Full-funnel ABM for B2B brands with 5+ figure deals | Co-Founder @ FullFunnel.io

You need more pipeline that turns into revenue. But:
- Most marketing leads never convert to deals
- ⁠Outbound is in continuous decline 
- All the investments in trendy programs, agencies or tech didn’t move the needle. 

It’s time to try implementing full-funnel sales and marketing programs. 

Why? 

So you can:
- Accelerate this quarter’s revenue while building the future pipeline
- ⁠Convert 5-15% accounts to pipeline
- ⁠Bring marketing and sales teams together to drive the KPI that matters the most: sales velocity. 

We helped dozens of B2B tech companies implement full-funnel marketing and sales programs with 10%+ account-to-pipeline ratio. 

We will take your team by the hand and together, implement a scoped pilot program with clear milestones to prove the key KPIs, before investing in operationalization and scaling. 

To learn more or ask me anything, connect with me here or visit our website at fullfunnel.io



Vladimir Blagojević

Most marketing plans:

- Start with channels and tactics (syndication, events, SEO, ads, outbound, newsletter...)
- Layer in content and copywriting to "match the audience"
- Run campaigns 
- Measure results based on CPL, MQL

Then wonder why the leads aren’t converting. 

Marketing built the full-funnel way: 

1. FOUNDATION

- Ideal Customer Profile: Priority use-cases and clusters, firmographics and technographics, (dis)qualification criteria, account segmentation & prioritization and buying committee structure
- Buyer journey: where and how they learn, discover and buy a solution like yours
- Messaging, value proposition, content strategy
- Alignment of GTM teams (on KPIs, ICP, buyer journey, messaging and content strategy)

2. FULL-FUNNEL ARCHITECTURE 

Evergreen, consistent programs across the full-funnel to: 
- Drive brand awarnes with out-of-market buyers on places where they hang out and learn 
- Sow the seeds and generate demand by providing solutions to their priority challenges
- Capture the demand (both inbound on high-intent channels, and allbound in collaboration with sales)
- Accelerate demand capture and pipeline for high-value accounts 
- Drive customer success and expansion
- Never stop nurturing 

If you ignore one of them, you either: 
a) Squeeze out maximum of in-market accounts and sacrifice future pipeline
b) Create "engagement" that isn't converting to revenue
c) Deal with a huge churn and the need to re-compensate revenue with new customers

3. INFRASTRUCTURE 

- Dedicated, aligned, cross-functional teams with clear responsibilites
- Documented, repeatable playbooks 
- Lean tech stack with clear owners
- Key metrics and reports 
- Revenue and marketing ops 

4. TACTICS AND DELIVERY 

- Tactics (social, podcast, ads, outbound, events...)
- Content, copywriting, creatives

--- 

How and where you deliver your marketing message matters. 

But if that message isn’t landing — or converting?

The issue is usually deeper:
- Shaky foundations
- Misaligned teams
- Missing programs

If you notice cracks, check the foundation and structure first.

Full-Funnel ABM and Demand Gen For B2B Companies w/ High ACV | Co-Founder @ FullFunnel.io

Here's why so many good CMOs get fired. 

Leadership wants:
- faster results
- bigger numbers
- cheaper acquisition 

...all of that at once. 

This short-term ROI pressure pushes CMOs to do what gets measured: 

When forced to choose under pressure, CMOs are 5X likely to pick demand over brand. 
(recent study by Jon Miller, Ray Rike /Benchmarkit, Bill Macaitis and Carilu Dietrich). 

But this creates a structural problem.

- We put all our effort into meeting this quarter's number
- We don't invest in long term programs that build awareness and trust 

A few quarters later, the pipeline dries up. 

The numbers back this up: we're spending $2.00 to acquire $1.00 of net-new ARR. And the CAC payback time has been constantly increasing by 12.5% at median since 2022 (Pavilion).

Why is this happening? 

Leadership still believes that marketing is like a gumball machine: you put in $ and get $$ out (credit: Jon Miller). 

We know that reality is different: 
- Non-linear, complex buying journeys
- Early influence matters: more than 80% of buyers short list products they discovered before the buying process

But our attribution hides the early influence, and the "credit" goes to the last touch was before the deal, which reinforces the gumball machine thinking. 

So, without clear attribution to early and middle-funnel activities, leadership doubles down on short-term ROI.

And when the pressure doesn't bring results, CMOs get fired. 

The cycle repeats. 

--- 

As long as we stay in this loop, things won't change. 

But ripping out the entire infrastructure and starting from scratch is not an option either. No leadership will support it. 

The solution is an evolution, not a revolution. 

It all starts with a small-scoped pilot: 
- No new hires, a small cross-functional team 
- No extra budget, scoped down to a small set of accounts we have 'the right to win'
- Attribution: the team gets the credits for the pipeline created 
- The main goal is not volume, but effectiveness. By working together, from awareness to pipeline, that we can turn a higher % of high-value accounts into deals

If you want to dive into the weeds, join Andrei Zinkevich and me during our Full-Funnel Summit.

Get your free ticket here: 
https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

Here is how full-funnel marketing balances short-term ROI pressure with long-term brand programs:

Pre-conditions:

-Setting up a cross-functional team
-Repurposing what's been created
-Joint planning and accountability
-Agreement with leadership on allbound attribution

Short-term solutions:

-Developing account prioritization model with sales: account engagement level, signals, account sourcing, revenue potential, relationship with buying committee group, product need evidence
-Working on deal acceleration (1:1 account plans) and buyer enablement for early-stage pipeline
-Prepare personalized content hubs and content
-Set up account retargeting ads using demand capture budget

Balancing short-term ROI with long-term brand programs:

-Repurposing existing content for thought leadership / Enabling sales rep to share content
-Boosting top-performing content with thought leadership ads to target account list
-Define and capture engagement signals
-Co-create webinar narrative together with sales
-Promote webinar via partners, communities and ads
-Set up weekly meetings inviting RevOps and CS to discuss:

* Captured signals and account insights
* Planning next steps with the engaged accounts
* Planning content

-Set up post-webinar content hub, tracking content engagement, and planning next activation steps

Track:

-Engaged strategic accounts (highlight strategic accounts sales tried to engage, but never got a reply)
-Brand metrics
-Accelerated deals
-New pipeline opportunities
-Total ALLBOUND pipeline value/revenue

This "bare minimum" model enables you to show real pipeline influence while setting up fundamentals for long-term brand programs:

✅ Creating awareness of the invisible 95%
✅ Nurturing the buying committees early 
✅ Building credibility in peer networks (where real decisions happen)
✅ Co-creating account prioritization and engagement with sales
---
Most marketing teams are trapped in a brutal false choice: hit quarterly numbers or build long-term brand value.

