Omni Lab Consulting

Omni Lab is a demand gen agency for Series A to Series D B2B SaaS companies. We help you create, manage, and optimize paid advertising campaigns across most major ad channels like LinkedIn, Google Ads, YouTube, Display, Reddit, TikTok, and more.

We focus on optimizing for leading and lagging indicators to ensure your paid efforts are driving qualified leads and opportunities that meet your ICP.

Co-Founder

Exit Five

Member

RevGenius

Jellyfish

Sr. Director of Sales & Partnerships

Stitch Labs

Regional Director of Sales

Teralytics

Head of Sales, East

XeoMatrix

Head of Sales & Marketing

MicroStrategy

Sr. Account Executive

Sr. Business Development Manager

Carahsoft Technology Corp.

Account Representative

Smashwizard

Founder, CEO

Co-Founder @ Omni Lab | Paid Media for B2B SaaS brands

Over the last 15+ years, I've worked for 4 VC backed SaaS companies, consulted with more than 100+, helped 1 get acquired, 1 reach unicorn status, and many more generate millions in net new revenue.

I've also seen a handful of those startups go out of business...including my own SaaS business so I know many of the mistakes. 

Over that time I've noticed that the buyer's journey has evolved. 

Today buyers have the power.

Yet, many SaaS businesses still continue to run the same programs that worked a decade ago. 

They continue to over-rely on lead gen and create friction in the buying process. 

This is pushing customer acquisition costs sky high and causing many to miss their targets. 

The way forward is to take a buyer-centric approach to creating and capturing demand. 

Buyer-centric demand gen is when your funnel aligns with how the buyer wants to learn about your company. 

It means you write in the language your buyer understands, you consider how they consume information, and when and how they want to buy. 

When you take a buyer-centric approach you generate more pipeline and revenue and an enduring brand. 

This is why we started Omni Lab.

------------------------------------------------------------

What we do for Series A to Series C SaaS startups:

→ Manage and optimize paid media across any digital channel
→ Distribute content/messaging via paid to grow pipeline and revenue
→ Build out engaging ad creative
→ Focus on optimizing the funnel based on pipeline and revenue. 

Results from SaaS companies we have worked with: 

→ Unicorn Status in 10 months
→ Grew pipeline 372% and lead > opp rate 266%
→ 1,300% increase in revenue Q3 > Q4
→ 20% increase in revenue Q over Q

If you are looking to create and capture demand via paid media, let's chat :) 

email: jonathan@omnilabconsulting.com or DM me

Jonathan Bland

If I were a VP of Marketing/Founder/CEO, and I were trying to get my first 100 users. I wouldn't use paid ads. 

I'd first focus on doing the following (in this order)

1.) Email/call/reach out to everyone you already know that could be a fit
2.) Email/call/reach out to everyone you know that might know your ICP
3.) Email/call/reach out to people that could be a fit that you don't know
4.) Post/engage thoughtfully on social media

Ideally, these all happen before you even build the production app, so you can validate that there is a problem and that demand already exists. (we know that doesn't happen sometimes...)
 
In this time, you'll learn:

- The messaging that resonates best
- The top use cases/problems for your product
- The positioning that worked best
- The specific segments that convert better
- And so on

Which will then derisk your investment in paid media and ultimately your product roadmap. 

It doesn't mean everything will be "figured out", but many of the fundamentals will be in place to allow channels to have a better ROI.

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Co-Founder @ Omni Lab | Paid Media for B2B SaaS brands (HIRING)

"You can have the best product in the world. But if no one knows about it, you have NOTHING."

Arnold wasn’t wrong.

In categories where every product starts to look the same, mental availability becomes the real advantage.

If you’re not top of mind when they’re ready to buy, you’re invisible.

It looks like we are forecasted to close out 2025 at a 34% YoY growth rate. 

And I couldn't be happier with what the entire Omni Team has accomplished; this can't be achieved without all of you!

And most importantly, to all the SaaS brands that trusted us with their paid media strategy. 

