Best of LinkedIn: Account-based Marketing CW 24/ 25

00:00:00: provided by Thomas Allgaier and Freanus, based on the most relevant posts on LinkedIn about account-based marketing in CW'ed XXIV and XXV.

00:00:09: Freanis is a B to B market research company working with enterprises to optimize their campaigns.

00:00:22: Imagine for a second that you're walking onto the floor of a massive, incredibly noisy manufacturing

00:00:27: plant.

00:00:28: Oh I can picture it!

00:00:28: Right and for the longest time B-to-B marketing operated exactly like that factory.

00:00:33: You know.

00:00:33: just pour raw materials into top funnel.

00:00:35: Massive ad budgets endless cold calls Exactly

00:00:38: crank heavy machinery And expect to finish buyer on conveyor belt.

00:00:43: at the very end

00:00:44: The prevailing logic was entirely based volume.

00:00:48: If wanted more revenue change the design of a product, you just shoveled more coal into the furnace.

00:00:54: And I mean... The appeal to that model was always its mathematical simplicity right?

00:00:58: Yeah It's linear equation felt really safe too marketing executive.

00:01:03: Safe yeah.

00:01:04: You could easily point to sheer volume input and say look we send out fifty thousand emails this week and use that activity to justify your budget regardless

00:01:15: of the actual output.

00:01:16: Exactly, regardless of output!

00:01:18: But you know if you step into today's B-to-B buying environment You quickly realize that the conveyor belt is just completely jammed.

00:01:25: I'll go early.

00:01:26: Buyers are deliberately hiding from sales reps Reply rates are plummeting, and that old school volume-based lead generation model is just flat out

00:01:36: failing.

00:01:36: It really is.

00:01:37: Which exactly what we're unpacking?

00:01:39: in our deep dive today We're looking at the absolute top account based marketing or ABM trends dominating the conversation right now across LinkedIn

00:01:49: busy couple of weeks on it.

00:01:50: It really has.

00:01:51: our mission today is to break down how the most successful revenue teams are ditching that factory model, pivoting hard toward razor sharp account selection and using AI not just blast more emails but drive highly measurable revenue impact.

00:02:05: So To Really Understand This Shift I mean we have started at The Absolute Foundation.

00:02:09: Let's Do It

00:02:10: Before We Even Touch On The Shiny New AI Tools Or You Know The Hyper Personalized Landing Pages.

00:02:16: We Need To Completely Redefine What We Mean when we say account-based marketing.

00:02:21: Because the industry is operating with a flawed definition right now?

00:02:25: Very flawed, Katrin Marquardt framed this brilliantly recently.

00:02:29: she pointed out that ABM is simply no longer a marketing campaign.

00:02:33: Right You cannot just tell your team to like run an ABM play for Q three and then turn it off if you hit numbers.

00:02:39: It's comprehensive commercial growth model.

00:02:42: I think that distinction is critical Because a campaign implies start and an end date driven mostly by the marketing department.

00:02:49: Exactly, but it commercial growth model requires uniting marketing sales consulting and delivery around one shared strategy.

00:02:56: Mindy Anderson actually shared in insight that takes this is step further.

00:03:00: Oh I saw that when

00:03:00: yeah It completely reframes The problem most companies are trying to solve.

00:03:04: She noted that most organizations do not actually have a lead generation problem.

00:03:09: What they have is a severe focus problem.

00:03:12: That lack of focus is literally everywhere.

00:03:15: You see teams simultaneously running Google ads Optimizing for SEO doing aggressive outbound calling posting constantly on social media just

00:03:24: chasing everything

00:03:25: right there chasing Ten completely disconnected channels distributing their budget into these tiny fragments and then acting surprised when they're pipeline remains completely flat.

00:03:36: Yeah, Momentum in B to be doesn't come from simply executing more activities.

00:03:40: it comes from concentrating overwhelming force on the specific accounts that actually have

00:03:48: That idea of concentrating force, it fundamentally breaks the old metaphors we used to rely on.