Leadership screams for pipeline NOW. Brand programs take months to show impact. 

The "default" marketing function:

❌ Receive pipeline targets from leadership
❌ Spread budget across "demand gen" and "demand capture"
❌ Publish generic blog articles for SEO
❌ Host product-pitching webinars
❌ Hand over "leads" to sales

This playbook optimizes for the 5% of accounts actively buying TODAY while completely ignoring:

- What gets you into the consideration set of that 5%
- What creates the pre-conditions for deals to happen
- What actually influences buying decisions

But the result is always the same: being blamed for lack of revenue contribution and not enough pipeline.

The only way to get out: balancing real short-term pipeline results with long-term brand programs.

But it requires you connecting the dots between different activities across the buyer journey through cross-functional collaboration.

---
We'll share a deep dive at our Full-Funnel Summit: 
https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

How to survive as a B2B CMO, and drive revenue in 2026 
- a year of AI and long sales cycles? 

(14 masterclasses by 17 B2B leaders)

1. Use AI to drive real results, not "do more with less"

Learn how to:

- Use AI workflows at every stage of the ABM funnel with Steve Armenti (who built the program generating $2B+ in pipeline at Google)

- Redesign your marketing operating model as an AI-native CMO with Tim Rutten

- Turn AI-powered account scoring and hyper-personalized messaging into actual pipeline with Leanne Chescoe

2. Win long and complex sales cycles 

Leadership wants faster results, bigger numbers, and cheaper acquisition—all of that at once. But buying cycles have lengthened, budgets are tighter, and market noise is deafening. 

Learn how to:

- Build a B2B marketing playbook purpose-built for long sales cycles with Andrei Zinkevich and yours truly 

- Create GTM Focus Cycles that translate ambitious revenue plans into clear, executable priorities with Ashley Lewin

- Drive predictable pipeline in a chaotic market through orchestration and culture with Matt Heinz

3. Create content that stands out in AI noise and builds trust before the sale 

Buyers evaluate your credibility before they ever talk to sales. Most content teams are still producing for clicks, not trust.

Learn how to:

- Build a content flywheel that compounds over time instead of burning out your team with Sara Stella Lattanzio and Diandra Escobar

- Become famous in your niche and attract business through LinkedIn video and organic distribution with Tycho Luijten

- Create ads for boring products that actually stand out, with Shlomo Genchin

4. Sell like a human in a world of automation 

AI has made it easier to scale outreach. It's also made it easier to be ignored.

Learn how to:

- Practice human-first social selling when AI is accelerating faster than any previous technology shift, with Lauren Goodell

- Use human-centered marketing in the age of AI to evolve the buyer's journey from a funnel into a playground with Ashley Faus

5. Prove the ROI and get budget for long-term programs 

The pressure to show attribution has never been higher. The tools to do it honestly have never been better.

Learn how to:

- Crush LinkedIn Ads in 2026 and prove it to leadership with Justin Rowe

- Run account-based revenue programs that tie directly to bookings with Davis Potter

--- 

B2B teams have a choice in 2026.

Keep running volume plays in a market where buyers are already overwhelmed, skeptical, and using AI to filter out noise faster than you can produce it.

Or learn from practitioners who have figured out what actually works.

All sessions are live.  Don't miss it: 

https://lnkd.in/eD7JZXxT

Here is how AI is ACTUALLY being used by 44 enterprise marketing leaders: 8 new use-cases. 

1. REPLICATE SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGNS

Proven patterns + target market insights = replicating success. 

“We’ve been building AI-based tools to duplicate ABM campaigns, and they seem to be working well so far” — Kayleigh Duggan.

2. EMBED IN WORKFLOWS 
“The real play is embedding AI into workflows that already solve real problems. 

Start with: what’s slowing us down today? 

Some of the strongest use cases are unsexy but powerful: keeping CRMs up to date, hygiene no one wants to do, layering in insights from calls, lead qualification, personalization, and research.” 

- Sara Stella Lattanzio (biweekly expert-tested AI workflows at The Workflow).

3. SALES COACHING

“I built ‘MarkGPT’ to analyze transcripts from won vs lost deals. It confirms patterns, surfaces new insights, and provides live coaching on active deals — flagging risks like missing an economic buyer or suggesting objection handling.” — Sam Kuehnle, Loxo

4. MARKETING OPERATIONS

“Our ‘secret’ AI MarOps tool that not many people know about is Jigso.ai, which I think more companies should try.” — Ruth Favela, Tomorrow.io

5. EVENT FOLLOW UP

“We added an AI SDR that is booking meetings and running pre- and post-event follow-up.” — Carrina Ekvall, Recurly

6. ADAPTIVE NURTURING

“We use dynamic sequences: depending on engagement, the next step changes.” — Lujan Quintero, PSignite

7. QUALIFY & PROGRESS LEADS FASTER

“One of the most meaningful uses of AI we’ve found is in lead qualification and funnel progression. AI assistants engage earlier, ask smart questions, and route prospects faster. The result is higher-quality pipeline, improved conversion rates, and shorter sales cycles.” — Nicole Gates, Varonis

8. CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION

“Where I’ve seen AI make a real impact is in conversion, not just production. For example, improving outreach using decision triggers.” — Sheri Otto, Redwood Software

The most common use-case: ENRICH ACCOUNTS, PRIORITIZE & PERSONALIZE AT SCALE

For example, “Research accounts & create messaging tied to their needs for 1:1 messaging at scale.” — Matt Dowis, OPEX Corporation

Other notable patterns:
- CREATE ACCOUNT CLUSTERS BY PAIN POINTS
- USE SALES & CUSTOMER CALLS TO TUNE STRATEGY & MESSAGING
- OPTIMIZE FOR THE NEW SEARCH FRONTIER (SEO → AEO)
- AUTOMATE BUYING SIGNALS CAPTURE
- ACCELERATE MARKET RESEARCH

Special thanks to the Dealfront team, especially Jamie Pagan and Simone Schiavo - for such a rich contribution. 