And to the many more that helped provide feedback and advice along the way, especially my Pops ;) 

We are by no means perfect, but with every mistake we have made along the way, we have done our best to take in that feedback to get better. 

I can tell you with complete conviction that we will continue to push ourselves harder to do everything in our control to put any brand we work with in the best position to increase brand awareness and drive pipeline through paid media. 

And with that growth, we are starting up conversations in search of the following roles:

- Sr. Paid Search Manager
- Sr. Paid Social Manager
- Sr. Demand Gen Manager (paid focus)

If you are in the U.S. and have strong in-house experience at a SaaS brand or support SaaS brands at an agency, I'd love to chat. 

Even if you aren't quite ready to move, I'd like to meet, as it could be a fit down the road. :)

We look for people who are:

- Curious, like to go deep
- Focus on pipeline accountability
- Deeply technical with paid media
- Deep experience working with CRMs 
- Good at communicating and setting expectations
- Stay up to date with the latest things happening in SaaS

Drop me a DM and we'll find some time over the next couple of weeks to chat. 

Once again, thanks to all who have supported and trusted us. 🙏 🙏 🙏

People forget that buyers buy on their timeline. 

Not on yours. 

Just the other day, a vendor gave me a deadline to close a contract. 

They said, "We can offer the discount until the end of the month."

My first reaction was feeling pressure to sign the deal. (what they want)

Then I just felt like I was being rushed to buy something. 

It made me want to abandon the whole deal. 

This isn't the type of environment you want to create for buyers. 

During the sales process or before. 

However, we often spend so much energy trying to convert people who aren’t even close to making a decision yet.

Instead, we need to find ways to "eat up" more mental real estate so we are the first brand that pops into their minds. 

We can do that by: 

- Building deep relationships with them
- Helping them with something
- Being clear with what we do
- Creating memorable moments
- Sharing something they value

Stop trying to force the sale, be a helpful guide, and stay top of mind so when they are ready, they choose you on their timeline.

I'm a bit worried about you. 

We just launched the campaign, and you want to know how it's performing?

Coming from a sales background, I used to think marketing’s job was simple: deliver more inbound leads so I could hit quota with fewer cold calls. 

Over time, I realized most of the real impact marketing generates isn’t visible in the short term and doesn’t look like a “lead.”

Yet, marketing is under more pressure than ever to deliver "leads". 

A recent survey by MarketingWeek found that 37.7% are under pressure to deliver leads, regardless of quality (unacceptable in my book). 

And 52% claim senior leadership fails to understand the importance of marketing beyond lead generation. (yep, we all know this and feel this)

Marketing can be a short-term lead generator and needs to connect back to business outcomes; however, you'd be incredibly short-sighted if you think that's all marketing "does". 

Marketing is:

- Positioning the product so sales can increase win rates
- Building mental availability so cold outbound reply rates increase
- Building content engines that engage and build trust with buyers before they are in-market
- Making the website clear so buyers understand what the hell you do
- Feeding marketing insights to the product team to guide the product roadmap
- And more

Many of those things don't show up as “leads" in the CRM, yet they make selling dramatically easier in the long term.

So from the sales perspective, it’s easy to conclude that if marketing isn't driving leads, it isn't doing anything because the impact isn’t always immediate or visible.

And from marketing’s perspective, it’s exhausting to constantly defend long-term work to short-term pressures.

The reality?

1.) Marketing needs to help the whole org understand what it's doing to drive both short and long-term goals. 

2.) And ensure proper expectations are set, as everything marketing does can't be measured with the same brush. 

3.) In addition, focus on reframing the way you talk about other initiatives that aren't directly related to promotion. 

Instead of saying “we are redoing messaging and positioning this quarter to better position the company in the category.”

You say, “We are reworking how we position ourselves in the category to help buyers better understand why we are a better choice against alternative solutions, which will help improve lead-to-opportunity conversion rates."

Like everything, it's about balance, setting the proper expectations, and helping educate senior leadership on how to measure different initiatives.

Easier said than done.

