Fullfunnel.io

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've been selling and marketing B2B tech and services since 2006. 

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.

Co-founder

Trenches - B2B marketing community

Trenches — a community created by B2B marketers for B2B marketers who are in the trenches every day getting their hands dirty in growing B2B companies with high ACV and long sales cycles.

We talk about ABM (account-based marketing), marketing-sourced pipeline, demand generation, lead nurturing, GTM strategy, buyer’s journey, and all other hot topics that are ignored in the sales communities.

Community is FOREVER FREE.

Co-Founder

6-Week ABM Playbook

An actionable account-based marketing playbook and training to consistently land sales opportunities with your dream clients in 6 weeks or faster. 

Cut through the noise and get busy decision makers to respond to your campaigns without spammy outreach, wasting money on enterprise tech stack or expensive ip-based advertising, and significant shifts in the company’s organization.

The account-based marketing strategy and campaigns we are sharing in this playbook can be executed by a team of 2 people (1 marketer + 1 sales) on a Ramen budget.

Author

Scale XL

Helping B2B entrepreneurs install a reliable process to predictably fill their pipeline with high-value clients. 

Scale XL process addresses the 4 critical challenges of client relationship building:

1. TARGETING: identify, target and engage with more of YOUR business’ ideal potential clients, not someone else’s. 
2. ATTRACTING: define, create and communicate compelling messages that cut through the noise and clearly establish your business as a natural answer to your ideal potential client’s problems.
3. QUALIFYING: qualifying which prospects are ideal for YOUR business and which of them are ready, and then applying different processes to sales-ready leads and those that need nurturing.
4. ROI: fix low return and underwhelming results of B2B marketing 

Scale XL relies on a process to build relationships with more key decision makers in your market by targeting, attracting and nurturing your ideal clients, not someone else’s.

And if your business is anything like 100+ niche B2B software and service companies I’ve helped before, it’s likely that my methodology could help you do just that.

To find out if this process can work for your business, feel free to get in touch here, or visit our website at scalexl.com.

Founder

Lean Startup Circle Brussels

We're a group of entrepreneurs taking lean startup and customer development techniques to practice in our startups. We're ready to talk implementation and share data from our experiments.

http://www.meetup.com/lean-brussels/

Every meetup addresses a different (lean) startup topic (minimum viable products, go to market, sales for startups, customer interviews...)

Most startups fail not because they fail to execute and build their product, but because they fail to build a viable business around it. Lean startup helps us validate our business model as fast as possible. Lean startup is a collection of techniques built around maximizing validated customer learning thought fast Build/Measure/Learn iteration loops.

*The Lean Startup is a trademark and service mark owned by Eric Ries.*

Co-Founder and Organizer

Growth Hacking Belgium

Your new business went online yesterday and you've got a marketing budget of zero. How are you supposed to create a movement around your product? How can you get to your first thousand - or million - customers? Starting from zero, it feels impossible. Enter the growth hacker. You may not have heard of growth hacking yet, but you've certainly used the billion dollar brands built by it: Hotmail, AirBnB, Facebook, Dropbox, amongst many others. This group is for people who want to adopt the growth hacker mindset. It is all about sharing hands-on tactics that bring you results.

Grant Snap

Grant Snap is an online service that helps you get your innovation funded by providing guidance in preparing winning R&D grant proposals.

€375 billion gets granted annually in the EU. Get your share.

Sirris

I help software companies in different phases of product development and innovation:
•	For entrepreneurs: to turn their ideas into viable product concepts by applying customer development and lean startup™ methodologies
•	For companies building product for early adopters: introduce flexibility needed to quickly respond to new opportunities and changing customer requests 
•	For companies shifting their focus from customer to market: to master product management
•	For companies established in a market: to deal with increasing product complexity and how to differentiate through innovation

Account Manager Software Industry

Development activities (middleware components of a distributed data storage system, test management system, framework and tools used for automation of system tests) 

Participating in introduction of agile methodologies in two R&amp;D teams and setting up test automation infrastructure

Senior Software Engineer

Sony

Participating in the transition of an R&amp;D team into a product development organization 

Development activities (several packages of DVB MHP standard for digital television, an integrated environment used for development, execution and automatic reporting of functional tests for digital television)

Setting up a test department (conceiving a test strategy and infrastructure, test specifications/reviews, recruiting, supervising and training of testing personnel)

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

No VP of Sales ever said: "I expect marketing to orchestrate our engagement playbooks". 
Yet this is what often happens with ABM:

Marketing:

- Creates multiple sales playbooks & engagement sequences
- Designs timeline
- Add best practices

Then, marketing shares with sales 87-pages deck and asks to implement.
One month later: "Sales doesn't use our playbooks and content".