---

Without a clear strategy, AI just helps you produce more of the wrong thing faster.

Sara said it best: “If your ‘AI strategy’ is tossing lazy prompts into an LLM, congrats you’ve just scaled mediocrity.”

But more and more teams successfully embed AI into a GTM. 


During our Full-Funnel Summit, we have a complete track on how to use AI to drive revenue, not just do more with less. 

Get your free ticket here: 
https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

AI in real B2B Companies

Here's the pattern every CMO recognizes.

You're pressured to pour everything into hitting this quarter's number. You squeeze every last drop from the existing pipeline and demand. 

By meeting this quarter's number, you've depleted next quarter's pipeline. You didn't get to invest in the activities that build awareness and trust six to nine months out.

And leadership happily raises the bar. 

We're trapped in a system that punishes long-term thinking but demands long-term results.

"I'll survive this quarter, show ROI, and next quarter will be better."

No, it won't. That's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The cost of non-strategic decisions compounds: 

1. ATTRIBUTION

65% of CMOs struggle proving marketing's revenue and pipeline contribution. This is the reality of last touch-attribution. 

Deals take months, sometimes years. Buyers might read your content, attend an event, see you on LinkedIn, talk to a partner, and only then reach out to sales.

But in the CRM, all that early influence disappears. The "credit" goes to the last touch before the deal.

Instead, consider a blend of self-attribution, account-based attribution, and customer interviews. Look for qualitative signals, not just quantitative ones.

2. PROGRAMS

Jon Miller's research: "when faced with budget cuts, marketing leaders are 5X more likely to protect demand gen budget than brand.

Odd, given 73% of companies agree that brand investment is a long-term investment that makes demand generation more efficient."

Instead, we need programs that balance long-term brand awareness, future pipeline development, and this quarter's goals

3. TEAMS

In most B2B orgs, there's a lack of cross-functional collaboration with sales.

Even with best intentions to work together, misaligned incentives get in the way. 

But without an orchestrated effort across GTM teams, it becomes impossible to influence the complete buyer journey. 

4. TECH/AI

Leadership hears "AI" and imagines instant pipeline at lower cost.

Yes, we can create more content than ever. Pull public data points and "personalize" at scale.

But all we're doing is scaling tactics that didn't work in the first place. 

Instead, AI should scale processes we have proven and refined through many iterations:
- Pilot → document & refine → train AI 
- Show AI what 'good looks like' with examples of high-quality output (quality benchmarks)
- Use deep insights and research about the target ICP segment as input for AI

---

The way out? 

1. Strong fundamentals (brand narrative, differentiation, positioning, ICP, buyer journey...)⠀
2. Full-funnel programs: awareness → demand capture → pipeline → Buyer enablement→ CS & expansion
3. Balanced time horizons 

Understand customers. Shape the journey. Build brands buyers choose.


If you want to dive deeper, join Andrei and me, and 14 B2B leaders during our Full-Funnel Summit.

Get your free ticket here: 
https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

"I have $20k budget. How many leads do you guarantee?"
Sorry, what is called "demand gen" today is a rotten, broken marketing playbook that costs CMOs their jobs.

Old school demand gen aka waterfall marketing indoctrinated B2B companies that there is a predictable revenue model:

-Design gated content
-Run ads and send cold marketing emails aka "nurturing"
-Capture MQLs
-Handover to sales
-Analyze MQL to SQL conversion rate
-Figure out which channel generates more MQLs at lower CAC
-Calculate how many MQLs do you need to hit revenue targets based on the current conversion rate
-Request budget

B2B companies and VCs loved the idea of predictable revenue so much, so they completely recreated GTM around the new broken model.

The core of the new model:

Marketing & sales control the buyer journey and can push buyers.

This immediately widened the definition of target addressable market (TAM) and made companies forget about ICP.

Faster. Predictable. Scalable.

And within this nonsense we started seeing how B2B CMOs tenure is plummeting to 16 months in 2025.

I once attended a meeting where Head of ABM at a well-known (63k+ employees) B2B company presented to head of demand gen of one vertical team the idea of a cross-functional program.

The first thing she heard:

I don't have time for this. I can give you $20k for air cover. How many leads do you guarantee?

We must stop it.

The only way to generate B2B revenue for enterprise products is shifting to revenue marketing.
---

We invited Matt Heinz, who has been advocating for it for a long time, to join us, and other 15 B2B marketing leaders on our Full-Funnel Summit.

Get your free ticket here: 
https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

What is ABM?
How out industry completely messed it up.

It all started with ABM platforms selling the enterprise pipeline miracle:

-Buy an ABM platform
-Get a list of dream accounts from sales
-Launch programmatic display ads
-Build dynamic landing pages where the account name and logo will be automatically changed based on the domain or IP
-Create personalized outbound cadences

Easy to launch. 100% measurable. 0 work from sales.

The hype was picked up by many marketing agencies with junior marketers who NEVER had an experience of working, selling, or even talking to Enterprise B2B buyers.

They saw a new "predictable revenue model" that could be labeled as a high-ticket service. You just need to sound smart.

Technically, what I described above can be defined as ABM, because the accounts and the personalization is there.

The problem?

It's very different from how enterprise B2B buyers buy.

The facilitation of that model created a false expectation that ABM is 100% marketing initiative where sales, product, CS, and subject-matter experts should do nothing.

