales execs can’t find the asset amid a clunky CRM interface, then they won’t know what to say to win MQLs over.

What can marketers do about it?

• Add a hyperlink to your asset in the CRM. Better yet, couple it with your messaging house, suggested follow-up topics, and other assets with guidance on what to use and when.
• Suggest webinars, events, and roundtables based on previous prospect activity that increases the chance of engaging leads.
• Make sure marketing and sales teams are working from the same tech stack, improving how data flows between intent, CRM, sales automation, and reporting.
• Ensure that marketing databases are well-made, grouping contacts by quality.

4) A lack of awareness

Nobody likes being ignored. But when marketers aren’t marketing their leads, sales execs can’t anticipate what’s coming and don’t really have a reason to engage with you.

What can marketers do about it?

• Involve sales teams ahead of time to collaborate on joint targets, such as your ambition for how many MQLs or MQAs you aim to deliver, what level of seniority you’re targeting, why these accounts, and so on.
• Build a story around your brief, engaging the seller to want to be a part of it with regular review meetings.
• Be explicit about the commitments you need, as well as the reporting and governance requirements involved.

5) Poor data quality

There’s no faster way to ruin your relationship with your sales team than by providing bad or insufficient data, such as incorrect email addresses, botched phone numbers, or a lack of LinkedIn URLs. But the more prospects anticipate a cold call after downloading a gated asset, the more phony phone numbers and other contact details you’ll be given.

What can marketers do about it?

• Reduce the amount of information being requested, such as name and company only, then work with a data team to fill in the gaps.
• Adopt a hybrid gating model which involves ungated assets earlier in the pipeline for maximum awareness, and gated assets down the line for high-value prospects.
• Reward and promote sellers that take the time to fix data; Perhaps give a monetary incentive for every MQL or contact record accurately amended by sales execs.

Take the chaos out of lead conversion

A lot can happen in a single pipeline. It’s up to marketing and sales teams to minimize that chaos for a smooth transition from prospect to opportunity to buyer.

The best way to do this is with complete alignment between these teams, which starts with identifying where and why they aren’t seeing eye to eye; just as this guide has done.

Of course, there are plenty more reasons why your marketing and sales functions may not be singing from the same hymn sheet, from lead fatigue to generic content. Keep an eye out for a follow-up guide exploring five more causes, from lengthy sales cycles to disconnected tech stacks.

In the meantime, tmp can help your departments find a coordinated method of turning MQL conversion chaos into cohesion. Simply get in touch with us to get started.

References:

¹Forrester Research. (2025). Business, IT, And Technology Priorities in Public Sector and Government, 2024 (Data overview report).

²Forrester. (2024). The Future Of Marketing And Sales Alignment (Vision report).