Kimberly Wilhelm, AI & Cloud Field Strategy & Programs Lead at Cloudera, shares insights on measuring GTM performance, building effective demand generation campaigns, improving lead quality, and strengthening marketing-sales alignment. She also explores the evolving role of AEO, GEO, and AI in modern marketing and explains why sales enablement and seamless handoffs are critical to turning demand into a measurable pipeline.
Welcome to the interview series, Kimberly. Could you tell us about yourself and your journey as a marketer?
I started as a virtual events contractor while my son was young. I absolutely loved virtual events and pushing the boundaries of how engaging we could make the experience. While in virtual events, I was allowed to take on stretch projects within campaign marketing, from helping the Customer Campaign Marketing Manager to covering for the Vertical Campaign Manager while she was out on maternity leave.
During this time, I realized that I loved campaign marketing and actively started looking for an opportunity to become a campaign manager. I was able to move into a campaign manager role and take on a variety of projects outside of running my campaigns, from standardized title and persona cleanup to being the demand generation lead for building the company’s nurture strategy from scratch.
I strongly believe in cross-functional collaboration, which led me to my current role in which I’m on a sales specialist team and have been working to help bridge the gap between marketing and sales. I decided to take this role because I didn’t know when I would ever get the opportunity to learn about the sales side of the business, and I thought that learning about the sales side would make me a better marketer. My current role has been a crash course in what it’s really like to be in the sales organization receiving marketing leads and enablement materials. What I’ve learned has allowed me to better enable the Americas BDR team, work with product marketing to get the field the materials that they need, and push to get reporting that helps give insight into a holistic account journey from brand campaign touches to opportunity close.
Which metrics do you consider most important for measuring GTM performance across the funnel?
It really depends on the channel and the goal. When it comes to driving awareness, metrics like impressions, clicks, landing page visits, scroll depth, etc. are important. However, when it comes to lead generation efforts, metrics like responses, net new names, MQLs, SALs, opportunities, pipeline, etc. are important to measure performance. It’s important to evaluate these metrics together to understand how effectively prospects are progressing through different stages of the funnel.
It’s also important to dive into channel optimization and look for ways to minimize cost per lead while maximizing lead quality. For example, one exercise that I think is extremely helpful is to go back and look at where net new names came from, how and if they continued to engage, and if they wound up being tied to opportunities. This type of exercise has helped me determine which channels and vendors to prioritize working with from an overall lead quality perspective.
What does an effective demand generation campaign look like in today’s B2B landscape?
According to research, B2B sales cycles often take 60+ touchpoints between marketing and sales. This means that it’s imperative that campaigns utilize a variety of channels with content that is aligned to the buyer’s journey. I also think that it’s important to be testing new (and old) tactics, channels, and vendors. For example, AEO and GEO should at least be on campaign managers’ radars, and they should be thinking about how to show up in AI summaries and chatbots. At the same time, testing more traditional tactics to see how performance has changed is smart too because you never know how the market will change and when old tactics will once again become “new.”
We also know that customers are researching solutions on their own prior to talking to sales. Partnering with respected publishers and thought leaders is a great way to drive awareness and demand at the same time, all while giving more credibility to your company. I also think that it’s important to utilize partners and to really push to optimize your budget. The reality is that the B2B landscape can have a lot of competition, and some of that competition may have far more notoriety and a much larger budget than you do. Demand generation campaigns that keep this in mind are much more effective, in my opinion.
“The connection between marketing efforts and the sales team’s ability to act on that demand is critical to achieving measurable outcomes.”
How do you build strong alignment between marketing and sales to improve lead quality?
I’m still learning how to build strong alignment between marketing and sales to improve lead quality; however, the main opportunities that I see and have been addressing is to help give context to intent signals based on marketing activities and to encourage sales feedback on leads and what they need to follow up.
In marketing, we understand the different channels, their purpose, and what the person’s intent probably was when engaging with our content in those channels. I think that we assume that the reps following up on inbound leads have basic knowledge of these channels, but that isn’t necessarily the case. For example, event leads are straightforward, but when you think about content syndication, paid search, paid social, or even third-party content or promotion leads, the reality is that reps are less familiar with these channels and the best ways to follow up with the leads from these channels. I don’t think that it makes sense to dive into all of the details of promotion channels with the field, but basic overviews and what the lead is probably interested in (think topic vs product) definitely enable reps to provide a higher quality of follow-up.
At the same time, we are often testing vendors, programs, channels, etc., and the feedback on the lead quality from sales reps is extremely important. Creating an open dialogue where both marketing and sales are sharing what’s working and what isn’t from each perspective is often easier said than done. I personally believe that if we can all push to improve this feedback loop, we can get more out of our marketing efforts and better enable the field.
What advice would you give marketing leaders looking to build an AI-driven GTM strategy that delivers measurable pipeline?
My current advice is to think about sales enablement through the lens of how competitive the AI market is. You could create amazing content, promote it in all of the right places, and drive significant demand, but if the field doesn’t also have what they need to drive meetings and close opportunities, that pipeline will never turn into anything real. The connection between marketing efforts and the sales team’s ability to act on that demand is critical to achieving measurable outcomes. While I understand that sales enablement is driving the enablement side of things, product marketing is usually creating the material. Moving into the sales side has definitely changed my perspective on how I can do my part as a marketer in the future to ensure a more seamless handoff to the field.
About Kimberly Wilhelm
Kimberly Wilhelm is a technical demand generation professional with 10 years of experience driving pipelines for enterprise B2B organizations. Her expertise spans campaign marketing, virtual events, nurture strategy, lead generation, and GTM performance. With experience across both marketing and sales, Kimberly focuses on strengthening cross-functional collaboration, improving lead quality, enabling sales teams, and creating a holistic view of the buyer journey from initial engagement through opportunity close.