It 100% matched executive expectations because it is just a small upgrade of a lead gen program their company ran for the last decade.

It doesn't require any change management, while in reality it does!

ABM is a cross-functional program that requires significant change management:

- Having an engaged marketing leader who is willing to drive change.

- Incorporating ABM in your Go-To-Market strategy, not creating a new, siloed function

- Structuring teams from horizontal silos to cross-functional operations: marketing, content, client success, sales (SDRs and AEs), subject-matter experts & product

- Changing KPIs from MQls and SQLs to account engagement, penetration, progression, pipeline value, velocity, and revenue, and ask both teams to track them regularly

- Adjusting sales processes to run account research, full buying committee mapping and regular engagement, leveraging marketing initiatives and content for nurturing, using 1st party and 3rd party signals to add value to the conversations and facilitate opportunity creation

- Readjusting content strategy from "SEO-first" to "buyer needs first"

- Investing A LOT in brand awareness by engaging industry thought leaders, communities and partners via educational thought leadership programs

- Creating account plans based on 1st party research insights, not generic GPT research

- Having regular planning and review meetings

The success of ABM lies not in your stack or budget, but in making necessary changes, setting up cross-functional teams, adjusting their KPIs, and enabling them to focus on meaningful account engagements.



If you want to dive deeper, join Andrei and me, and 14 B2B leaders during our Full-Funnel Summit.

Get your free ticket here: 
https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

How seasoned B2B leaders deploy AI to scale revenue instead of broken playbooks. 
Problems + solutions + the underlying framework. 

PROBLEMS

1. Tragedy of the commons

We can create more content than ever. Pull public data points and “personalize” at scale.

The result? 

Jon Miller said it best: "every prospect now receives content specifically IRRELEVANT to them" 

We're just teaching buyers to ignore us faster.

"Marketers will use and then abuse any tactic until it becomes ineffective", said Jon.

2. The expectation gap

Leadership hears “AI” and imagines instant pipeline at lower cost.

But reality's different: 

“AI still requires quality data, strategic direction, and human judgment. Without alignment to pipeline metrics, it becomes just another shiny object” - Hanna Kvamme.

3. Hidden taxes

Review Tax: “AI made content faster, but shifted the bottleneck to senior reviewers. Reviewing takes twice as long” - Giorgia Guantario. 

Learning Tax: "On top of everything marketing is responsible for, we are now also responsible for figuring out AI" - Briana (Manrique) Casey.

Raised Bar Tax: "I thought it would free up time for strategic, creative work. Instead, it's increased the pressure to deliver more, faster" (Tarek Fayed)

4. Strategy vacuum → more work, not less

Many companies are deploying AI without a clear strategy.

"If your ‘AI strategy’ is tossing prompts into an LLM, congrats you’ve just scaled mediocrity" (Sara Stella Lattanzio)

And this creates more work, not less: "Without a clear strategy, AI can feel like another demand instead of a time-saver" (Mindy Johnson)

SOLUTIONS

1. Tie AI to GTM outcomes, not output volume

"AI works best when tied to GTM outcomes like conversion rates, sales velocity, or deal size" (Kathleen Booth)

2. Scale what’s proven

Prompt AI with detailed playbooks based on processes you've proven: Pilot → refine → document → prompt.

Real processes augmented by AI: 
- Cluster accounts by pain points (Stuart Coulton)
- Research account insights & signals (Tim Rutten)
- Qualify & progress leads faster (Nicole Gates)
- Sales live coaching on active deals (Sam Kuehnle)
…

3. Use deep ICP research & transcripts as input

Request quotes to prevent hallucination and preserve buyer language. 

4. Show AI what good looks like with examples of high-quality output

5. Build detailed quality checklists

It's always fun to see AI evaluate its own results, back-paddle & fix its own work. 

--- 

Most B2B leaders aren’t struggling with AI.

They're asked for faster results and bigger numbers... with growing cycles, lower budgets, higher CACs & a deafening noise. 

During our Full-Funnel Summit, we have a complete track on how to use AI to drive revenue, not just do more with less. 

Get your free ticket here: 
https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

AI That Scales Revenue (not broken playbooks)

Not all types of intent are created equal: 

𝟏. 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 
"I want to be better at my job"

Buying intent: -/low.

Example journey:

1. I'm interested in up-skilling myself, learn the best practices and industry trends
2. I discover good content from a brand, and start following them 
3. I read something very relevant for our situation, and start binging on the related content
4. I get curious about your solution, and check it out
5. I may even reach out to you for a demo in order to understand how it works, and the potential benefits for our brand 
6. I might even try to sell it internally, but quickly realise this is not a priority 
7. I ignore your follow ups 

𝟐. 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 
"We need a solution to a high priority problem"

Buying intent: +-/medium.

Example journey:

1. Something happens in our business that shifts our priorities to solving a specific challenge
2. I start exploring solutions, by searching, asking my network, in niche Sclak groups 
3. I discover your content our your brand (e.g. someone recommends it)
4. I explore your solution multiple times, and have internal discussions with my team 
5. Since it seems like it might be the right type of solution, I may reach out to you for a demo, so that I can uderstand it better
6. Meanwhile, we're exploring alternatives 
7. We decide we can solve it intenally, or to go for a different solution category 
8. I ignore your follow ups 

𝟑. 𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 
"We want a solution like yours"

Buying intent: +/high.

Example journey: 

1-6: same as for (2.)

7. I evaluate you as a vendor 

8.a) Bad fit: I remove you from a consideration set and start ghosting you
8.b) Good fit: you end up on the short list 

9. I try to build an internal consensus 
10. We review our needs and purchase criteria, and the available alternatives 
11. I introduce you to my colleagues and we dive deeper 

12.a) We decide a competitor is a good fit
12.b) We agree that we: 
- Understand the total cost , and we believe this investment would yield a significant return
- Expect impact Y within Z time 
- Have a clear plan, right people and infrastructure to implement the solution
- Understand the change management required and feel confident we will be able to do it
- Understand the main risks, and have a plan for a proof of concept to de-risk our decision. 