This year we've interviewed two dozen enterprise B2B Saas VP of Sales to dive deeper into the challenges they want to solve with ABM and get marketing hands-on help.

Here are 5 core areas:

1. AWARENESS AMONG STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS

Awareness is not created by running more ads, drip personalized nurturing and outbound cadences.

Awareness is not created by creating more AI content nobody is going to read.

Awareness is created through the engagement with ICP ecocystem:

- High-quality thought leadership program with SMEs & execs
- Top-notch events
- Collaborations and direct engagement with the target accounts
- Constant engagement with the communities and thought leaders

2. CONTENT THAT CHALLENGES THE STATUS QUO

Modern B2B buyers don't need one more "How to cut your costs" whitepaper. Modern buyers want to see:

- Industry trends and stats
- Concrete practical examples and best practices: dashboards, workflows, templates
- How to challenge an internal inertia and status quo

In most cases, sales don't use marketing content because it doesn't fall in any of these categories. 

3. COMPLETE ACCOUNT ENGAGEMENT

Most organizations use lead handoff as a default function:

MQL generated -> assign to SDR.
Webinar signed up -> Assign to SDR

In 2026 to cut through the noise you need to have a holistic visibility:

- Who engaged with what content and ads
- What were historical interactions
- When was a spike in high-intent page visits
- Which events buying committee members has attended

This way sales move from desperate pitching to meaningful 1-1 account planning.

4. BUYER ENABLEMENT

You don't win deals with fancy pitch decks. You win when your Champion can sell your product at the next internal meeting.

Sales can create business cases showing challenges, cost of inaction, and recommended solutions.

But they need marketing's help with:

- Product screenshots that address specific buyer questions
- Relevant customer testimonials and references
- Data snapshots

5. CLEAR MESSAGING

Nothing frustrates sales more than prospects asking: "But what exactly does your product do?"

--- 

In many organization, sales ignore marketing, don't buy in for joint programs like ABM, and gate-keep access to customers. 

How to fix this:

- Make both functions revenue-responsible
- Get fundamental alignment on GTM strategy (ICP, buyer journey, value prop, metrics)
- Fix knowledge gaps through joint planning, involvement of SMEs
- Define a small pilot team on one market/vertical
- Run regular pipeline review meetings during the pilot
- Document and share results before scaling

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

Why Sales Ignore Marketing

What's marketing role in sales outreach and engagement?

A VP at Snowflake got this question at a sales summit:
"How can a rep get your attention with cold outreach?"

His answer: "You can't."

"I don't trust cold outreach. But if someone I trust vouches for the solution, I'll take a look."

This is the reality for most enterprise buyers.

They ignore cold outreach, skip your ads, filter out your nurture emails.

But they listen to their team, peers and trusted industry voices.

That's why your ABM team can't just target buyers.
(and why marketing needs to own part of the engagement)

Here's how to engage the entire ecosystem around your buyers:

1. Peer-to-peer multithreading

The other day I heard from a VP of Sales: "it's hard for a young SDR to get the attention from a senior executive".

Their solution? Their CEO and CMO regularly share thought leadership insight on LinkedIn, and book senior executives as guests on on their podcast.

2. Non-decision makers with influence

Back to the Snowflake VP: "The best way to get my attention is to have my team bring something to me."

Executives rarely care about the tactical problem your product solves.

Here's how it works: A power user experiences a problem daily (e.g. losing candidates to poor hiring experience). That problem impacts a business objective the executive does care about (e.g. slowing market expansion).

You engage the power user. They bring it to their boss when the problem comes up. 

3. Industry peers

People trust their peers more than they trust vendors.

Our buyers mention they discovered our content because someone from their network engaged or shared it. Often someone who will never buy from us.

The more you're present and connect to people from the industry, the more your brand or content get recommended.

4. Industry voices 

These can be leaders in renown companies, leaders from technology partners, or even local "micro-influencers" known in a city or a region.

We regularly host partner webinars, local partner events in target locations, and run an annual summit with people respected by our buyers. 

5. Niche media and communities

Event organizers, industry media companies, communities and podcasts. 

♜ Arthur Castillo shared: "The best community sponsorships weren't standard packages. They were custom programs: co-hosting research, integrated campaigns, or bringing community members to our dinners in key cities."

--- 

Cold sales outreach won't get you in the door with senior buyers.

But when the whole team builds relationships across the ecosystem, you become known, and increase the chance of ending up in their consideration set.  

That's the shift: marketing isn't just generating leads and providing air cover.

Marketing creates trust, presence, and recommendations in the networks your buyers already rely on.

