Why Account Engagement Is the Missing Link Between Marketing Activity and Pipeline Impact

Today’s B2B marketing departments are often faced with three major hurdles: time, budget, and headcount. Businesses everywhere have started to demand hefty returns in all of their marketing investments, evidenced by budgets being cut and CMOs asked to leave their posts within a year of taking the job. With all of this added pressure, the success of a B2B marketing team relies heavily on targeted efforts that yield mammoth results. 

Marketers will be asked more of their efforts in 2025 than they ever have been before. A survey from The Harris Poll and Madison Logic found that 96% of B2B marketing leaders are changing their marketing strategies due to the current economic climate. So how can these marketing leaders get the most out of their efforts? The answer is account-based everything.  

Account-based marketing (ABM) strategies can cultivate a sustainable sales pipeline, actively engage target accounts, shorten deal cycles, and set B2B marketers up for success. However, in order to reap the most rewards from your ABM efforts, it’s crucial to have a strategic view of account engagement and pipeline impact. Let’s dive into how a bird’s-eye view provides a deep understanding of why leads get stuck in the pipeline, what accounts need to be more engaged, and opportunities for campaign optimization in 2025 and beyond. 

What Is Account Engagement and Why Is It Important to B2B Marketers?

Account engagement is a key metric B2B marketers and sales teams use in ABM programs to evaluate the strength and quality of target accounts and current customer relationships in order to guide teams on where their time and resources should be focused. 

It emphasizes the depth and consistency of interactions across the entire customer journey, from awareness to conversion. Because marketers can easily access web analytics and intent data, they are the first in line to note upticks in activities (hence, engagement). Marketers monitor the following B2B engagement signals:  

• Content consumption (downloads, blog views, video watch time, etc.) 

• Website behavior (page views, time on site, return visits, etc.) 

• Event participation (webinar attendance, conference check-ins, etc.) 

• Intent data (third-party research, ML Insights, etc.) 

In ABM, marketers need to follow not just one lead’s engagement activities; rather, they need to follow multiple buying committee members across the entire account. Purchase decisions are made by buying groups, which typically include 14-23 stakeholders that are conducting their own research at their own pace. By analyzing accounts’ actions , marketers can identify the momentum across the entire account toward purchase decisions. As for current customers, marketers can watch account engagement signals to understand which are active, which are at risk, and where to concentrate their efforts for the greatest impact. This leads to stronger relationships, improved conversion rates, and increased long-term value. 

What Is a Sales Pipeline and Why is It So Important?

If you’re in marketing, then you’ve probably heard a lot about “increasing your pipeline,” “shortening your pipeline,” and “filling your sales pipeline with quality leads.” But what exactly is a sales pipeline and why should you care about having one? 

A “pipeline” is far more than just a buzzword. It’s a critical tool that can significantly impact your company’s bottom line. A sales pipeline is an organized, visual method of closely monitoring multiple accounts as they progress through the different buying stages of the sales cycle. 

Marketers can use pipelines to track progress toward a specified goal, show them exactly where in the sales cycle an account is, what accounts are stalling, and where funds, deals, and efforts are at all times. Having a comprehensive view of your pipeline adds an extra layer of accountability and helps you to achieve your marketing and sales goals faster.  

What Should Your Pipeline Look Like?

No two B2B companies look exactly the same, and neither will the entirety of their sales pipelines. For instance, a SaaS company may have a sales presentation stage in its pipeline while a customer relationship management (CRM) solutions company might have a demo stage. 

However, most B2B sales pipelines should include these stages: 

Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

TOFU is all about learning what prospects are the most likely to buy and eliminating those that aren’t.  

Savvy marketers can leverage the power of Madison Logic’s historical performance engagement data to efficiently identify and prioritize the prospects displaying the highest purchase intent. According to the Pareto Principle, about 80% of your revenue will come from about 20% of your leads. To get to that 20% faster, it’s wise to know what accounts are clogging up your pipeline. You can then move these accounts to a future callback list or identify ways to further engage them to give them a better chance of moving down the funnel. 