13. You are vetted by our procurement department 

--- 

Not every intent signal is the same. Not even all the hand raisers are ready to buy from you. 

Study previous deals, identify the red flags and the real buying signals. 

Translate those into criteria and questions you need to ask during the buying process. 

But, the fact that someone was not ready to buy right now, doesn't mean they won't become ready in the coming quarters. 

Never. Stop. Nurturing.

If you want to dive deeper, join Andrei Zinkevich and me, and 14 B2B leaders during our Full-Funnel Summit.

Get your free ticket here: 
https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

An AI question we got from the CMO of a $300 mil SaaS company: 
"Which parts of ABM will get automated, and which parts are the real human IP?"

Great question. Here's what Andrei Zinkevich and me told him.

What AI can do well:

1. Account research - once you know what information matters and what's noise, where to find it, how to use it - and have a benchmark of what good looks like
2. Account love letters and personalized outreach — once you have a good format, examples and insights
3. Content creation — if you feed it proprietary frameworks and real knowledge, it can generate solid drafts.
4. Signal detection - once you know which signals matters, and how to act on them

None of that is where the value is anymore.

Where the real IP lives: 

senior profiles with in-depth knowledge, relationships and planning. 

1. Senior profiles 

The quality and seniority of people becomes even more important with AI, not less.
- Subject matter expertise 
- Customer knowledge - especially being in contact with customers regularly and knowing what lives in the industry NOW 
- Knowing what good looks like - including empathy for what customers will consider superficial dribble vs real insight
- Deep understanding of the complete (ABM) process

For example, we could only generate useful AI drafts after we had 
- Clearly defined the ICP through dwon & loss deal analysis and in-depth workshops with SMEs and AEs who talk to customers daily 
- Understood the specific challenges of a narrow segment (e.g. $1B+ industrial manufacturers with export dominant business)
- Integrated deep subject matter expertise their head of strategy, founder and their CMO have built over the last 20+ years

Without that work, we'd end up with b.s. buyers would ignore. 

2. Relationships

You can use AI to write tons of LinkedIn comments and connect to people 'personally', but that would be fake and negatively impact everyone. 

Multi-threading, genuine engagement (not standard automated emails) and relationship building (people-to-people) are the key.

3. Strategic planning

The cross-functional workshops are where the magic happens. Bringing together people from product, sales, and marketing means everyone looks at buyer personas and jobs-to-be-done from different angles. 

This produces an unbiased, multi-angle narrative that no AI can replicate on its own.

For example, when a team member suggested specific outomated outreach for DACH, the AE pushed back saying certain approaches wouldn't resonate culturally. That kind of nuance only comes from human judgment in a collaborative setting.

--- 

You'll probably need fewer people. But more senior ones.

The job changes, but critical thinking, discernment, and deep market knowledge become THE differentiators. 

Those are precisely the qualities hardest to find in people.

And they're what matters most in an AI-augmented world.

Account score is the new MQL. A metric that gives your team false confidence that the account is sales-ready. But by the time sales reach out, you already lost. Here's the fundamental problem:

The account score tracks 1st party interactions and 3rd party signals (hiring, funding, exec interviews, etc.). But it completely ignores:

- Relationship
- Vendor awareness
- Product need evidence

Marketing and sales wait until the account hits an engagement threshold to act on it, ignoring that:

- It might be too late. You're evaluated as vendor #5 and as a backup if the first 4 options won't be a fit.
- The score could be driven by irrelevant contact or signals (I've seen this a couple of times)
- The engagement behind the signals doesn't mean the buying intent.

The utopian idea behind the account scoring is that when an account reaches a certain score:

- Marketing did their job of creating awareness
- Sales should start outreach

There is no system. Sales just do the standard outbound, maybe, a bit more personalized. But the problem is: buyers don’t know them, and there is a completely different level of intent (e.g. just to learn, not to select the vendor).

It's very similar to the ugly and broken MQL handover playbook we all are fed up with.

We've replaced account scoring with account prioritization framework that groups accounts into three buckets by likelihood of creating a sales opportunity with them this quarter:

1) Cluster ICP: <5%. Cold accounts that don't know us and we don't know if they are in the market. 

Goal: Engage Champions and create internal awareness.

2) Future pipeline: <30%. Accounts with early engagement but unknown product need evidence. 

Goal: build a relationship with the buying committee, validate buyer journey stage and product need evidence. 

3) Active focus: > 30%. Accounts with the relationship and known need. 

Goal: Create a personalized solution and generate an opportunity.

Each bucket requires a different engagement strategy where both marketing and sales:

- Define the level of intent behind the signal
- Create marketing and sales playbooks aligned with the level of intent
- Run personalized engagement with Future Pipeline and Active Focus accounts to boost internal awareness and facilitate nurturing

I just finished reading Influ2 research about contact-level ABM. Two fascinating facts:

1) Group decision carries the most weight when selecting a vendor. But if you look at who raises most objections, you immediately see IT and finance. 

The takeaway: if you are not doing multithreading, you drastically decrease your chances to win the deal.

2) Even a simple personalized marketing air cover to the contacts sales are targeting uplifts pipeline conversion by 118%:

2.44% meetings booked rate with 1 click and 15+ impressions compared to 1.40% without ad exposure.

The report + how to orchestrate ABM at the contact level is here: https://lnkd.in/edT9kdWX

Most CMOs know the short-term B2B playbook is broken - but it’s the only type of program the leadership accepts. 

Here's how to get buy-in for long-term full-funnel programs.