00:03:53: Like Jessica Fuel has actually inspired a great way to look at this The

00:03:56: Gumball Machine analogy.

00:03:57: Yes!

00:03:58: The Old Demand Generation model was essentially a gumball machine.

00:04:01: You insert your quarter turn the dial and a lead drops

00:04:03: out Right.

00:04:04: But if the Gumbal Machine is broken We have to look modern ABM more like a symphony orchestra.

00:04:09: I love that

00:04:10: Marketing might be writing the sheet music and setting the tempo but your chief revenue officer, sales team or executives all have to play their specific instruments in perfect harmony.

00:04:25: If you are operating an orchestra, You absolutely cannot measure your success using the metrics of a gumball machine.

00:04:32: Oh

00:04:33: that's such a good point!

00:04:34: This friction is exactly why so many initial ABM pilots crash and burn within like first six months.

00:04:43: Nancy Carlisle Harlan and Alprakash Karupanen both zeroed in on this specific disconnect.

00:04:48: Because leadership expects the old numbers?

00:04:51: Exactly, imagine you walk into your next quarterly business review.

00:04:54: You are running a highly targeted relationship-driven ABM program But your leadership team is evaluating you on a standard lead gen scorecard.

00:05:02: Right they're looking at the vanity dashboard.

00:05:04: They want to see the number of MQLs which it's just a fancy term for someone who downloaded a white paper.

00:05:09: Yeah meaningless.

00:05:10: They are asking for your cost per lead.

00:05:13: And if you bring a cost-per-lead slide to a CFO, To justify long term commercial growth model... I mean You've already lost the room!

00:05:19: You're speaking completely wrong language.

00:05:22: You need to replace that vanity dashboard with an ABM revenue scorecard

00:05:26: Which tracks what?

00:05:27: Exactly

00:05:28: Well If goal is concentrating force The metrics have to reflect impact of this force.

00:05:33: So you need track deal velocity.

00:05:35: Are the accounts we target moving from initial meeting to signed contract in forty-five days instead of ninety?

00:05:41: That

00:05:41: makes sense.

00:05:42: You

00:05:42: need to track win rates, are closing thirty percent of our proposals instead ten percent?

00:05:47: Average deal size.

00:05:48: If you evaluate a highly focused relationship building motion using mass blast email metrics The ABM program is going link like failure every single time.

00:05:59: But you know, a revenue scorecard is completely useless if you're tracking the wrong people.

00:06:03: Oh

00:06:03: hundred percent!

00:06:03: If your gonna measure your success by win rates and velocity instead of raw volume Your margin for error in picking targets drops to near zero.

00:06:11: You cannot aim a sniper rifle at five thousand different targets.

00:06:14: oh you can't.

00:06:15: I was actually reading Ryan Carlin's take on this And he did not mince words.

00:06:19: He stated that running so-called ABM On a list of five thousand accounts isn't actualy account based marketing.

00:06:26: It

00:06:26: just spray & pray

00:06:27: Exactly.

00:06:28: It's just spray and pray.

00:06:29: led generation wearing a more expensive suit,

00:06:31: And the financial cost of getting that selection process wrong is just staggering.

00:06:37: Nick Bennett shared A real world turnaround story That illustrates this perfectly.

00:06:42: Oh!

00:06:42: The five hundred accounts one?

00:06:44: Yes

00:06:45: He was brought into an ABM program that Was bleeding money.

00:06:48: They had spent forty thousand dollars on a list Of Five Hundred Target Accounts Just using thermographics, right?

00:06:57: Right.

00:06:57: Basic thermographic filters.

00:06:59: they only looked at industry employee headcount annual revenue.

00:07:02: the ignored intense signals entirely.

00:07:04: They didn't look at whether those companies were actually in the market to buy.

00:07:07: So what happened

00:07:08: six months later?