P.S. Andrei Zinkevich and me are breaking down the role of marketing in ABM on our next Full-Funnel Live: 
https://bit.ly/48azQnB

ABM ≠ industry & persona personalization. This misses: 
- Actions matching buyer intent & awareness
- Progressive discovery & personalization 

Here's a framework that shows this more clearly. 

1. Level of intent (vertical axis)

- TAM*:  Any company that could potentially use your solution (e.g. My HR solution is used by companies 200+ employees)
- ICP*:  Companies matching your ideal profile (e.g. 200+ people tech companies who are actively hiring)
- Cluster: Priority segment with competitive advantage (e.g. SaaS companies with distributed dev teams, hiring remote developers)
- Need:  Validated problem that needs solving
- Buying: High-priority, can't postpone, actively looking for solutions

(* yes, I know that strictly speaking "TAM" and "ICP" are about fit, rather than intent - but look at my drawing skills, do you think I could draw a 3D diagram?)


2. Level of awareness (horizontal axis)

- Cold: No awareness of your solution
- Aware: Know what you do, no relationship yet
- Relationship: Active back & forth conversation
- Meeting: Discovery calls with buying committee members


3. Aligning actions w/ level of intent and awareness

ANY + TAM → Qualify. Do they fit our ICP?
COLD + ICP → Create awareness
AWARE + ICP → Research to uncover cluster and account insights
AWARE + Cluster → Build relationships, start progressive discovery
RELATIONSHIP + ICP or Cluster → Validate the need through progressive discovery
RELATIONSHIP + Need → Book discovery calls
MEETINGS BOOKED → Discover needs, priorities, stakeholders. Create the opportunity.

(In practice, we use a simpler framework with three lists:
- Cluster ICP: Researched accounts, unaware, unknown need. Goal: create awareness.
- Future Pipeline: Vendor aware, need unknown. Goal: validate need and build relationships.
- Active Focus: Validated need, established relationship. Goal: book discovery calls and create opportunities.)


4. Progressive discovery and personalization 

By progressive discovery, I mean: 
- Account research 
- Progressively gathering insider information, challenges and priorities shared by target buyers via
→ Content collabs
→ Webinar polls/Q&As/registration forms
→ Social and email conversations
→ Transcribed interviews and calls

With each new insight, personalization becomes better. 

--- 

The mistake? Assuming that industry and persona personalization is enough. 

In reality
- Same industry ≠ same challenges. Relevant personalization requires deeper insight 
- Most relevant insights come from buyer conversations 
- Outreach by unknown people gets ignored even when relevant

You have one quarter. 20% of content marketer's time. And you need to generate pipeline.

What do you do? 

1. Place smart bets

Look at your best recent deals and figure out WHY they purchased.

What was the underlying business objective? Why now? Why you?

Drill down to specific attributes, needs, pain points, events and situations so you can:

- Find other accounts with similar needs and priorities (=account cluster)
- Understand what will attract their attention

2. Plan an educational event 6-8 weeks into the quarter

The event (webinar, field event) should address a key challenge or transformation that accounts from the target cluster need to solve.

Why events work:

- Focuses the team on a concrete deliverable 
- Forces them to break down generic challenges into specific jobs to be done, problems, solutions and root causes — then connect them into a narrative
- Each element of the event narrative becomes a LinkedIn post
- Creates a natural milestone with a hard deadline
- Genuinely useful to target accounts

3. Turn the event into LinkedIn content for sales

Sales shares content directly from their profiles because
- They connect daily with buyers
- It creates opportunities to start conversations 

This also shortens the feedback loop: you see which content resonates and leads to conversations. 

4. Break content into three streams 

#1 Expert content (Goal: Nurturing). 
Infographics, templates, proprietary data, how-tos
→ positions sales as trusted advisors
→ each post becomes input for the event deck

#2 Curated content (Goal: Engagement). 
Collaborations, roundups, co-created posts
→ pulls in voices of buyers, peers, partners
→ lets sales use collaborations to start conversations and get insight from target buyers

#3 1:1 account content (Goal: Awareness). 
"Account love letters" and personalized content hubs tailored to specific high-potential accounts
→ guaranteed awareness at target accounts
→ works incredibly well to start conversations with buyers

5. Repurpose outputs

Each piece of content feeds into the next:

LinkedIn --> Event Deck --> Content Hub 
Content collabs (& webinar polls) --> LinkedIn --> Event --> Market research report 

--- 

This is the process we use with clients and for FullFunnel.

In Q4, we did it for a cluster of B2B companies struggling to prove marketing attribution to pipeline while juggling executive pressure to do more with AI.

Results:
- 12 new posts
- 1072 webinar signups 
- 160 people shared their top priorities and challenges with us 
- 52 accounts with deeper back&forth conversations 
- 2 new closed-won deals 

The step most companies struggle with?