PROBLEM BUY-IN

1. Map and engage internal buyers
- Identify and interview key stakeholders about their challenges and priorities, and their experience as B2B buyers
- Start creating problem awareness and nurturing stakeholders by sharing best practices, anecdotes and asking questions
- Identify change agents across client-facing teams, they will help you co-create the pilot and are candidates for your future a cross-functional pilot team

2. Collect evidence that the current playbook is broken
- Analyze where the revenue is coming from and the characteristics of top revenue-generating, strategic accounts 
- Analyze performance of the current programs both in terms of pipeline and revenue generation, but also in how effective they are in generating deals with strategic accounts 

3. Show that the problem is worth solving now
- Connect the problem to leadership's top business priority
- Show the cost of doing nothing

SOLUTION BUY-IN

1. Diagnose root causes and define measurable requirements
- Run a full-funnel GTM audit across 12 key areas to identify what's working, what's not, and how challenges connect to each other
- Bring your change agents into the process — share your findings, get their input, and co-create requirements: what needs to improve, why, and how you'll measure it
- Define a small-scope pilot program to try a new program (without budget increase or additional resources, using the current marketing and sales mix)

2. Align on the approach. Prepare to defend four core requirements for high ACV and long sales cycles:
- Efficiency over volume: show that strategic accounts drive most revenue, calculate the current account-to-pipeline ratio and present the comparison between the current playbook and the more efficient approach you're proposing
- Document the actual buyer journey for your best deals to show the multi-touch journey across different channels that’s required (and the mismatch with the current approach)
- Run the CFO quiz to get agreement that last-click attribution doesn't reflect the reality of complex, multi-touch deals
- Make the case for a cross-functional pilot team with allbound attribution and aligned incentives

3. Get the approval
- Create a pilot project memo: challenges, cost of inaction, high-level pilot plan, expected results, team structure, risks, and a clear ask
- Present it to leadership and formally ask to approve the pilot

---

It might feel that the only path forward requires ripping out the entire infrastructure and starting from scratch. New systems, new metrics, new team structures.

But no leadership will support it. Revolutions get marketing leaders fired. 

The solution is an evolution, not a revolution of your marketing mix and how your team works.

And it starts with these two buy-ins.

Andrei Zinkevich

Co-founder @Fullfunnel.io| ABM & full-funnel marketing for B2B tech companies with high ACV and long sales cycle

We transform B2B Tech and Service-based companies from siloed sales and marketing to full-funnel account-based marketing and demand generation. 

We help your team develop an ABM strategy, launch pilot programs, operationalize and scale the programs without ramping up budget or depending on external agencies.

Here is how.

1. ABM STRATEGY.

We go together through a 3-week initial strategy sprint that includes: 

- Deep assessment of current marketing and sales processes
- Challenges both teams face and the root reasons behind them
- Revenue and channel analysis to identify focus markets and ICP for the ABM campaigns
- Custom ABM strategy development including detailed:
- Marketing and sales alignment with ICP, strategy and playbooks

2. LAUNCH PILOT ABM PROGRAM.

Within a single quarter, we’ll work with a pilot team to implement a minimal viable full-funnel program, without pausing existing processes. The pilot team usually consists of one marketer and one sales development rep.  

When we hit the target KPIs, we move to the operationalization and scaling stage.

3.DEVELOPING FULL-FUNNEL ABM FUNCTION.

At this stage we combine ABM with demand generation function to create a holistic model that creates awareness, generates demand and activates accounts that are already engaged across the full funnel.

SPRINTS INCLUDE:

-> Account-Based Marketing

-> LinkedIn demand generation and social selling

-> GTM strategy

-> Sales enablement

-> Demand generation and accounts warm-up

Why Work With FullFunnel.io?

1. 30+ years of niche experience

We were and still are “in the trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, so you’ll get access to 30+ years of our combined experience and knowledge.

2. Knowledge transfer.

Your team gets consistent support and training, including step-by-step playbooks, templates, marketing and sales dashboards, tech stack, and process maps.

3. Revenue alignment.

We align marketing and sales teams around revenue, ideal customer profile, target accounts and lead scoring criteria which helps to consistently hit your revenue quota and operate as one Revenue Operations team.

OUR CASE STUDIES INCLUDE

- $300k from a pilot ABM campaign with a software development company

- 9 qualified sales opportunities and 3 new contracts, 10x ACV from an account-based demand generation campaign with AdTech development company

- 7 sales-qualified opportunities from a pilot ABM campaign in the Nordics region with a cloud solutions vendor

- 76% response rate, 36% accounts engaged, 5 opportunities from a pilot ABM campaign

Co-founder

At Fullfunnel.io we are growing B2B companies with long and complex sales cycles since 2006.

We were and still are “in trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, and bring to the table our 30+ years of combined experience and knowledge. 

I live and breathe B2B marketing since 2006. 

Before launching Fullfunnel.io, I spent 8 years in the enterprise segment working for Kimberly Clark and Biosphere Corporation.

What makes Fullfunnel.io different?

1. Ins and outs of selling to enterprise

Coming from the mid-market and enterprise world, I know all the ins and outs of selling to these segments: the research and evaluation processes, decision-making procedures inside the buying committee and the approval workflows. 

We’ve been there, done that, and know how to generate opportunities with these segments and influence the decision-making processes.

2. Niche experience

While we could help many B2B business, since 2007 we focus exclusively on two verticals: high-value B2B tech (enterprise SaaS, blockchain technology, hardware) and service-based companies (software development, consulting, cybersecurity, DevOps as a service, etc). 

We were and still are “in the trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, so you’ll get access to 30+ years of our combined experience and knowledge. 

3. Knowledge transfer and in-house operations

We believe that the real growth can only be driven in-house. You need to have people who are in the trenches every day, talking to customers, experiencing the sales hurdles, refining the messages and positioning.

We join your team as external marketing advisors, provide consistent support and training including step-by-step playbooks, templates, marketing and sales dashboards, tech stack and process maps.

As a result, you get an evergreen in-house growth engine.

My favorite way to explain B2B marketing for long sales cycles is by showing demand generation from the buyer perspective:

I. I WANT TO LEARN.

Individual buyers are exploring topics, upskilling themselves, and discovering best practices and industry trends. They're not actively looking for solutions yet—they're in learning mode.

At this stage, buyers might:

- Discover good content from a brand and start following them
- Share good content with colleagues
- Consume educational materials like podcasts, webinars, or articles
- Build awareness of different approaches and vendors

This is the foundation stage where you get noticed, build trust, and awareness before a specific business need emerges.