00:07:09: that massive five hundred account list backed by forty grand had produced exactly three opportunities.

00:07:15: just Three opportunities from five hundred accounts after six months of effort.

00:07:19: That is the definition of a jammed conveyor belt I imagine.

00:07:23: fixing that required terrifying pivot for the sales team.

00:07:26: You're basically asking them to throw away ninety percent of their target

00:07:29: list.".

00:07:30: It requires a massive leap of faith, but they did it!

00:07:33: They took that list at five hundred and ruthlessly cut it down just thirty accounts.

00:07:38: Wow only thirty?

00:07:40: Only thirty...but the crucial difference was every single one of those thirty accounts were signal qualified

00:07:46: meaning there actually doing something

00:07:48: exactly.

00:07:48: they weren't big companies demonstrating actual buying behavior multiple executives visiting the pricing page or actively engaging with content on LinkedIn.

00:08:00: So

00:08:00: they actually had a reason to reach out?

00:08:02: Right, and once they narrowed their focus...they completely stopped running generic webinar ads.

00:08:06: They replaced broad marketing with hyper-personal outreach.

00:08:10: Let's break down the mechanics of that outreach because personalization is buzzword that gets thrown around so much.

00:08:16: What did it do differently?

00:08:18: Instead of a templated email sequence, the account executive would record a custom video directly addressing a specific initiative they knew that prospect was working on.

00:08:28: Okay...that's real effort!

00:08:29: Yeah They stopped sending generic white papers and started sharing highly-specific case studies featuring real financial outcomes from the prospects exact vertical

00:08:39: Wow.

00:08:40: And instead of blasting an invitation to a massive online webinar They invited the prospect to a small intimate dinner with eight peers in their industry

00:08:49: and results

00:08:50: by changing The focus from volume-to-high touch relevance.

00:08:54: The results completely flipped out.

00:08:56: Of those thirty focused accounts eleven of them moved into the active sales pipeline In a single quarter,

00:09:01: let's just pause on that math for a second.

00:09:04: eleven Active deals out of a thirty account list in three months compared to just three deals out of five hundred accounts over six months.

00:09:11: It's night and day.

00:09:12: it proves unequivocally that the methodology works, but here is where they.

00:09:16: execution usually falls apart for teams trying to replicate this

00:09:19: operational side

00:09:20: right we keep talking about narrowing the list down to thirty accounts.

00:09:26: Entity.

00:09:27: it's a logo on a corporate headquarters.

00:09:30: You can't invite a building to a steak dinner now you

00:09:32: Can.

00:09:32: so who exactly are we targeting inside those thirty accounts?

00:09:35: That realization is the missing link in almost every failing ABM program.

00:09:41: Mason Cosby and Thors D Nord B both provided incredible deep dives into this concept Which is known as The Buying Committee because

00:09:49: accounts don't sign contracts

00:09:51: human being signed contracts.

00:09:52: yeah.

00:09:53: Behind every complex B-to-B technology purchase, there is an entire committee of people sometimes ranging from ten to fifteen different individuals who all have a say in whether the deal goes through.

00:10:04: Wow!

00:10:04: Fifteen people?

00:10:05: Yeah and if your marketing strategy stops at the account level Your sales team is flying completely blind when they actually get into the room.

00:10:12: Right because you can't just send a generic improve your team's ROI message to a Chief Information Security Officer, someone whose literal job is spotting digital threats and expect them to care about the same things as The Marketing Director.

00:10:24: Exactly!

00:10:25: You have to map out those individuals systematically.

00:10:28: you need to identify your champion-the person inside the company who loves your product right?

00:10:33: You'll find the decision maker...you need to Identify the budget holder..the end user....the legal team.....and crucially

00:10:43: The blocker.

00:10:43: Yeah, the person whose job might be threatened by your software and will actively oppose the purchase.

00:10:49: You have to know who they are.

00:10:50: How do you actually keep track of all those moving parts without losing your mind?