Selecting a cluster where they have a highest chance to win, and linking it to a content strategy that will cut through the noise, and help sales start conversations. 

Andrei and me are  breaking this down in detail on the next Full-Funnel Live: 
https://bit.ly/4pSSPZN

"Can you give examples of 1:1 content? And the format you deliver it in?"

Here are three examples, along with a step-by-step how-to. 

EXAMPLE 1. Account Love Letter 

Example: "Here is how I'd optimize the new enterprise pipeline ABM strategy for multi-regional B2B tech company like Agicap."
(https://lnkd.in/ebUxaR6w)

Format: LinkedIn post + content hub + 1:1 messages. 

How to: 

1. Every week, check new engagement and intent signals for your target accounts 

2. Identify accounts that reach criteria to be promoted 
- From Cluster ICP to Future Pipeline list (e.g. repeated visits to high intent pages + 1+ named buyer engaged via social or newsletter or webinar)
- From Future Pipeline to Active Focus (e.g. provided insight about priority problem via progressive profiling)

3. Run account research and define blind spots 

- Map the buying committee, their responsibility and KPIs 
- Research information we need to know about the target account to create relevant content and a personalised offer (e.g. they started an expansion to a new region, challenges: lack of brand awareness in target regions, stronger local competition...)
- Plan touchpoints to get insider information (=progressive profiling)

4. Plan the activities you will use 

In this example, Andrei Zinkevich created the "account love letter" LinkedIn post, and used it to connect to the members of the buying committee. He also created a personalized content hub and used in in follow up (see below). 

EXAMPLE 2. Personalized Solution 

Example: "What do cycling and complex B2B SaaS have in common?"

Format: 1:1 letter sent in a parcel with a book about the prospect's hoby (Alpine cycling). 

How to (continued): 

5. Start mapping your value proposition with the identified KPIs, goals, and challenges of every buying committee member.
6. Write a 1-page personalized solution for target buying committee members. Include:
- Context
- How exactly your product helps to achieve their goals or solve the challenges
- Relevant social proof

EXAMPLE 3. Personalized Content Hub 

Example: in both examples from above, we created a personalized content hub. 

Format: deal room tools (e.g. we use Aligned), to quickly spin up 1:1 content hubs. 

How to (continued): 

7. Map content that can help demonstrate how you can solve the challenges identified in research, along with any relevant social proof, product information and answers to questions frequently asked by buyers 

8. 1:1 distribution of the content you've created to the buying committee members. 

---

BONUS EXAMPLE: Answer to Buyer's Question 

The first line of this post was actually a question we got during our last week's Full-Funnel Live. 

I decided to create this LinkedIn post as an answer, and use it to "show, not just tell". 

Next step: I'm going to share it with the person who asked.

Do reps even matter, if 80% B2B buyers buy from vendors they preferred BEFORE contact with sales? 

Here's what Jon Miller says (quoting Kerry Cunningham's update of 6sense's B2B Buyer Experience Report for 2025):  

1. SALES RELATIONSHIPS AS BRAND AWARENESS 

Reps are a critical part of building your brand preference and awareness. 68% of buyers *personally knew a seller* from the winning company before the buying process began (Kerry’s research).

We see this over and over again. The teams who involve salespeople early in the buying process always see way better results from their programs. 

2. PREVIOUS VENDOR EXPERIENCE > BRAND AWARENESS

95% of net-new wins came from *existing vendor relationships* - not just brand awareness. 

For new business deals: 
- 48% already bought from that vendor
- 13% used the vendor at a prior company
- 34% evaluated the vendor (but didn't buy)

And get this: less than 5% had no direct experience but were familiar with the brand.

The disheartening conclusion here: our efforts to build a brand have a very small effect (5%). 

Category leaders - companies with the biggest market share - have an enormous advantage. 

But what should the rest of us do? 

Jon's advice: 
✅ Hire sellers with experience selling to your core ICP
✅ Give them time and air cover to build relationships outside active buying cycles
✅ When you lose a deal, make sure you have complete notes, named champions, mapped stakeholders, and a clear path to reconsideration. Because that "loss" might be the reason you win the next opportunity

I'd add: 

☑ Double down on expansion and renewal programs 

And practically, in your net-new programs: 

PRIORITIZE accounts with: 
☑ Buyers who are a former customer 
☑ Existing relationships 

INCREASE "RELATIONSHIPS AS BRAND AWARENESS" by:
☑ Letting sellers work on future pipeline and relationships, too
☑ Increasing the footprint in target accounts by multithreading 
☑ Involve non-sellers (your subject-matter experts, executives...) with industry connections 

MEASURE:
☑ Don't only measure revenue from won deals, but also relationships, target account footprint, and ALL qualified net-new opportunities (remember: lost opportunities account for 34% of future won deals). 