II. WE WANT A SOLUTION.

The buying group has agreed on the top-priority challenge and the consequences of not solving it now. They start looking for different solutions.

The vendor that was able to clearly articulate that their solution (not a product) is the best fit for this type of challenge, wins an opportunity to be considered during the next round.

Here is an example.

Our enterprise pipeline declined in 2025 by 27%. Despite multiple attempts and efforts, neither marketing nor sales knows how to fix it. We need a solution.

At this point, Champions might consider multiple solutions:

- Invest in sales training
- Hire SDRs and AEs with a proven track record of selling to enterprise
- Launch an account-based marketing program
- Invest in outreach scripts...

The list is endless.

III. WE WANT A SOLUTION LIKE YOURS.

After evaluating multiple solutions by fit, resources and budget, the buying group makes a decision to select one of them. At this point, they start looking at different vendors and book discovery calls to learn more.

Example: We want to start an account-based marketing program.

Alternatives:

- Buy an ABM platform and launch a program based on the playbooks provided by that vendor
- Hire an ABM agency
- Buy an ABM course or workshop
- Hire an experienced consulting company

Guess what you should do as a vendor?

IV. WE WANT YOUR SOLUTION.

After selecting the best-fit solution, the buying committee presents it to stakeholders to get consensus and support for the vendor evaluation.

This is where you start seeing high-intent signals and generate opportunities.

Example: We want to hire you as our consultant partner to implement a pilot ABM program. What is the scope, budget, and resources needed?

You need to invest in fully personalized buyer enablement.

V. WE ARE READY TO BUY FROM YOU.

The buying committee has approved the budget and the resources, you're moving to the procurement and POC phase.

---

These stages represent a typical buyer journey. The first three stages could take 9-12 months and often define if you're getting into the consideration set. 

Most B2B companies ignore it and try to capture the demand from in-market accounts, and this is the exact reason why the pipeline dries up.

Co-founder @Fullfunnel.io| ABM & full-funnel marketing for B2B SaaS with long sales cycles | Author

Account-based content strategy shouldn't be complex. Here is the breakdown:  
( sign up for deep dive here: https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c).

1: MANY.

We target the entire ICP cluster, accepting the fact that most of them are not in the market now and there is no buying intent.

- Daily LinkedIn thought leadership: ABM, Full-Funnel Marketing, B2B demand generation.
- Weekly email newsletter
- Weekly live podcast
- Quarterly step-by-step webinars
- Annual Full-Funnel Summit

1:FEW.

The level of intent is medium, and these accounts could become a future pipeline. The goal is to generate demand and get into the consideration set.

- Cluster + Jobs-To-Be-Done Specific content (e.g. How to successfully replicate your pilot ABM program with the regional teams).

- Detailed industry case studies with our clients: video interviews + content summary, where we review specific ABM programs in detail.

1:1.

We want to accelerate the sales cycle and influence the purchase decisions of the accounts with the high intent:

- Fully personalized business cases and solutions for a specific account
- Arguments for multiple stakeholders (e.g. how sales will benefit from ABM, etc).

---
We'll share the deep dive at our virtual Full-Funnel Summit. 
Sign up for free here: https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

There are 2 companies that dared to challenge the absurdity of B2B marketing with video content: Cognism feat. Todd Clouser (The Worst Marketer in The World) and Dapper - the demand agency feat. Tycho Luijten and Steven van Marle (see one of my favorite videos they created).

Two companies stood out because they were not afraid to:

- innovate
- differentiate
- challenge the status quo

Ask any B2B sales team about their challenges, and in most cases you'll hear:

Our target accounts don't know us.

Most B2B companies are invisible to their buyers.

Not because they lack budget. Not because their product is bad.

Because they sound exactly like everyone else. They play safe.

Same gated whitepaper "10 trends in our market in 2026". Same pictures from the conference. Same narrative according to the "tone of voice".

B2B shouldn't stay for Boring to Boring. 

Even if you are not going to produce video content, you can stand out with:

- Insights and data (e.g. Kerry Cunningham doing a constant research for 6sense)

- Infographics explaining complex B2B marketing (we and Pierre Herubel took that pass)

- Actionable templates (cudos to Jen Allen-Knuth , Nate Nasralla, Rob Kaminski)

It's just a choice.

I've invited Tycho to our Full-Funnel Summit to stress-test his framework in an enterprise B2B.

Join us to learn:

* How to become the first brand your buyer thinks of — even with a 2-person content team, zero video capability, and a CEO who wants you to "go broad"
* The actual process, resources, and costs behind viral B2B content — and how to prove ROI when your CFO calls brand "a nice-to-have"
* How to make "niche famous" work in enterprise with 18-month sales cycles and 500 target accounts

Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c

No B2B buyer ever said:

"Hey, I'm interested in being your MQL. 

Please, send me your automated email nurturing cadence and transfer my email and phone number to your Sales Rep.  I'd love to spend a few hours on a qualification call and then hang out with your Account Executive."

B2B buyers don't engage with marketing content, sign up for webinars or field events, because they are READY to buy.

They engage because the topic resonated with them, and they'd like to learn more.

We have a fundamental problem here.

Because of siloed sales and marketing, marketers are under the pressure to generate leads.

Nobody even questions the LEAD definition.

Hence, marketing collects any engament (sign-ups, downloads, email link clicks) and handovers it to sales. If, eventually, sales generate an opportunity, this opportunity is presented as marketing-influenced.

But in the most cases, it ends up with blaming each other at the next board meeting.

Stop thinking about conversions at each touchpoint. 

Start doing this: 

1. UNDERSTAND YOUR BUYERS.

- What do my best customers have in common? 
- What triggers their research? What attracts their attention? 
- Where do they learn? Hang out? Whom do they follow?
- What are their jobs-to-be-done and their daily challenges?
- What questions do they ask? 
- Which evaluation criteria do they use? 
- What do they value the most? 

