Poor data quality costs organizations an average of $13 million annually, according to Gartner. But even high-quality data becomes a liability when trapped in silos that prevent GTM teams from seeing the full picture.
The fix: unified data infrastructure that breaks information out of departmental systems and makes it accessible across your entire revenue organization.
What Are Data Silos?
A data silo is a collection of information that only one department or team can access, preventing other parts of the organization from viewing or using that data. In GTM organizations, silos form when each function uses separate tools that don't communicate with each other.
Common examples include marketing automation platforms holding lead scores that sales can't see in the CRM, or sales engagement tools capturing buyer intent signals that never reach marketing's targeting workflows.
While data governance is critical for compliance, excessive ownership and control can create disconnection. The result: information becomes accessible to only one department or even a single person, blocking cross-functional visibility that drives revenue.
Common examples of GTM data silos include:
CRM vs. marketing automation: Lead data enriched in one system but not synced to the other
Sales engagement vs. intent platforms: Buyer signals trapped in point solutions
Support ticketing vs. account records: Customer health data invisible to account teams
Silos develop gradually as data volume grows and legacy organizational structures persist. By the time the damage is visible, they've already impacted decision quality and team alignment.
What Causes Data Silos in GTM Organizations?
Understanding what creates data silos is the first step to fixing them. Most silos don't form because of malice or negligence. They're the natural byproduct of how companies grow and operate.
Decentralized Tech Stacks Across Sales, Marketing, and RevOps
Each GTM function adopts its own tools without an integration strategy. Sales picks a CRM and engagement platform, marketing chooses automation and analytics, and RevOps adds intent data and enrichment platforms. The result: each tool creates its own disconnected data store.
Even when integrations exist, teams rarely configure or maintain them properly. You end up with a patchwork of systems that don't talk to each other.
Common tool categories that create silos include:
CRM platforms (Salesforce, HubSpot)
Marketing automation (Marketo, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement)
Sales engagement (Outreach, Salesloft)
Intent and enrichment platforms (ZoomInfo, Bombora)
Support and ticketing systems
Rapid Growth and M&A Activity
Fast-growing companies and those acquiring other businesses inherit multiple systems, data standards, and processes. Each acquisition brings its own CRM instance, contact database, and competing definitions of pipeline stages.
Organic growth creates the same problem. New teams launch their own tools to move fast, and by the time leadership notices the duplication, those systems are already embedded in daily workflows.
Cultural Resistance to Data Sharing
Departments treat "their" data as proprietary, creating political barriers that tools alone can't fix. Sales guards pipeline details from marketing, and marketing protects campaign metrics from sales.
Without shared definitions, teams default to their own standards for qualified leads, pipeline stages, and opportunity classification. When Sales and Marketing define the same terms differently, you've got a silo problem no integration can solve.
Why Are Data Silos Problematic for Revenue Teams?
While data silos may be an inevitable part of modern business, it doesn't mean your go-to-market (GTM) team has to live with them. Here are the key roadblocks you can solve by breaking data out of its internal silos:
Signs Your GTM Data Is Siloed:Sales and marketing report different pipeline numbersReps manually research accounts that enrichment tools already have data onMultiple teams maintain separate "master" contact listsIntent signals never reach the reps who could act on themForecast reviews devolve into data reconciliation debates
Inconsistent Reporting and Slower Decisions
When GTM teams work from different data, reports conflict and leadership can't trust the numbers. Every meeting starts with "whose data is right?" instead of making decisions.
Data done right unlocks growth by building a complete view of customers and prospects. Silos destroy that view, making it impossible for teams to align on North Star Metrics or coordinate actions across departments.
Siloed data also decays faster because it lacks connections to automated enrichment systems. The result: stale records, inconsistent buyer experiences, and revenue teams working blind.
Duplicate Work and Wasted Resources
When marketing and sales work the same lead from different platforms, they duplicate research, outreach, and data entry. Reps spend hours enriching records that already exist elsewhere, and RevOps wastes cycles reconciling conflicting data instead of optimizing processes.
How to Break Down Data Silos Across Your GTM Organization
Breaking down data silos requires technical infrastructure and organizational alignment. You need a unified system where GTM data lives, shared definitions across teams, and continuous enrichment to keep records current. Here's how to build that foundation:
Establish a Single Source of Truth for GTM Data
Breaking silos requires choosing or building a central system where GTM data lives and syncs from. This could be your CRM as the hub or a dedicated data platform that feeds downstream tools.
The tactical mechanism: data orchestration. Orchestration captures data from all sources, cleans and matches records, enriches them with missing details, and distributes the complete picture to every platform your teams use.
The three components of making data orchestration work:
Capture: Pull data from all GTM sources into one place
Clean and match: Deduplicate and standardize records
Enrich and distribute: Add missing firmographic, contact, and intent data, then push to systems that need it
Implement Data Governance and Shared Definitions
Data governance establishes who owns what data, how it's defined, and what quality standards apply. Without governance, teams revert to their own definitions and silos reform.
Focus on these core elements:
Ownership: Assign clear accountability for data domains (contacts, accounts, intent signals)
Definitions: Align on shared terminology across Sales, Marketing, and RevOps
Standards: Set data quality thresholds and enforce them at point of entry
Reviews: Schedule regular audits to catch drift before it spreads
Unify Contact, Company, and Intent Data Across Systems
The practical goal: get the same contact, company, firmographic, technographic, and intent data into every system GTM teams use. That means CRM enrichment, marketing automation sync, and feeding intent signals into sales engagement platforms.
When reps, marketers, and RevOps all see the same data, silos collapse. Prospecting accelerates, targeting improves, and handoffs stop dropping leads.
Platforms like ZoomInfo serve as the data backbone, enriching and syncing GTM intelligence across tools. The result is a unified view that turns data from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage.
The GTM Benefits of Unified Data
Breaking down data silos isn't just about fixing what's broken. It's about creating the foundation for measurable growth.
Accelerated Pipeline and Revenue Growth
When GTM teams share clean, enriched data, prospecting speeds up. Reps spend less time researching and more time selling. Marketing targets the right accounts with the right messages. Handoffs between teams don't drop leads.
The result is faster pipeline velocity and more closed revenue.
Improved Forecasting and Reporting Accuracy
Unified data means one version of truth for reporting. Forecasts become reliable because everyone works from the same numbers. RevOps stops spending cycles reconciling conflicting dashboards.
Leadership can trust the pipeline and make confident resource decisions. No more debates about whose data is right. Just clarity and execution.
Break Down Data Silos With ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo serves as the unified data layer for GTM organizations, delivering contact, company, and intent intelligence into your CRM, marketing automation, and sales engagement platforms. Your teams work from the same enriched records, eliminating duplicate research and conflicting reports.
The platform automates deduplication, normalization, enrichment, and distribution so data stays current across every tool your revenue teams use. Talk to our team to see how ZoomInfo unifies GTM data and breaks down silos.