Because, as Jon puts it, the deals you win next quarter were decided 6 months ago.

"We struggle with 1:1 and 1:Few ABM. We just can't figure out personalization at scale" - VP of Marketing shared on a call (and was laid off a week after). 

Here's the brutal reality in many B2B orgs:

- Teams pressured to "personalize at scale"
- Any "non-scalable" approach is disregarded
- Teams deploy AI research and/or AI SDRs
- Every prospect receives a "uniquely irrelevant message" (Jon Miller)

Teams get blamed. Leaders let go.

Why? 

Because they MISUNDERSTAND what personalization is.

Personalization ≠ "{first}, {some unique insight / signal}" followed by a pitch asking for a call. 

ABM personalization = matching account insights with individual buyer needs across the buying journey.

Here's how we go from manual personalization to personalization at scale.

1. Pick an engaged strategic account

Together with an experienced AE, define:
- Key questions and information you need to know about this account 
- Sources and platforms where you can find that information 
- Run an actual research on that account 

Save as an example of high-quality output.

2. Train AI with proper input

- Deep insights and research about the target ICP segment
- Always request quotes to prevent hallucination and preserve buyer language
- Give AI detailed prompt describing the research questions and sources 
- Show it what 'good looks like' with the example of high-quality output to use as a quality benchmark

3. Make account research a joint responsibility

AI research is complemented by:
- RevOps input on buying signals, engagement and intent data
- Marketing research of industry trends and competitive landscape
- SDRs research of the buying committee, and recent role changes

4. Include insider information 

The deepest insights you gain only from 1-1 conversations.

SDRs and AEs run regular 1-1 engagements with buyers to build relationships, understand where they are in the buyer journey, and their current needs.

5. Create a 360° account view

Create a holistic account dashboard with all collected insights.

6. Create account-specific content, not "personalized templates"

Match content with the buyer journey stages, buyer persona, and current needs.

Sales distributes it manually to target buyers and listen to their feedback.

Save successful examples validated by the buyers (with responses, engagement and calls). 

7. Feed the proven formats to your AI model to replicate them in the future. 

You'll then only need to polish and customize it.

Same principles: deep insight + playbook as prompt + quotes + quality benchmark. 
---
Personalization at scale is only possible when there is a proven playbook in place.

The only way to create the process and quality output benchmarks is MANUAL first. When you see what works, you can scale it with AI.

But it requires JOINT marketing and sales work, not just pushing your VP of marketing to find a solution to "personalization at scale".

Customer interviews are overrated. 
Use progressive discovery instead. 


1. Turn natural touchpoints into progressive discovery

Customer interviews = conversations you have with your customers, from the moment they are prospect through the whole lifecycle. 

→ First sales calls with prospects
→ Business case building with your champion 
→ Demos & discussions with other buyers 
→ The moment someone signs 
→ Onboarding sessions with new customers
→ Quarterly business reviews with existing accounts
→ Support tickets and feature requests

Even: conversations you have with prospects and customers on industry events. 

Where you make a difference: 

2. Ask the right questions at the right time

Good conversations always focus on their world, and ask the right question at the right time. 

E.g. 

- Business triggers, problems, how did they discover you → initial discovery 
- Cost of doing nothing → business case building
- Purchase criteria → consensus building & demos with users and buyers 
- Why us → when they sign 
- Value → post onboarding, reviews 
- General "out of buying cycle" topics → buyer research, customer events, social... 

3. Systematically process and develop customer insights

Interviews ≠ Insights. 

Record, transcribe, structure and process the input to get to real insight. 

Regularly review the insight and updates with the team. 

4. Turn the insight into action

Insights ≠ Actions. 

Lots of teams collect insight, and only use it to update their copy. 

You can do much more. Refine targeting, qualification and disqualification criteria, account research process, content strategy, buyer enablement... 

5. Voice of customer

Use their actual words. 

Not your positioning deck. Their language. Their pain points. Their priorities. 

--- 

Thank you Patrick Cumming  for starting this discussion. 

Patrick's workflow is brilliant: mine first sales call transcripts, extract the top 5-7 pains/gains, use their exact words in your ads.
He saw a 40% lift in SQLs with the SAME budget. Just "using their exact words to build ad content". 

Bottom line: customer research is not a project.

It's an essential, evergreen process that includes progressive discovery, structured insight collection and review, and continuously refining your GTM as the market and your understanding of it evolves.

Marketing @ KlientBoost - The Performance Marketing Agency

Struggling to make your paid ads profitable? I can help.

I've generated $50M+ pipeline (& counting) for B2B Tech and SaaS companies through content marketing, paid search, and paid social demand generation and GTM strategies.