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)

Nowadays, it’s simply not enough to just sell to a customer. You need to establish and nourish a strong relationship with them to build trust and brand loyalty.  

The middle of the funnel can include a number of stages and strategies, such as account-based display advertising and ABM content syndication to keep your brand top of mind. If accounts are displaying low to no engagement, additional ABM strategy enhancements may be needed. 

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)

At the BOFU stage, prospects have already shown strong intent, engaged with your marketing content, and had meaningful interactions with your brand. The focus shifts to reinforcing trust, addressing final objections, tailoring proposals, and aligning on decision-making criteria. BOFU activities often include product demos, custom pricing, ROI analysis, stakeholder alignment, and legal or procurement reviews. 

In order to move an account as quickly as possible through the pipeline and generate more revenue, you need to thoroughly understand the impact each stage is having on the prospect and how to actively engage the ones that are stalling.

How a Comprehensive Pipeline View Results in Successful Account Engagement

Having a sweeping view of every stage within your sales pipeline allows you to know exactly where your account is at in the process, if it has stalled, and if it needs to be engaged. This helps marketers fine-tune their campaign efforts to ensure maximum efficiency and success, guaranteeing that their pipeline is a well-oiled sales machine. 

An optimized pipeline vastly shortens the sales cycle. Unlike the B2C space, B2B deals notoriously take several months to close, with a correlation that the larger the deal size, the longer the time to close. The longer an account stays in the sales cycle, the more chances it has to change its mind or find an alternative product to solve its problem. 

Marketers who know what accounts need to be engaged can deliver valuable content to that particular prospect to push them through the sales pipeline. Whether it’s an informative blog at the top of the funnel or coupon code at the bottom of the funnel, staying abreast of the right account engagement, and taking action at the appropriate time, will speed up the entire sales process. 

Marketers who know what accounts need to be engaged can deliver valuable content to that particular prospect to push them through the sales pipeline. For example, accounts stalled at the top of the funnel may need educational blog posts, analyst reports, or eBooks. Mid-funnel accounts might benefit from buying guides, demo videos, or webinars to help with consideration. At the bottom of the funnel, offering personalized demos, comparison guides, or case studies can help move the account to a closed deal. Understanding the right account engagement, and taking action at the appropriate time, will speed up the entire sales process. 

Case Study: How Salesforce Partners with Madison Logic for Deeper Account Engagement  

Knowing exactly when and how to interact with prospects can be the difference between a closed deal and a lost opportunity. That’s why Salesforce partnered with Madison Logic—to better understand account engagement through intent data and use it to target the right accounts at the right time. 

A strong ABM program relies on engaging the right accounts with the right message at the right moment. Quality data plays a crucial role in making that possible. By identifying which accounts are actively researching relevant topics and signaling in-market behavior, Salesforce was able to prioritize outreach, B2B personalization, and align their ABM strategy with real-time buying group interest. 

With Madison Logic’s intent data, ML Insights, combined with their own first-party data, Salesforce activated more relevant, high-impact content across their marketing efforts. This led to increased account engagement, a more efficient multi-channel ABM strategy, and ultimately, greater influence on the bottom line and return on investment. 

How to Align Marketing and Sales on Account Engagement

One of the biggest blockers to effective account engagement is the disconnect between marketing and sales. Too often: 

• Sales doesn’t trust engagement data 

• There are no shared signals of buying readiness 

• Teams operate in marketing silos and sales silos, leading to inconsistent data, missed opportunities, and inconsistent outreach 

This disconnect creates real issues: high-value accounts go cold due to misaligned follow-ups, marketing wastes resources nurturing leads that sales deems unqualified, and potential deals stall or are lost to competitors with tighter team coordination. 