How would you feel if you told your CEO that you saved the company $100k?

And that you reallocated that budget to better-performing campaigns, which should drive an estimated x number of high-intent conversions. 

I can't think of any VP of Marketing who wouldn't want to share that story. 

And this is exactly the story for this SaaS brand that's raised more than $100M.

Over the past 3 months, they have spent $99,849k on keywords with zero conversions. 

Here’s how to see if you have the same opportunity:

1.) Export or build a report in Google Ads and pull metrics/attributes that include: keywords, clicks, impressions, CPC, cost, conversions, conversion rate, and search impression share. 

2.) Take the average cost per conversion for a similar campaign (e.g., non-brand)

3.) Apply a filter to your report to be set at 1.5-2x (or an amount you are comfortable with) the average cost per conversion

4.) Apply a filter to the conversion column to look for keywords that have spent 1.5-2x your average cost per conversion with zero conversions. 

That’s it. Or you can automate this with rules; albeit, I still think some human oversight is important. 

Generally, I’d start with reviewing the brands CRM or offline conversions; however, if conversion tracking is set up correctly, that should be sufficient to guide you on what to cut keywords that have produced zero conversions. 

Many of these keywords for this SaaS brand generally aligned with the brand; however, 20 other keywords in the account aren't close to being maxed out. 

So while you could argue you should review:

- search terms report
- match types
- ad copy
- landing page,
- Etc.  

...You already have clear proof that these other 20 keywords are driving high-intent conversions right now. 

You can always come back to keywords that have been cut to work on all those things I mentioned, but if you are looking for something that can help improve performance in the short-term, that is where you should start.

Why is it getting more expensive to acquire customers?

There is no question that 2025 has been the year of "how do we get more efficient with our marketing spend".

The Emerging Cloud Index shows public software companies down 6.3% YTD. 

Pavilion did a survey back in May of 2025 showing the new CAC Ratio for new customers continues to rise, 14% higher in 2024.

And many CMOs I talk to still don't have enough pipeline coverage.

Meanwhile, every channel is dead or dying (according to {insert name} thought leader).

The reality is that it's much more complex than asking "what's the best channel or tactic?"

Your product, positioning, brand, pricing, and sales motion all impact CAC. 

You can have the BEST marketing in the world with the best content, but if your product isn't solving a big problem at an affordable cost, then it doesn't matter how many ads you run. 

There are, however, ALWAYS things in your control as a marketer that can help improve efficiency, and those are the variables you need to focus on. 

Take a look at the deck below from a recent Factors.ai webinar I hosted with ✌🏻Jason S., to hear four practical things you can do. 

TL;DR Focus first on what you can control, then use other macro-level data points to support the narrative of what's going on in the market.

Pavilion

↳ Co-Founder @ Omni Lab | B2B Paid Media | AI Architect

How to Decrease CAC

At Omni Lab, we've seen a 667.34% increase in traffic from ChatGPT YoY. 

And just the other day,  Lee Gannon from Cognism sent me this Slack below. 

More and more people who come to us inbound are mentioning LLMs as one of the ways they found us; ChatGPT is the first, followed by Perplexity, and then Google AI. 

It's somewhat clear that these could be some of the reasons we are being recommended:

- We are listed in some top 10 demand gen/paid media agency comparison lists
- We have been producing organic content on LinkedIn for years
- We've done content collaborations (e.g. guest podcast, webinars, events)
- We've implemented a number of technical changes on our website to optimize for LLMs
- We've added a structured list-based page dedicated just for LLMs to read called "Hey AI Read this"
- We're also being recommended in some "agency recommendation" threads on Reddit

While all this is generally good, I have noticed that some brands are:

- Often a bit smaller, less qualified
- The calls are often colder; less familiar with us

Regardless, it's clearly a good thing to see more activity with LLMs trending up, and I'd expect not just us but other categories to see the same thing. 

I'm also sure some people will ask an LLM for recommendations, then simply go to your website directly, which creates holes in this analysis.

