Go-to-Market Secrets From B2B Leaders Every Ecommerce Brand Should Use

Discover the insider strategies used by successful ecommerce brands to drive revenue and growth. Learn from top B2B leaders and supercharge your go-to-market approach today!

Most ecommerce and marketplace sellers look to the same sources when crafting a new marketing plan: Facebook Ads, influencer collaborations, maybe a bit of email automation. But in today’s hyper-competitive landscape, that playbook just isn’t enough.

The real advantage? It’s hiding in plain sight.

The best ecommerce marketing strategies today are quietly borrowing from the precision and scalability of B2B go-to-market (GTM) playbooks—systems built for long-term demand generation, cross-functional alignment, operational clarity, and large exits.

This cross-pollination is especially visible in cities like Atlanta, where ecommerce platforms, logistics innovators, and B2B GTM experts are building alongside each other—often within the same buildings, boardrooms, or advisor networks. For B2C brands, marketplace operators, and dropshippers aiming to scale profitably, there’s no better blueprint than the systems these leaders are refining every day.

Atlanta’s Rise as a B2B and Ecommerce Powerhouse

Atlanta isn’t just a Southern logistics hub—it’s quickly become a go-to-market epicenter in multiple industries. With deep roots in both B2B and ecommerce success stories, the city is home to a surprising number of top GTM operators in the world who’ve helped build some of the most respected companies across industries.

Atlanta’s strength lies in the interconnectedness of its business ecosystems:

• Logistics and Ecommerce Infrastructure: Companies like Roadie (acquired by UPS), STORD, Ware2Go, Veritiv, and RoadSync showcase Atlanta’s logistics leadership, managing the physical and digital movement of products.
• Martech and SaaS Platforms: Springbot, Sideqik (acquired), HubLogix (acquired), Mailchimp (acquired), Virtue (acquired), and CallRail reflect the city’s excellence in marketing technology, B2B SaaS, and automation tools that fuel scalable growth.
• Ecommerce Brands and Enablers: Supply.com (formerly National Builder Supply), Partpic, and Fresh Heritage represent a wave of ecommerce brands and product-based companies using these systems to drive B2C growth while applying B2B frameworks behind the scenes.

What makes Atlanta unique is that these industries do not operate in silos. Many of the companies share advisors, board members, and leadership alumni. Hubs like Atlanta Tech Village and the (former) Flashpoint accelerator at Georgia Tech have been critical in creating this cross-pollination of talent and strategy.

For ecommerce operators, this means access to a world-class GTM braintrust—strategies proven in the trenches of B2B, but deeply applicable to consumer brands ready to grow beyond one-off tactics.

Meet the GTM Architects Behind the B2B Playbooks

In an already world-class GTM city, a few leaders have emerged as standout GTM architects—helping shape the very frameworks that modern ecommerce brands can (and should) be adopting.

Kurt Uhlir – A battle-tested CMO and GTM strategist known for scaling VC- and PE-backed companies across real estate, ecommerce, and B2B SaaS. He’s helped drive growth at firms like eXp World Holdings, Sideqik, Vitrue, HERE Technologies, and others. Also recognized as one of the top keynote speakers on high-performing leadership.

Sangram Vajre – A category creator in account-based marketing as co-founder of Terminus, and the marketing force behind Pardot (acquired by Salesforce). He now leads GTM Partners and is one of the most visible experts helping companies define, refine, and scale go-to-market strategies. He is also the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of MOVE: The 4-Question Go-to-Market Framework.

Erika Jolly Brookes – A marketing executive with deep experience in omni-channel B2B and ecommerce. She’s held senior roles at Springbot, Vitrue, Earthlink, and Higher Logic, consistently aligning marketing, product, and sales in ways few can.

These aren’t just high-level thinkers—they are operators with a track record of systematizing growth and unlocking growth where others cannot. The insights shared in the next sections are drawn from the frameworks these experts have implemented at scale, and continue to teach at conferences, in leadership communities, and on the podcasts your peers may already be listening to.

These are tactics every ecommerce brand and marketplace seller should use—but often aren’t, or not in the ways that unlock true success.

Start With GTM Clarity, Not Channels

Too many ecommerce brands are trapped in a cycle of execution without alignment. They launch paid advertisements before fine-tuning their positioning. They automate email flows without fully understanding customer psychology.

Top B2B operators flip this sequence. They begin with strategic clarity:

• What’s your real value proposition (not just product features)?
• Who are your high-fit customers—and what triggers their buying decisions?
• What messaging resonates across the full journey from unaware to evangelist?
• What would have to happen for your customers to feel like they have to tell others about your products?