To overcome this disconnect, B2B organizations need to bring both teams together to develop a shared understanding of account engagement—and how to act on it. Research from Adobe Marketo shows that companies with strong sales and marketing alignment are 67% better at closing deals. That kind of impact starts with joint planning and a shared understanding of ABM engagement, which includes: 

• Definition of “Engaged” Accounts: This can include a combination of data collaboration and intent signals (such as third-party data indicating buyer persona interest, ABM content consumption patterns like downloading whitepapers or attending webinars, and website behaviors including repeat visits or product page views.) By agreeing on these specific indicators, marketing and sales can focus their efforts on accounts that show genuine buying committee intent, ensuring resources are used efficiently. 

• Weekly Syncs: Create a regular, structured feedback loop where marketing and sales teams come together to review the list of engaged accounts. These syncs provide a forum to discuss which tactics are driving engagement, share insights from direct interactions, and adjust strategies in real time. 

• Shared Pipeline Contribution: Align both teams around key business outcomes (whether it’s pipeline growth, velocity, or win rate) so that engagement is viewed as a performance driver, not just a marketing metric. Instead of marketing being measured solely on lead generation and sales on closed revenue, both teams should be accountable for pipeline impact. This means creating shared dashboards, reporting frameworks, and attribution models that reflect how engagement drives opportunity creation and deal progression. 

When both marketing and sales work from the same playbook, account engagement becomes more than a data point—it becomes a trusted revenue signal that guides strategy and lead handoff, fuels more personalized buyer experiences, and ultimately drives pipeline. 

How to Measure Account Engagement 

For 42% of businesses, measuring the effectiveness of their ABM engagement remains a significant hurdle. Measuring account engagement effectively is a common ABM challenge for B2B teams—largely due to fragmented systems and a lack of unified visibility. Data silos often live across platforms: marketing automation platforms (MAP), CRM, intent data providers, and other ABM tools. Without a central score or dashboard, it’s extremely difficult to get a holistic view of how engaged an account truly is. 

To solve this, organizations need to implement an account engagement scoring model—either custom made, or part of their existing platforms. Also known as a lead scoring model, these models should gather data and engagement signals across systems and assign a composite score at the account level. This data-driven approach allows for  marketing plans and sales plans to be built from a single source of truth, which can be used to visualize data, prioritize accounts, and tailor outreach.  

For example, key metrics or ABM KPIs to include in an engagement score might be: 

• Total engaged contacts per account (breadth of engagement) 

• Engagement by persona or title (are the right people involved?) 

• Time spent in each funnel stage (velocity) 

• Content influence and touchpoints (what’s driving interest?) 

• Third-party intent signals (are they showing interest beyond your brand?) 

Bringing these data points together, especially in a unified dashboard, helps teams with ABM measurement by identifying which accounts are raising their hand, where they may be stalling, and how to act accordingly. 

Achieve a Clear View of Your Prospective Pipeline with Madison Logic’s Holistic View and Account Engagement Capabilities 

Successful B2B marketers have a comprehensive view of their pipeline to accelerate the sales cycle. You can achieve this by:  

• Using a CRM to effectively manage the accounts in your pipeline 

• Ensuring all departments companywide, including marketing, sales, and customer success, are working cohesively together to share prospect information 

• Understanding what accounts are stuck and need to be re-engaged 

• Enhancing marketing campaigns based on account intelligence 

With Madison Logic, marketers inherit greater operational efficiency through a single, scalable platform that reaches business professionals across virtually every industry worldwide. For time-strapped teams, it’s a game-changer—bringing account engagement and intent signals together to drive smarter marketing. Additionally, with the Adobe Experience Cloud integration, Adobe users can tap into Madison Logic’s powerful intent data to personalize and optimize their owned media channels—ensuring every touchpoint is relevant and timely. 

Armed with this information, ML Measurement capabilities allow marketers to efficiently view the key data insights they need to make real-time optimizations to shorten their sales pipeline and speed up conversions. It’s no longer about “What could we have done?” but “What can we do right now to improve performance?” The shift in this mentality can be contagious and help your marketing team exponentially increase the number of accounts and new customers you’re receiving while improving the functionality of your entire pipeline. 

If you want to learn how Madison Logic’s services can help you achieve a comprehensive view of pipeline activity and account engagement to boost sales while trimming your bottom line, request your demo today.