Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Nicole Fuselier
Vice President of Demand and Growth at SambaNova Systems
About Nicole Fuselier
Nicole Fuselier currently serves as the Vice President of Demand and Growth at SambaNova Systems, where she drives revenue growth and go-to-market strategies. With over a decade of experience at organizations including Cisco and Viavi Solutions, she has established herself as a seasoned marketing leader specializing in leading GTM teams and driving growth. Her impressive track record includes successful tenures at various SaaS startups that underwent acquisitions or IPOs, including Magento (Adobe Acquisition), Matterport (IPO), Dremio (34% ARR Growth), and Wurl (AppLovin Acquisition). Nicole also serves in advisory roles as a Board Member - Marketing Advisor at Almaden Scouter Foundation (ASF) and as a Marketing Board Advisor at We Are WoCo.
How do you approach measuring marketing success beyond traditional metrics like MQLs?
I fundamentally believe MQLs don't matter – they're simply indicators of channel impact rather than true business value. What really matters is qualification from a sales or persona standpoint that actually converts to revenue. When it comes to attribution, my point of view is that our attribution is never entirely correct. It might have some directional value and good signals, but it's just what the system captures. For example, someone could be on a webinar and simultaneously visit the website directly to fill out a form. Does the webinar or website get the attribution? What truly matters is understanding the customer's interest and journey. I focus specifically on pipeline – how effectively we're driving opportunities that sales has validated as genuine pipeline. When looking at product engagement, I analyze how many prospects are actively engaging with our product and their usage patterns. While signups are a metric, what truly matters is whether we're attracting the right personas and converting them into active users. From a sales perspective, the leading indicator is how many prospects engage in meaningful conversations, while pipeline needs to be the primary KPI. The bottom line is understanding how your customers are coming in, making that path as easy as possible, and identifying which journeys actually drive revenue or growth goals.
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I don't believe in marketing-led or sales-led. I believe it's we-led. We have to do this together. In this environment, in this economy, company growth requires everyone working together as one unit.
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Revenue people have always understood the importance of brand because you can't effectively drive demand without strong brand capabilities. What's changed is the magnitude of its importance.
How do you coordinate your go-to-market team across different business functions to ensure a cohesive customer journey?
The foundation has to be a holistic go-to-market approach that we're all aligned on. It's crucial to have product or sales help identify the right personas they want to engage with. If marketing is focused on one segment while sales is reaching out to different prospects, it simply doesn't work. I'm a strong advocate for holding weekly go-to-market calls where sales, product, and marketing teams come together to discuss their learnings. The feedback loop with sales is vital – when partners come to me saying, "Nicole, we're using this message right now, but in ten conversations last week, prospects were more interested in this other aspect," that feedback needs to flow back to the product team to inform where we're focusing our efforts. When it comes to KPIs and goals, I don't own pipeline in isolation – I own it jointly with sales. We own it together. In this economy, if we're overly focused on marketing bringing in this percentage and sales bringing in that percentage, you will not hit your numbers. What's really driving this is our current environment – we have to move fast, and the best way to move fast is to move together.
How do you build and maintain brand trust in today's competitive market, especially with tight budgets?
This is one of the most fascinating developments happening right now. As someone primarily focused on demand and revenue, I've seen a significant shift. Previously, I would have recommended that companies under $300 million ARR allocate about 20% of their overall budget to brand. In today's economy, I believe that percentage should be closer to 40%. What we're seeing is that the revenue side is recognizing that trust, brand equity, and awareness are more critical now than ever before. Revenue people have always understood the importance of brand because you can't effectively drive demand without strong brand capabilities. What's changed is the magnitude of its importance. The allocation of where you need to spend your time has fundamentally shifted due to current economic conditions. I'm very fortunate that my CMO and I have strong partners on the brand and communications side who are leading our broader efforts to communicate our story and its importance. In this market, if you don't have that trust and voice out there, it makes it twice as hard to drive revenue and growth compared to just 2-3 years ago.
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If you don't have that trust and voice out there that people know who you are, it makes it twice as hard right now to drive revenue and growth compared to just 2-3 years ago.
How are you preparing for the impact of AI on B2B marketing?
We need to be leaning in and investing in AI capabilities while maintaining our focus on understanding the customer journey and solving customer problems. AI should enable better personalization and help us understand the best way to communicate with somebody in their preferred channel. From a search perspective, we're thinking about how people are increasingly using AI tools like ChatGPT instead of traditional search engines. This requires adapting our content creation and SEO strategies to ensure AI search agents can find us effectively. It's about being more precise and clear with language and having strong proof points. When you're looking at search optimization, everything needs to be accessible within three clicks – if someone can't find it after three clicks, they won't find it at all. The same principle applies to AI. Additionally, getting heavily involved in communities where your target personas are present is crucial, as dark social will continue to play a significant role in how people discover and engage with brands. Another essential aspect is understanding that while AI will eventually develop more sophisticated capabilities, right now it's still very much a blend of human intuition and data-driven insights.
About SambaNova Systems
SambaNova Systems is a leading artificial intelligence (AI) innovation company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 2017 by Stanford professors Kunle Olukotun and Chris Re, along with Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott Clark, the company develops advanced AI hardware and software solutions for enterprise customers. Their flagship products include the DataScale system and Cardinal SLM (Streaming Language Model) platform, which deliver high-performance AI processing capabilities for businesses, positioning SambaNova as a key player in the enterprise AI infrastructure space.
About 6sense
6sense is on a mission to revolutionise the way B2B organisations create revenue by predicting customers most likely to buy and recommending the best course of action to engage anonymous buying teams. 6sense Revenue AI is the only sales and marketing platform to unlock the ability to create, manage and convert high-quality pipeline to revenue. Customers report 2X increases in average contract value, 4X increases in win rate and 20-40% reduction in time to close deals. Know everything, do anything, with 6sense.
