Demand gen leadership for B2B SaaS

Simon Hawtin · B2B SaaS Marketing Director / Head of Marketing · London, UK

I build the marketing function and the demand gen engine that feeds sales pipeline. I've done this for 18 years in B2B SaaS across FinTech, EdTech and HR Tech. This page explains how I work with sales, how I judge results, and when this kind of role is the right hire.

How I build the engine with sales

I'm a marketing leader. I own the whole marketing function and partner closely with sales. The job is to create pipeline that sales can close.

At Ezbob I was the first marketing hire. I built the marketing function from zero and launched a new brand, messaging and website. I worked directly with the founder CEO and wider SLT on strategy, budget and forecasts. Then I executed those plans to drive pipeline for sales to close.

At Arctic Shores, as Director of GTM, I built an AI-first outbound and inbound motion on Clay, HubSpot and Claude. I built a target account list segmented by custom signals. Those signals helped qualify opportunities and gave sales a better-prioritised outreach list. Discovery meetings booked doubled year on year in Q4 2025. See the Arctic Shores highlight.

What good looks like: pipeline, ROAS and conversion

Pipeline

I judge marketing by the pipeline it sources for sales. At Ezbob, marketing-sourced opportunities grew from £10m to £25m in one year (+150% YoY), 2019–2020.

Ezbob highlight

ROAS

I judge paid media by the pipeline it drives. At DataCamp I managed $3m of paid media across LinkedIn, Google and Meta. It drove $30m+ pipeline in six months in 2022, a 10X ROAS.

DataCamp pipeline highlight

Conversion

I judge leads by how many sales accepts. At DataCamp, MQL to SQL conversion rose from 8% to 26% in one quarter in 2022 after I rebuilt the email nurture programme.

DataCamp conversion highlight

I also give the revenue team a regular view of what drives pipeline: velocity, deal size, conversion through deal stages, and where wins come from by business profile and source. All four results are on my homepage under Highlights.

How I prioritise the demand gen mix

I don’t treat demand gen as a single channel. The mix depends on stage, ACV and how sales wants to work accounts. Paid, outbound, inbound, events and nurture have to share one pipeline view — otherwise marketing looks busy and sales still lacks coverage.

At DataCamp I ran paid hard against pipeline targets ($3m media → $30m+ pipeline in six months). At Arctic Shores the lift came from an AI-first outbound and inbound motion on Clay, HubSpot and Claude, with discovery meetings doubling year on year in Q4 2025. At Ezbob the job was building the function from zero so marketing-sourced opportunities could grow with sales. Same job title family — different mix.

When this remit fits, and when it doesn't

It fits a B2B SaaS business that wants one leader to own marketing and the pipeline it feeds sales. The titles are usually Head of Marketing, Marketing Director, VP Marketing or Director of GTM.

It is not a pure product marketing role. It is not a pure sales-GTM role either. If you need a PMM specialist, or a sales leader to run GTM from the sales side, I'm not the right hire.

I'm looking at early-stage and mid-market technology and SaaS businesses (under 10,000 employees). I work hybrid from London.

Helpful resources (demand gen)

A few resources I point teams to when we’re aligning on definitions. These are starting points, not a reading list for its own sake.