00:10:53: Well forced.

00:10:54: a Nordby detailed exactly how to operationalize this.

00:10:58: inside CRM platforms like HubSpot You don't just dump fifteen contacts under one company name.

00:11:04: You look at their specific job titles and tag them into these distinct buying roles.

00:11:08: The CEO gets tagged as the decision maker, the operations manager is the champion.

00:11:12: And you just have to monitor that constantly?

00:11:14: Constantly because two-thirds of these people might change their internal priorities or even change jobs mid process... ...you need to engineer a messaging strategy where the CFO get content about cost reduction while end user gets content about ease use.

00:11:29: Okay let's check out the sheer logistics for this.

00:11:31: second.

00:11:31: This brings us to a massive operational bottleneck.

00:11:35: Oh, absolutely!

00:11:36: If your SDRs the reps tasked with doing all that initial cold outreach have to manually map a thirteen person committee for hundred different accounts research every single persons pain points write custom videos They are going to completely burn out.

00:11:50: They

00:11:51: will quit.

00:11:51: the human limit is reached very quickly.

00:11:54: So how do revenue teams actually scale this level of bespoke research?

00:11:58: that operational fiction?

00:11:59: Is the exact catalyst driving The next major evolution in space, which is AI enabled ABM.

00:12:06: but And this is important.

00:12:07: We have to be incredibly careful about how we define the role of AI here.

00:12:10: Oh, so Ingrid Archer laid out a fantastic rule of thumb.

00:12:14: She stated that Ai does not replace strategic decision-making and it absolutely Does not build trust with a buyer.

00:12:20: It doesn't build trust right.

00:12:21: what ai actually does Is accelerate?

00:12:23: The account selection in the deep research phase at a scale That was physically impossible A year ago.

00:12:29: ai as the accelerator.

00:12:31: it has not the strategy itself.

00:12:33: I love that distinction.

00:12:34: It's the engine, not the steering wheel.

00:12:36: So how are the elite teams actually building this engine?

00:12:39: Give me the mechanics.

00:12:40: The architecture they're building is mind-blowing.

00:12:43: Nicholas Siljanowski shared a framework where he deploys twenty four distinct AI agents across seven different stages of the ABM motion.

00:12:51: Wait!

00:12:51: Twenty Four Different Agents operating simultaneously.

00:12:54: Yes What Are They

00:12:55: Actually

00:12:55: Doing?!

00:12:55: They're entirely replacing the unglamorous manual backend work.

00:13:00: Think about the workflow in an SDR.

00:13:02: Instead of a human spending four hours scraping the web, one AI agent is programmed exclusively to monitor SEC-TENK financial filings to find companies announcing new budget initiatives.

00:13:14: Another agent sits on LinkedIn specifically tracking when decision maker changes jobs.

00:13:23: And once a signal fires, completely different agent cross-references that data and drafts personalized email openers tailored specifically to the buyer's persona.

00:13:32: Mindy Johnson actually provided another incredible example of how to compress this workflow, and it really highlights the mechanics of how these tools integrate.

00:13:40: With the

00:13:40: Claude Colwork skills?

00:13:41: Yes!

00:13:42: She uses these Claude colwork skills to essentially automate most tedious parts-of account research.

00:13:48: she built a customized skill where literally just drops target company's name into a prompt

00:13:54: And speed at which he executes is staggering.

00:13:57: It IS because behind scenes That AI isn't just hallucinating an answer, it's using API connections to pull live real-time data simultaneously from her company Salesforce instance.

00:14:10: From internal Slack channels and the Live Web.

00:14:13: in under two minutes right?

00:14:14: In Under Two Minutes it synthesizes all that data generates a comprehensive research proof It confirms the target companies exact tech stack identifies key finance contacts lists recent buying signals

00:14:25: And she didn't stop there.

00:14:27: No, she didn't.