Senior Demand Generation Manager at Cognism | Growth Marketing B2B SaaS | Paid Media Specialist

Cognism

"SQLs are up 57%" 

"No, I actually see that we are only up by 37%"

I've seen these conversations play out so many times internally between teams. 

And sometimes between us with the brands we support. 

When you aren't aligned or you have reporting discrepancies it makes impossible to understand what's working and what's not. 

So often, reports aren't using the same date property, the same filters, or the same attribution model, which creates frustrating moments when two teams report completely different results. 

Or worse, they aren't agreed on, or they change often, which then destroys historical funnel conversion rates. 

To avoid this, sales, marketing, product, and the exec team must agree on:

- Lead stage names and definitions
- How performance will be measured and with what KPIs
- Determine CRM properties  and filters for key reports
- The exit criteria used to move someone from one stage to the next

This is your internal data dictionary that everyone in the company can review to ensure reporting stays aligned. 

You then need to agree on the ONE attribution model you'll use for determining "source". 

Why one?

Because it adds way more complexity when you change models, and it's difficult to communicate results across multiple models. 

You can and should use different models to support a narrative you are trying to communicate and/or answer different questions, but the core reporting needs to be aligned on ONE. 

As you build up reporting consistency, it'll get a lot easier to do "accurate" funnel analysis and understand the impact of experiments you are running. 

Without this, you'll be stuck in endless arguments trying to benchmark results on data that isn't consistent.

If your friend just bought a new Ferrari, would you buy one?

Probably not. 

Then why are you so concerned with what keywords your competitors are bidding on. 

You have to fight the social conformity.

Just because they decided to spend a bunch of money (or go into debt) doesn’t mean it’s the right financial decision for you.

The same thing is true for doing competitor keyword research. 

If Monday.com can help with workflow automation and is the number one recommended by Google in its Workflow Automation tools recommendation list...

Should they bid on "workflow automation" just because similar products to theirs are bidding on it?

Not necessarily. 

Here’s why:

1.) You’re copying an unknowable strategy

You have no clue whether their campaigns are profitable, whether they’re targeting the same ICP, or whether their agency is just dumping budget to show activity.

2.) You inherit their mistakes

Just because they can bid on something doesn’t mean you should. Most companies run mediocre PPC programs with bad tracking and outdated keyword lists.

3.) You become reactive instead of buyer-focused

The moment you optimize based on what competitors do, you stop optimizing for what your customer actually searches for.

Sure, use tools like Spyfu, Ahrefs, and others to see what keywords they are bidding on for research, but don't chase competitors. 

Chase your customers.

Why are the first 10 minutes of webinars wasted talking about "housekeeping items”? 

Why not instead jump straight into the content? 

If I listen to a recorded webinar, I’ll always skip ahead as the first 5-10min is usually just pre-webinar banter, intros talking about people's background, the agenda, and other "house keeping items". 

I've never been on a live webinar that does this.  

What if you skipped all of that and started with a compelling question to get people thinking? 

Or what if you simply dove right in to the content? 

That’d hook them in early.

Maybe something like this: 

1.) Open with a compelling hook (big insight, misconception, or story)
2.) Deliver the #1 takeaway immediately (buy trust in the first 60–90 seconds)
3.) Move straight into the content
4.) Keep intros to ~15 seconds
5.) Skip the housekeeping entirely (or put it in the chat)

Worth a thought.

Garnter found that buyers spend only 17% of their total buying time with sales.

The other 80–95% happens in channels marketing owns or influences, search, social, peers, review sites, your website, and product.

Surveys from Gartner, McKinsey, and 6sense all tell the same story:

– 60%+ of buyers would prefer a rep-free experience.
– 80% of sales interactions now happen through digital channels.
– In 4 out of 5 deals, the buyer has a preferred vendor in mind before they ever talk to a rep.  ￼

If marketing now influences roughly 80% of the buying journey, then marketing should receive a greater share of investment.

Sales isn’t going away, but its role continues to shift later in the process. By the time a buyer submits a “demo request,” they’ve nearly made their decision.