"We've never been able to make paid ads work for us." — common feedback from happy B2B clients.

Some of the leading minds in B2B follow my content for fresh LinkedIn and Google Ads growth recipes.

Right now, I'm leading marketing @ KlientBoost to add $250K MRR using the exact same strategies, principles, & processes we roll out for clients.

Here's how we can help you: 
- Done for you marketing—starts with a free marketing plan
- Fresh growth recipes to your inbox—klientboost.com/kitchen
- Follow me on LinkedIn to learn the latest winning B2B strategies

Got a burning question about B2B paid ads? My inbox is always open too.

LFGTM 🤘

Patrick Cumming

Here's a fast and dirty way to estimate your optimal 2026 marketing budget, best suited to $1M-20M ARR B2Bs prioritizing demand capture and in-market audiences:

How to Calculate (and Sell) Your 2026 Marketing Budget

I was totally wrong about LinkedIn thought-leader ads.

For most of 2025, I told my followers to only promote organic posts that hit 100+ engagements.

It made sense. Until the algo changed and killed organic reach overnight.

Posts I knew my audience would usually love started getting <50 engagements.

I didn't trust the algorithm to tell me what's good anymore.

So I made a bet that felt risky: stop chasing engagement. Only write content solving marketing-related pain points for our priority ICP.

Marketing leaders at $10-100M ARR B2B SaaS companies.

I knew engagement would tank. I didn't care. I'd put paid behind everything anyway.

Here's what happened when I tested it last month:

Post with <50 organic engagements:
- 14s+ dwell time
- 4.6% CTR

Post with 100+ organic engagements:
- 12s dwell time
- 2.8% CTR

The post the algorithm ignored performed 64% better with paid spend.

This pattern repeated across multiple posts. The data was clear.

Organic engagement is a vanity metric. Paid performance is the only metric that matters because it tells you what your true ICP thinks of your content. That's all that matters.

Here's the new thought-leader ad flywheel I recommend for B2Bs who want more LinkedIn Ads pipeline:

1. Pull transcripts from every first-touch call of closed deals in the last 12 months

2. Identify the 5-7 pain points that come up repeatedly

3. Write thought-leader posts addressing each pain point using PAS or AIDA frameworks

4. Let posts sit for 48-72 hours, then add a soft CTA with a URL

5. Move every post to your thought-leader campaign regardless of organic performance

6. Analyze paid metrics only: dwell time, CTR, and inbound volume

7. Double down on what's working in paid, not what performed organically

We're already tracking a 60% increase in B2B SaaS SQLs vs the previous 2 months.

During November. One of the quietest months of the year.

The takeaway isn't that organic is dead. You can still win there.

But LinkedIn is aggressively moving to pay-to-play.

Stop optimizing for the algorithm. Start optimizing for your ICP.

Better to adopt this now before everyone else does and the law of shitty click throughs catches up.

Here's a no-BS framework to generate more SQLs with LinkedIn Ads, best suited to B2B SaaS companies tired of optimizing for a funnel that doesn't match how buyers actually buy:

The 4-Step Demand Gen Strategy To Increase SQLs

If I was a Head of Marketing at a $50M ARR B2B SaaS expanding into a new market, this is the exact 6-step paid ads play I'd run:

1. Use Ahrefs to analyze in-market category keyword volume in your new market. High volume means launch Google Ads first. Low volume means start with a LinkedIn demand generation play.

2. For Google Ads: Calculate budget by multiplying avg. CPC by clicks needed to hit your demo target using current demo form conversion rates from paid search.

3. For LinkedIn: Build your target segment and calculate budget to hit 80%+ reach and 10+ frequency over 90 days using cost per 1,000 member accounts reached benchmarks.

4. If budget is too tight, shrink your audience. Pick one job title or industry to saturate first. Add new segments incrementally as more budget opens up.

5. Start with creative that's already working in existing regions. Pain points rarely vary much by geography anyway. Scale what performs in the new market. Pause what worked elsewhere but fails here. Test 2-3 new creative angles per month.

6. If you're not seeing booked demos within 2 weeks, targeting is broken. Switch from native targeting to a company account list. Turn off audience expansion. Exclude any job titles who don't fill out demo forms based on historic data.

I ran this exact play for a 5-figure ACV B2B SaaS last year and pipeline was higher in Q4 than any other quarter that year.

That's pretty rare for most B2B companies that aren't in hyper-growth.

Expanding into new markets can feel daunting, but it's actually fairly straightforward when you approach it with data-driven performance marketing principles instead of guessing your way through it.

Who's testing this out in 2026?

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I just finished analyzing our 2025 LinkedIn Ads performance.

We spent ~$190K to generate ~$2.5M ARR and ~13X ROAS.