00:14:28: She built a second sequence that takes all of the synthesized research and autonomously outputs complete three-touch email drafts... ...a briefing document to prep AE for call….

00:14:38: …and even a recommendation for corporate gift!

00:14:40: A corporate gift?

00:14:41: Yeah

00:14:41: – a research process used to require an SDR to keep fifteen different browser tabs open for three hours.

00:14:47: now it takes about three minutes.

00:14:49: Okay I have to step in push back hard here Because on paper, generating three-touch email sequences in three minutes sounds like an absolute dream.

00:14:58: But Steve Armenti brought up a massive red flag in his post.

00:15:01: and it's reality we all experience every time open our own inboxes.

00:15:05: Buyers are absolutely sick of what he calls AI Slop!

00:15:10: The data shows that replied rates on cold emails have been cut in half since twenty-twenty-three.

00:15:16: nearly ninety five percent off all cold emails completely ignored.

00:15:21: If a chief information security officer receives the slightly robotic, overly-enthusiastic seven step automated sequence that clearly feels like it was written by machine they're gonna suddenly sign an enterprise deal.

00:15:32: They are going to permanently block your company's domain.

00:15:35: and that pushback is entirely justified.

00:15:39: When companies treat AI simply as a cheap way to resurrect the broken factory model using it to blast fifty thousand bad emails instead of five thousand, they destroy their brand equity.

00:15:48: Exactly!

00:15:49: The crucial distinction in a high-performing ABM program is that the AI lives strictly behind scenes...

00:15:54: Meaning the AI never actually hits the send button unchecked.

00:15:57: It never speaks directly to the buyer

00:16:00: Never.

00:16:00: The top go-to market teams use AI exclusively to do the heavy lifting of their research phase.

00:16:06: Gathering the market intelligence, monitoring the intense signals creating the very first rough draft.

00:16:12: It takes an ocean of digital noise and synthesizes

00:16:14: it Right.

00:16:15: But the human judgment...the final review for messaging empathy in tone And actual relationship building That must remain entirely human.

00:16:23: That's

00:16:23: reassuring.

00:16:25: Victoria Olavaria articulated this perfectly.

00:16:28: The AI pipeline doesn't replace human judgment.

00:16:30: It simply removes all the tedious manual copy pasting that used to sit between raw data and a reviewable draft.

00:16:36: Mm-hmm, the AI serves the human not the other way around.

00:16:39: That makes perfect sense.

00:16:41: you use the machine to survey the landscape And build them up but the humans still has to drive the car

00:16:46: beautiful Way to put it.

00:16:47: so if the AI is handling all that deep back end research What does this modern execution actually look like?

00:16:53: when?

00:16:55: It looks like true one-to-one personalization delivered at an unprecedented scale.

00:17:01: Kevin Lye, at Optimizely and Sammy Barbier highlighted how forward thinking brands are moving way beyond the basic trick of just swapping out a first name in an email.

00:17:11: What're

00:17:11: they doing instead?

00:17:12: They now using AI agents to instantly generate bespoke account specific landing pages.

00:17:19: Wait!

00:17:19: A completely unique fully functioning website built exclusively for ONE specific target account.

00:17:24: Yes How does that actually work mechanically?

00:17:27: It relies on incredible background integration.

00:17:29: Let's say a prospect clicks a link in an ad on LinkedIn, through IP matching the system instantly identifies exactly which company that prospect works for.

00:17:38: In the split second before the web page loads An AI agent fetches their specific commercial reality directly from your CRM.

00:17:47: it identifies their industry recognizes where they are and buying cycle

00:17:51: So it knows what they care about right now

00:17:52: Exactly.

00:17:53: it pulls in highly relevant customer case studies that match their exact vertical.

00:17:58: It runs a custom ROI calculation based on their estimated company size and it builds this entire personalized page autonomously, perfectly matching your brand voice before the screen even finishes loading.

00:18:10: That is genuinely mind-blowing!