2. BE PRESENT IN THE CHANNELS WHERE YOUR BUYERS ARE.

Clicks and downloads doesn't matter. Account awareness and nurturing matters.

Stop:

1. Dropping links to your website in every social post.
2. Create mediocre articles based on high-volume keywords
3. Producing low-quality PDFs to collect MQLs and transfer them to sales

Start:

Create top-notch content optimized for native consumption in the channel.

3. CONNECT AND ENGAGE WITH YOUR BUYERS.

In complex B2B the relationship is what drives the revenue aside from a strong brand and content.

Enable your marketing and sales to be active on target social platforms and communities to connect and engage with the target buyers, not pitching them.

4. DISTRIBUTE CONTENT.

Creating great content without making sure your target audience consumes it is a waste of time.

Develop a content distribution workflow through:

- Own assets: newsletter, social profiles, etc.
- Sharing in communities
- Paid and 1-1 distribution to target accounts

5. CAPTURE THE DEMAND.

Sales-ready buyers will reach out to you. Here's what to do with the rest:

- Remove friction from the buying process
- Do a progressive profiling to personalize further nurturing and activation.
- Add target accounts that hit an engagement threshold to ABM playbooks
- Deveop personalized warm-up and activation activities to generate sales opps

---
"LEADS" are the consequence of brand awareness, demand generation, joint marketing and sales nurturing, customer advocacy, and great product.

We'll dive deeper at our Full-funnel summit. 

Sign up for FREE here: https://lnkd.in/dnw37WvF

LinkedIn and organic reach are down. Our pipeline quality is up 20x. Here’s what's happening and what works today:

- In Q3 2025, organic reach hit its lowest point ever (down 65% from peak feat Will McTighe)
- Company pages falling from 7% to just 2% visibility in feeds (feat. Iternum Digital)
- Typical reach for content published from personal profiles is: 167 views for people with <1k followers and 5372 views for people with 50k-100k followers.

All of these means one simple fact:

Publish on the company’s page and wait for clicks is not working anymore.

My best guess:

LinkedIn is fighting with AI slop and low-quality content by trying to increase relevancy.

90% of LinkedIn feed is AI-generated content and selling-first posts. The signal-to-noise ratio has never been worse.

We’ve experienced this ourselves at FullFunnel.io. Our LinkedIn reach dropped 5-7x compared to two years ago. But our pipeline quality improved 20x over the same period.

Why?

Again, my best guess is because we never tried to chase the reach and always focused on jobs-to-be-done of our target buyers.

We ran an analysis with Vladimir Blagojević to find what works today. 

Here are 6 content formats that cut through the noise and generate awareness today.

1. Entertainment-first video (feat. Tycho Luijten).

Why it works: 

Humor is massively underused on LinkedIn. People are on social media to laugh or to learn. If you only do the second, you’re competing with thousands of identical videos. Add entertainment, and you break the pattern entirely.

2. Infographics (feat. Pierre Herubel).

Why it works: 

Infographics have the highest dwell time, save rates and profile click-through rate. Basically, what LinkedIn wants.

3. Carousels (feat. Sara Stella Lattanzio).

Why it works:

Same reasons as for infographics, with the difference that in carousels you can add more text and visual examples + provide step-by-step playbooks.

4. Proprietary research.

Why it works:

Any piece of content can be created in seconds. What can’t be created by AI is the data nobody else has. Your proprietary data.

When you publish research from real interviews or client data, your research becomes cited and shared on social, communities, newsletters, and sales decks.

I'll share the links to our favorite examples below.

5. Practical templates (feat. Jen Allen-Knuth and Nate Nasralla).

Why it works:

Templates are immediately applicable. Buyers don’t just read them, they save them, use them, and share them with colleagues. You deliver value upfront.

6. “How leading companies do it” case studies (feat. Elric Legloire).

Everybody is interested in how leading companies became “leading” :) 

What do they do differently? 
How do they do it? 
What processes and tools do they use? 
How do they structure their teams?
---
The entire breakdown with visuals, ideation process and how to make the necessary shifts is here: 

https://lnkd.in/eY4r-bU9

The 7th virtual Full-Funnel Summit (March 24-26) is live — get your free ticket: https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c. Here is the format and agenda:

→ 15 live keynotes (virtual, you can attend from anywhere)
→ Live Q&A and chat with the speakers. 
→ No vendor pitches. 
→ Recordings locked for registered attendees only.

Three tracks.

DAY 1: ABM TRACK: Why your ABM isn't generating pipeline (and what actually works in 2026)

With Leanne Chescoe, Davis Potter, Steve Armenti, Lauren Goodell, me and Vladimir Blagojević.

DAY 2: CMO TRACK: How to run marketing when leadership wants results yesterday and sales complaining about marketing leads.

With Tim Rutten, Ashley Lewin, Matt Heinz, Ashley Faus.

DAY 3: GTM TRACK: Getting attention, creating awereness and generating deman in the AI era.

With Shlomo Genchin, Tycho Luijten, Sara Stella Lattanzio, Diandra Escobar, Justin Rowe, Thibaut Souyris.

---
7 years ago we started this summit because we couldn't find a B2B marketing event that was honest about what actually works in complex, long-cycle enterprise sales.

Not the new shiny AI automation. Not the new narrative about generating meetings on autopilot.

But how to solve the real challenges every B2B marketing team faces today:

→ How to drive pipeline when your sales cycle is 12-18 months and leadership wants results this quarter 

→ How to prove marketing's contribution to revenue when early influence disappears in your CRM and last-touch attribution gets all the credit 

→ How to run ABM with a lean team and a limited budget 

→ How to get the attention of buyers who ignore cold outreach, unsubscribe from nurture sequences, and do 70% of their research before ever talking to sales
---

We keep it free because we believe this content should be accessible to every B2B marketing and sales team, not just the ones with a $5K event budget.

All we ask in return:

if this looks valuable to you, help us spread the word.

→ Grab your free ticket: https://lnkd.in/dec4k53c 

→ Tag one colleague in marketing, sales or RevOps who's dealing with any of the challenges above

See you at the summit.

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