In 2026, I think we can do even better. Here's how I'm restructuring the account based on what worked and what didn't.

Demand Generation

I'm cutting single image ads completely. The avg. CAC was $4.1K which is way too high.

We put the same spend into ungated document ads and got a $1K CAC. I'm pushing 40% of our 2026 budget into these.

Thought Leader Ads and CTV Ads had ~$1.7K CAC so I will put the remaining budget into those formats.

All 3 campaigns used content heavily focussed on showing prospects we could solve painful problems. We knew what pain points to address because we pulled them from 100s of sales call transcripts.

Do not guess this step.

Demand Capture

The same single image ads that didn't work for demand generation worked insanely well here. We had a $58 in-platform CAC.

I suspect you can get away with single images more when prospects are already bought-in.

Outcome-related content worked better here than case studies or testimonials. The ads simply showed prospects avg. ROI lift we get and the % of clients who hit their agreed goals with us.

I will push 60% of retargeting budget here.

Spotlight ads had a $40 in-platform CAC so we will continue to run these. You can get high audience penetration and frequency on these for very little budget, so I'll push 10% of budget here.

Video case studies had a $150 CAC, so I will put the remaining 30% of budget here.

2026 Experiments

I want to test more conversation ads variations in the demand capture layer. We booked a lot of calls from these in demand generation, but conversion rate to closed/won was pretty much non-existent.

I also tried multiple tactics for promoting webinars and nothing has really worked yet either. So, that's another problem I want to solve for.

We saw a very strong correlation between increased LinkedIn spend and increased pipeline numbers. We had the most pipeline in Q1 and Q3 when we spent the most on LinkedIn. And the least amount of pipeline in Q2 and Q4 when we spent the least.

Most B2Bs in the $10-100M range are terrified to run thought-leader ads, CTV, and ungated documents.

Which is exactly why these campaigns crush it.

CPMs are WAY lower for native formats that prospects actually enjoy consuming. You get premium inventory for a fraction of the price of expensive inventory that doesn't work.

If you're unsure how to evolve your LinkedIn Ads in 2026, this structure is your best starting point.

If I listened to what everybody says on LinkedIn, I'd have killed ads that generate the most pipeline.

Our best performing ads break every rule "experts" on here preach:

- Overused "If I was an [insert job title]" hooks
- Multiple em-dashes throughout the copy
- Direct sales CTAs to cold audiences

All things everybody says not to do.

Yet these ads drive more influenced pipeline and revenue than any other format we've tested.

(And only take 15 mins to write too by the way 😉)

The disconnect is real. LinkedIn's loudest voices optimise for engagement and vanity metrics. But engagement doesn't pay the bills. Revenue does.

Most advice you see is based on what performs well in the feed, not what actually converts prospects into customers. There's a massive difference.

This is why data-driven decisions matter more than popular opinion. Test what the crowd says doesn't work. Track it against pipeline, not likes or comments.

You'll be surprised how often the "wrong" approach is exactly what your B2B needs.

Stop letting the loud minority dictate your strategy. Let your pipeline data do the talking instead.

graphical user interface, text, application, email

The biggest myth in marketing is that it takes time.

That's a cope for ineffective marketing.

I put this to the test last month to prove it doesn't take time to make marketing work.

Here's what I did:

- Pulled a list of cold B2B SaaS accounts from Clay
- Created thought-leader ads ONLY targeting them
- Each ad showed how to solve one of the 7 most common pain points SaaS marketing leaders come to us for
- Calculated budget needed to reach 80% audience penetration and 10 frequency in 30 days
- Hammered the cold accounts with highly relevant ads for 30 days

I just ran the analysis and the results were even better than I expected.

7 accounts booked high-intent calls and every single one became an SQL after qualification.

100% conversion rate to SQL.

50% lift in B2B SQLs vs September and October.

Cost/SQL was $925, which was ~40% lower than our typical LinkedIn Ads Cost/SQL.

The CPMs were WAY higher than I expected, so we didn't even hit the audience penetration and frequency goals I wanted. We finished on 60% audience penetration and 6 frequency.

Imagine what we could have done if we had.

The bottom line is that 5% of your audience is in-market and it's almost impossible for you to know who.

When you optimize for this fact and saturate your entire target audience with high frequency you WILL convert cold prospects to booked calls and demos within 30 days.

No nurturing required. No funnels required. No warming required.

Last year, a client and I hit a wall that made no sense.

We were running LinkedIn Ads to a high-value audience segment. We did everything by the book:

- Matched budget to audience size
- Consolidated campaigns
- Optimized for reach
- World-class creative
- Ran experiments to drive CPM down

But we couldn't push audience penetration past 60%.

That meant 40% of our target decision makers weren't seeing our ads.