00:18:11: You are essentially taking the bespoke white glove experience of enterprise field marketing and digitizing the entire process...

00:18:18: It's incredible.

00:18:19: But does that level technical plumbing actually translate to revenue or just really expensive carler trick?

00:18:25: The revenue impact is undeniable.

00:18:28: Sammy Barbier reported that when they deploy these one-to-one landing pages, their reply rates jumped consistently above fifty percent.

00:18:34: Fifty percent?

00:18:35: That's huge!

00:18:36: He refers to this evolution as person based marketing.

00:18:40: It delivers real relevance created at scale because the underlying data models are finally sophisticated enough To turn deep context into high quality buying experiences.

00:18:51: But if you take that logic a step further There's still a massive hurdle here.

00:18:55: A fifty percent reply rate on a customized landing page is incredible, but that page has to be delivered somehow!

00:19:03: How do you warm these accounts up before they ever get the customized link?

00:19:07: Because if I have never heard of your company and am not clicking it no matter how magically personalized this page might actually

00:19:15: be... That exactly where modern channel strategy comes into play… particularly how teams are utilizing LinkedIn.

00:19:21: Ivan Falco and Aiva Volosinski broke down how the best organizations are abandoning random broadcasting.

00:19:27: What do you mean by random broadcasting?

00:19:30: Like, You don't just post an article on your corporate company page And blindly hope that buyers scroll past it.

00:19:35: First build a strict target account list we talked about earlier.

00:19:39: Then map your own internal team's expertise directly to the prospects buying committee.

00:19:45: So you are orchestrating the entire team to be visible, not just relying on the marketing department.

00:19:50: To run ads

00:19:51: precisely.

00:19:53: You have your subject matter experts Your lead engineers or product managers posting detailed technical content that speaks directly to the technical evaluators On The Buying Committee.

00:20:04: smart!

00:20:04: You Have your CEO sharing high-level market insights That build immediate credibility with the prospects C-suite.

00:20:11: And then marketing steps in and puts budget behind those specific organic posts.

00:20:16: They boost them as thought leader ads, directing them exclusively at the IP addresses of a target account list.

00:20:22: I see how this whole ecosystem connects.

00:20:24: now You are essentially surrounding buying committee with familiar trusted faces over weeks or months By time your SDR finally reaches out Or sends that bespoke AI generated landing page.

00:20:37: Your company isn't stranger anymore.

00:20:39: Alex Newman summarized this dynamic perfectly.

00:20:42: Familiar wins over cold every single time, you aren't just trying to capture existing demand with a net.

00:20:48: You are deliberately engineering familiarity and trust overtime.

00:20:52: Imagine you take all of these insights back to your team tomorrow.

00:20:56: We have covered a massive amount of ground today in the steep dive But the through line connecting all of this is incredibly clear.

00:21:02: very First, you have to completely stop treating ABM like a traditional volume-based lead gen campaign.

00:21:09: It is a commercial revenue focused operating system.

00:21:12: Second You have to ruthlessly cut your bloated account lists down To only the company showing real intent signals And deeply map specific human beings on their buying committee

00:21:22: The people not logos.

00:21:24: Exactly Third You deploy AI Not to blast more spam But do heavy lifting of research and data synthesis behind scenes.

00:21:32: And finally, you execute with true one-to-one personalization surrounding those key buyers with relevant trusted voices long before you ever ask them for a meeting.

00:21:42: If you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:21:46: Also check out our other editions on account based marketing field marketing channel and partner marketing.

00:21:50: AI in B to be more tech go the market and social selling.

00:21:54: Before we wrap up today I want to leave you.

00:21:58: We've talked extensively about how AI is rapidly raising the baseline for every marketing team.

00:22:02: It's democratizing deep account research and enabling instant hyper-personalization at scale, but if that is true what happens when every single competitor in your space?

00:22:11: In a world where perfect digital execution becomes the absolute minimum standard, how will you engineer genuine human

00:22:40: trust?