Marketing - Marketing
Head of Demand Generation
Manager
Independently auditedCreates the demand, the message, and the market position the business sells into. Owns a team, its output, its hiring, and its development.
Audited package
Built, independently audited role package. Everything on this page is written for this seat.
Your Stack (Swappable)
This role works against whatever tools you already run. We list the tool categories the role operates in, never a named vendor, so you are never asked to replace a system that works.
- Demand strategy / planning
- CRM
- Marketing automation / lifecycle
- Attribution / analytics
- Ad & channel platforms
- Lead routing / scoring / ops
- Performance & Engagement
- Analytics & BI
- Docs & Knowledge
Deliverables
- Campaign briefs and copy
- Content calendar
- Positioning and messaging docs
- Performance and attribution reporting
Responsibilities
- Own the company-wide demand-generation strategy and the channel portfolio - which channels and segments the engine invests in, and which it will not
- Allocate the cross-channel budget within the CMO's envelope, against a blended efficiency / CAC target, with an experiment allocation protected
- Carry the pipeline-generation number for the business - decompose it into channel / segment / stage targets and own coverage, conversion, and velocity against it
- Negotiate and hold the marketing-sourced-pipeline compact with Sales - the MQL / SQL definitions, the SLAs, the handoff, and the feedback loop that keeps the number trusted
- Own the demand tech / ops and attribution model - the funnel instrumentation, lead routing / scoring, and the attribution methodology (the requirements; RevOps / Marketing Ops runs the systems of record)
- Design the demand-gen org and the operating model - how programs, channels, lifecycle, ABM, and demand ops relate and report - and lead through the Demand Generation Manager (../../035_Demand_Generation_Manager/)
- Forecast demand's contribution and report the engine's health to the CMO / VP Marketing - pipeline coverage, efficiency, and the leading indicators
- Partner as a peer with Product Marketing, the Head of Content, RevOps / Marketing Ops, Sales / SDR leadership, Brand, and Finance, holding the seams around the demand mandate
The essence of this seat
The Head of Demand Generation is the owner of the company's demand engine and a people-manager.
Signature move
Start from the number and the funnel math, not the campaign idea. On any demand request, the first move is to tie it to the pipeline-generation number and the funnel stage it moves - if a request ladders to no pipeline coverage or efficiency gain, that gap is the thing to fix before anything gets built
What good looks like
derives the pipeline number from the revenue plan and coverage math rather than inventing a lead target; decomposes it into segment/stage targets with conversion, velocity, and cost visible; treats channels as a portfolio that serves the number, not the starting point; distinguishes the demand strategy (owns) from a channel plan; hands the programs to managers
Decision rights
- - the demand-generation strategy and the channel portfolio, the cross-channel budget allocation within the CMO's envelope, the decomposition of the pipeline number into channel / segment / stage targets, the marketing-sourced-pipeline definitions and the Sales compact (MQL / SQL, SLAs, handoff), the demand tech / ops and attribution model (the requirements, not the system of record), the demand-gen org shape, and leveling and succession for the demand team you lead
Working vocabulary
What this role does
The Head of Demand Generation is the owner of the company's demand engine and a people-manager. They set the demand strategy and the channel portfolio, allocate the cross-channel budget the CMO gives them, and carry the pipeline-generation number the business forecasts against - the marketing-sourced (and marketing-influenced) pipeline the company plans revenue on. They negotiate and hold the marketing-sourced-pipeline compact with Sales - the shared lead definitions, the SLAs, and the handoff that make the number one Sales actually trusts and works - and they own the demand tech / ops and attribution model that lets the engine be seen, decomposed, and tuned. They build and lead a demand team through managers, typically reporting to the CMO or VP Marketing (../../073_CMO/). The distinguishing altitude is that this is the owner of the demand function and its number, not the runner of the programs. The seam that is easiest to blur is with the Demand Generation Manager (../../035_Demand_Generation_Manager/): the Manager runs the demand programs and channels - campaign execution, channel management, the program calendar - against the targets, and reports to the Head. The Head owns the strategy, the number, the budget envelope, the Sales compact, the ops model, and the org, and in most orgs the Manager reports up to the Head. This is not a Manager with a bigger budget - it is a different mandate, a wider scope, and a higher reporting line. The Head decomposes the number and sets the targets all programs ladder to; the Manager runs the programs against them. What separates great from average is building a predictable, efficient pipeline engine the business can forecast against - through other leaders - not heroically hitting one quarter's number. A mediocre head of demand generation chases the MQL count, over-indexes on the last-touch channel, and produces leads Sales quietly ignores. A great one owns pipeline Sales can actually close, allocates the budget like a portfolio against a blended efficiency target, instruments the funnel so every allocation call is defensible, holds a compact with Sales that survives a bad quarter, and builds a team and an operating model that carry the number without the Head in every campaign. The output is never a campaign calendar - it is a demand engine the company can plan revenue on.
Best-fit customer
teams that need marketing output to be consistent, on-message, and measurable
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