It was driving me insane until I realized what was actually happening.

That 40% we couldn't reach weren't actually active on LinkedIn.

So I came to the next call with the fix: expand to Meta Ads.

But it wouldn't work with native targeting, so we needed a different playbook.

Here's what I recommended:

1. Use a 3rd party audience tool to get LinkedIn-level targeting precision on Meta Ads (we use Primer for this).

2. Take any wasted LinkedIn Ads budget and put into Meta Ads. CPMs are cheaper so you probably won't need additional budget.

3. Launch with the top 5 creative from your LinkedIn Ads campaigns. Those are the ads with the highest CTRs, dwell times, and CVRs to pipeline.

We're now recommending that same strategy to all of our clients who've plateaued on LinkedIn Ads.

The best part is you're not restricted to Meta Ads either.

You can take that same audience and target them on Google, Reddit, or YouTube, depending on where your audience is most active.

Next Wednesday, I'm running a 30-minute LinkedIn Live with Primer Co-Founder Keith Putnam-Delaney covering 7 new strategies like this to generate B2B pipeline from B2C channels.

Here's the link to sign up: https://lnkd.in/ebftE7nC

Customer interviews are overrated.

There, I said it.

Most marketers treat them like gospel. But here's what they actually tell you: why existing customers love your product.

That's useful. But it's not the data you need to 10X performance.

Because your customers aren't your prospects.

Your prospects are still in pain. They're still searching. They haven't bought yet.

And that's the mindset you need to understand if you want your ads to drive serious pipeline.

So where do you find it?

First sales call transcripts.

Not the second or third call. The FIRST one.

This is where prospects tell you exactly why they showed up and what they're hoping you'll solve.

Here's a workflow we use to mine that data:

1. Extract a call summary from every first sales call
2. Export the data to ChatGPT (or your fav AI tool)
3. Assess the top 5-7 pains, gains, and jobs to be done
4. Use their exact words to build ad content

We rolled this out for a new campaign targeting B2B SaaS marketing leaders.

We're already seeing a 40% lift in B2B SaaS SQLs vs the previous 2 months.

No extra budget. Just tighter messaging based on what prospects actually care about before they buy.

The best part? This is way more accessible than running 50 customer interviews.

You're already recording sales calls. The data is sitting there waiting for you to use it.

Start mining it today and watch your messaging shift from generic to impossible to ignore.

I've shared a new LinkedIn Ads playbook every week in Q4 to help B2B SaaS companies hit their demo targets.

I'm 100% confident the playbooks work. But they'll still fail for many companies that try them.

Not because the steps are wrong. Because the creative is weak.

Here are 7 principles for creating strong ad creatives that drive more booked demos:

1. One message per ad. Don't cram every feature and benefit into one creative. 7 ads with 1 message > 1 ad with 7 messages.

2. Lead with the pain, finish with the gain. People are 10X more motivated to avoid pain than chase gain, so hook with the problem they're running from.

3. Always relate ads back to your product. That's how you build recall so prospects remember you when they're ready to buy.

4. Clear beats clever. If your ad takes more than 3 seconds to understand, it will fail. Leave no doubt about how you can help.

5. Call out the ICP in the hook. This makes sure users know the ad is for them. That gets more of the right eyes on your content.

6. Add a sales CTA at the end. If your content is valuable, prospects won't mind a soft sales message. This works even on cold audiences.

7. Write what your audience wants to hear, not what you want to say. For example, my audience cares about pipeline, so I write about pipeline.

Most companies blame the playbook when campaigns don't work.

But the playbook usually isn't broken. The creative is.

Fix the creative first. Then suddenly the playbooks start working like they're meant to.

CPM is a vanity metric. Track cost per 1,000 member accounts reached if you want more pipeline.

CPM measures impressions. Not unique accounts. You could be hammering the same people over and over while missing new in-market buyers.

I've seen this play out in our LinkedIn Ads account:

Campaign A: $69 CPM, $102 cost per 1,000 accounts reached
Campaign B: $52 CPM, $250 cost per 1,000 accounts reached

Campaign A also had an 4X higher conversion rate to pipeline.

Lower CPM doesn't always mean better reach. It often means wasted frequency.

Here's how to check yours:

1. Go to columns
2. Select delivery
3. Scroll all the way right

CPM and cost per 1,000 member accounts sit next to each other.

4. Sort by lowest cost per 1,000 accounts
5. Cross-check conversion rates to pipeline

If your low cost per 1,000 accounts reached also have higher pipeline conversion rates, kill the "cheap CPM" ones and reallocate budget.

It's not gonna transform pipeline overnight.

But making small optimizations like that over the next 90 days will make it a whole lot healthier.

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Vladimir Blagojević's LinkedIn Performance

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