This type of clarity reshapes every element of your ecommerce marketing strategy. It informs your ecommerce marketing funnel, guides your ecommerce marketing automation, and ensures consistency across every channel—whether that’s your homepage, a retargeting ad, or a post-purchase email flow. It might even impact the boxes you ship in.

Clarity also tightens your ecommerce content strategy. When your team understands the customer journey and intent, your content naturally aligns with high-intent keywords, solves buyer-stage problems, and builds organic visibility. It naturally fits what LLMs and the new answer engines use when they return results.

The best teams operate with a shared mental model of the customer—so creative, targeting, and support all reinforce the same narrative. Clarity isn’t a one-time conversation with your team—it’s a working asset and ongoing conversation that drives every campaign and decision. You may know it, but you need to remind everyone on your team about this—potentially even daily.

Build Demand, Don’t Just Capture It

Direct response tactics—discounts, limited-time offers, retargeting—will always have a place. But they should sit on top of a deeper layer of demand generation.

In ecommerce, this means:

• Publishing educational content that answers buyer-stage questions
• Running ecommerce social media marketing that delivers value before the CTA
• Using personalized, sequenced email marketing for ecommerce to nurture repeat purchases
• Integrating user-generated content and testimonials as part of your ecommerce marketing funnel

The goal is to create a marketing ecosystem where your brand is top of mind long before the shopper enters the conversion stage.

“Your brand is not the hero—your customer is,” says Kurt Uhlir. “If you’re always putting your product at the center of the narrative, you’re missing the opportunity to connect emotionally. You’re not Tony Stark. You’re JARVIS. Your job is to equip your customers with the tools, insight, and confidence to become the version of themselves they’re striving for.”

Demand generation creates a compound effect. It builds credibility that enhances every paid campaign, improves organic reach, and fuels sustainable, cross-channel growth. It’s the secret behind ecommerce digital marketing strategy that outperforms click-chasing competitors.

Operate Like a B2B GTM Team—Even if You’re Selling Yoga Mats

This type of operational rigor doesn’t just make your team more efficient—it’s the foundation for creating a business that can grow without burning out the founder. When your GTM structure is built around repeatable systems, you unlock the ability to delegate effectively, take time off without fire drills, and scale beyond a single individual’s capacity.

Even more critically, this is what turns your business into an asset—something that can one day be acquired. Companies don’t get acquired because they have a great Instagram presence. They get acquired because they’ve built processes and systems that continue to deliver results without key personnel needing to be involved in every decision.

A strong ecommerce marketing plan—built around tested, documented systems—isn’t just a growth enabler. It’s a valuation multiplier.

Take Supply.com (formerly National Builder Supply) as an example. The company scaled into a multi-hundred-million-dollar B2C GMV business while also supporting the complex needs of professional buyers and enterprise accounts, including multi-billion-dollar retailers like Home Depot. While they started as a side project by Heath Hyneman, Kevin Wallace, and Marcus Morgan, they quickly structured the Georgia-based company to separate operational systems for marketing, warehouse management, order fulfillment, customer support, and logistics. It wasn’t just an ecommerce company; it was like a well-oiled machine that was set to keep growing, no matter the hiccups along the way.

The good news? The same systems that allow you to eventually exit also unlock near-term benefits: better testing velocity, fewer campaign misfires, and faster onboarding of talent. It’s how you move from hustle-and-hope mode into true growth—and eventually, into scale.

Final Thoughts: You Don’t Have to Reinvent the Playbook

The takeaway is simple:

The most successful leaders in Atlanta’s GTM community—Sangram, Erika, Kurt—aren’t just building companies. They’re part of ecosystems where insights are shared, playbooks are refined, and growth is collective. And here’s the final secret: the top B2B and ecommerce leaders don’t go it alone. They regularly meet with trusted, non-competitive peers to share A/B test results, talk through challenges, and offer unfiltered insight.

Sangram and Kurt are both active in multiple of the same leadership communities. Erika and Kurt have worked together in the past and continue to operate within overlapping networks that connect many of the Southeast’s top operators—especially in Atlanta’s unofficial circles of growth-minded leaders. These kinds of informal mastermind groups—structured or not—are often where the biggest breakthroughs come from.

They’re more flexible than formal peer networks like Vistage or YPO, and often more relevant for ecommerce operators who aren’t founders or CEOs. The value comes from surrounding yourself with people who push your thinking, challenge your assumptions, and are equally committed to execution.

So find your peers—it will take time, but it’s worth it. Find your partners who can support your company in the areas where you may be weaker or where growth could accelerate with the right help. Keep reminding your team of who you are helping, what you are solving for them, and that your customers are the heroes that you all are enabling.

Because scaling isn’t just about what you build—it’s about who helps you build it.