That puts a huge responsibility on marketing:

Be the brand they think of before they’re ready to buy.

Invest accordingly.

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.

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

Accounts that fit your ICP ≠ buying intent. Instead of wasting SDRs' time and ads budget, segment your accounts into three lists:

1. CLUSTER ICP
= Vendor unaware + Product need unknown

🎯 Goal: Build brand awareness at scale
📢 Marketing: Cluster-based demand gen
🤝 Sales: light touch, <10% of effort (e.g. connect with DMs and Champions)
📊 Opportunity likelihood: <5%

2. FUTURE PIPELINE
= Vendor aware + Product need unknown

🎯 Goal: Validate product need & nurture
📢 Marketing: Cluster-based demand gen, feature in content
🤝 Sales: multi-touch, 30% effort (progressive profiling, connect with buying committee, trigger-based engagement, invite to ABM events...)
📊 Opportunity likelihood: <30%

3. ACTIVE FOCUS 
= Vendor aware + Product need evidence strong

🎯 Goal: Sales opportunities
📢 Marketing: Personalized content, interviews, gifting
🤝 Sales: 1:1, 60% effort (multi-threaded engagement, personalized offers, strategy sessions...)
📊 Opportunity likelihood: High

----

The impact when you align your playbooks to this routing:
→ SDRs stop wasting time on unaware accounts
→ Stop irrelevant personalization 
→ Ad spend has higher returns
→ Marketing-sourced revenue increases
→ You build future pipeline while accelerating this quarter's deals

Industry-based ABM v.s. Use Case-Based ABM. 

If your product has multiple use cases, stop targeting industry verticals, and start targeting clusters.

VERTICAL-BASED ABM 

Most ABM programs create vertical-based list, messaging and content. 

But if those accounts have different use-cases and challenges, you risk ending with content and messaging that's either: 
- Irrelevant to the majority of accounts you target
- Generic, “common denominator” messaging that doesn’t differentiate you and doesn’t address the highest priority need

CLUSTER-BASED ABM

Cluster: group of companies with a similar challenge/use-case, despite their tier or vertical.

With cluster targeting you can:

- Cut through the generic noise with messaging, content and case studies that address the highest priority need that's top of their mind
- Differentiate in a way that matters to them (by showing how you're supporting that use-case better than competitors)
- Focus on accounts with a high probability to become a sales opportunity instead of just chasing vertical Tier 1 accounts

EXAMPLE 

As an ABM lead for Hubspot, I might create an ABM program for B2B SaaS companies. After all, they all need sales and marketing tools. It’s also helpful to have industry related assets, case studies and messaging. 

But different SaaS companies have different buying triggers: 

- Switching from a legacy system, because they lack functionality and integrations
- Companies that want to start ABM but their CRM/marketing platform don’t support it
- Startups that outgrew their separate siloed tools

You can already see how each of these use-cases deserves completely different messaging. 

---

Once you've defined the clusters, the next step is mapping accounts to them.

Here is how.

1. Export all your won deals and segment them by use-case

2. Group all accounts by use-case and compare revenue metrics 

- Revenue
- Average deal size 
- Sales cycle length
- Lifetime value 
- # of successful case studies 

You'll be able to make an unbiased decision which clusters have a higher priority.

3. Select a top cluster aligned with your goals and run deal analysis 
- Top 5 clients by LTV/ACV
- Top 5 fastest deals
- Recent 5 lost deals

4. Extract patterns

- Firmographics
- Technographics
- Buying committee structure
- Won and lost reasons
- Signals and account insights that signal the specific use-case

5. Develop a cluster ICP with qualification & disqualification criteria

--- 

Now you can build a highly targeted list of accounts that are more likely to convert into pipeline and be a good fit, and align your program with their high priority needs. 

We recently published results and a breakdown of four programs where a switch to cluster-based ABM generated $7 million in pipeline: 
https://lnkd.in/dZWKNAbC

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

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.

"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.

"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.

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