Scrappy ABM

Building an effective account-based program brings up a lot of specific questions. On this episode of Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby answers the most frequent questions pulled directly from previous ABM in a Day workshops. Mason addresses exactly what re-engagement means and when accounts should cycle out of your program.

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Mason details the minimum viable tools required to run a successful strategy. He warns against buying new software before establishing a clear plan. Instead, he explains how your strategy should inform the tools you use. You only really need a CRM, a marketing automation platform, and a sales outreach tool.

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The conversation also addresses the common conflict between outbound sales outreach and marketing automation sequences. Mason explains how to turn sales into a distribution channel. This ensures target accounts get the same message across multiple channels, making your overall outreach more intentional.

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📌 What We Cover

• How the re-engagement stage targets accounts that received an offer but decided not to purchase right now.
• Why accounts that refuse to engage should cycle off your program to make room for higher propensity accounts.
• The importance of naming marketing plays clearly so salespeople understand them without needing to do research.
• The three minimum viable tools needed for success: a CRM, a marketing automation platform, and a sales outreach system.
• How to use exclusion lists to ensure target accounts receive specific, curated experiences instead of generalized marketing.
• Why identifying the exact problem your customers experience before they need your solution generates meaningful engagement.
• How small total addressable markets make account-based marketing the most logical solution for vertical SaaS companies.
• Why sending the same messaging through marketing automation and BDR outreach is highly effective for engagement.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• ABM in a Day Workshop: scrappyabm.com/workshop
• Tools mentioned: Factors, RB2B, Marketo
• People mentioned: Dr. Brené Brown
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Account-based marketing does not strictly require massive budgets or gated landing pages. Sometimes, all it takes is showing up where your target accounts already spend their time online. On this episode of Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby speaks with Greg Rokisky about a highly specific, low-cost marketing play.

Greg details the process of building an organic social account program during his time at Sprout Social. He explains how his team partnered closely with sales to identify target accounts and monitor their activity. When a target brand had a viral moment, Greg's team engaged directly on platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.

This strategy created a "bouncy trampoline" effect. Social engagement became a jumping-off point that account executives could use for warmer outreach. Greg and Mason also discuss how to make one-to-one video content that still works for a broader audience, and how to measure the revenue return of simple online interactions.

Greg Rokisky serves as the Senior Social Media Marketing Manager at Calendly, a scheduling automation platform designed to eliminate the back-and-forth of booking meetings. Prior to Calendly, Greg worked as a Senior Social Media Strategist at Sprout Social, where he led campaigns and built out the organic programs discussed in this episode.

Greg is a strong advocate for a social-first customer journey and the creator economy. He focuses on inclusive, human-centered storytelling. You can connect with Greg Rokisky on LinkedIn to see more of his content.

• How Greg transitioned from standard social media management to pioneering a target account program.
• The process of creating a "bouncy trampoline" for sales by engaging with quick-service restaurant brands on social channels.
• Using organic comments as a direct handoff to account executives for warmer outbound messaging.
• Building one-to-one content that remains valuable for a one-to-many public audience.
• Tracking success through a pilot program and moving toward a custom W-model attribution strategy.
• Connecting online interactions to in-person events like Dreamforce and South by Southwest.
• The missed opportunity of not tying the B2B creator economy into the account strategy from day one.

• Sprout Social
• Sales Assembly
• Dreamforce
• South by Southwest
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies. (Link ScrappyABM.com)
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM (Link Mason's LinkedIn)

If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Roughly 80% of ABM programs fail. The main reason is that companies start by targeting accounts that have never heard of them. It takes three to six months for your brand to even be remembered. By that time, the program has usually been killed. Welcome to Scrappy ABM. Host Mason Cosby breaks down exactly where you should build your target account list to nearly guarantee a win.

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If you focus on a completely net new audience, you are setting yourself up for a long wait. It can take anywhere from 3 to 24 months for those accounts to enter the pipeline. Mason explains why starting with people who already know you exist gives you the best potential for success. You already have a sheer amount of data on these accounts, making it easier to measure success.

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We explore the four core places to look for these target accounts: website traffic, closed lost opportunities, your active sales pipeline, and your current customer base. By focusing on these engaged audiences, you can shorten sales cycles and directly address past objections. This approach builds trust and helps you secure buy-in before you go after cold prospects.

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📌 What We Cover

1. Why targeting completely cold accounts causes most ABM programs to fail early.
2. Using website traffic to identify highly engaged people who visit your pricing page or view your webinars.
3. Building specific programming to overcome past objections in your closed lost opportunities.
4. Starting a small pilot program with one to three sales reps to shorten a 6 to 18-month sales cycle.
5. Mapping out a customer journey to find expansion dollars within your current customer base.
6. Defining a real ABM program as a B2B revenue strategy that aligns marketing, sales, and customer success.
7. Measuring success on a data set of best-fit customers rather than guessing with unknown accounts.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. Scrappy ABM Newsletter: Subscribe to get playbooks every single week at scrappyabm.com/newsletter.
2. Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
3. Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Struggling to get buy-in for your ABM program budget? Securing hundreds of thousands of dollars for marketing initiatives requires a specific, structured process. In this episode of Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby walks through the exact four steps for building ABM programs and getting leaders on board quickly.

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Instead of asking for a budget right away, marketers must first audit their current efforts. Mason Cosby explains how to map out everything from SEO to organic social events. He breaks down how to categorize these programs by their intended purpose to create your first account progression model.

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This model guides accounts from initial awareness straight to buying readiness. By identifying specific gaps and presenting a clear plan first, you can ask leadership for help solving large initiatives rather than just asking for dollars. You will learn how to complete this entire mapping process and secure the resources you need in under an hour.

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📌 What We Cover

1. Write down everything you are currently doing from a marketing perspective, including SEO and paid media.
2. Categorizing existing programs by their purpose to build your first account progression model.
3. Mapping tactical details using the four D framework: data, distribution, destination, and direction.
4. Answering the six critical questions for every single playbook at every stage of your program.
5. Moving from repurposing current content to building new assets to fill specific gaps.
6. Asking leadership for help solving a problem rather than directly asking for a general ABM budget.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. ABM Planning Template: Visit scrappyabm.com/plan to get a full program mapped out in about an hour.
2. Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
3. Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Most ABM programs fail not because they have a bad strategy, but because they execute in the wrong sequence. Marketers often start with a blank canvas and build strictly at the awareness stage for cold accounts. Brand recall typically takes three to six months. Because of this timeline delay, executive leadership often cuts the program before it generates any actual pipeline.

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On Scrappy ABM, Mason Cosby explains why mathematically paying off debt with the Avalanche method is the fastest, but the Snowball method is actually the most successful. The Snowball method works because human psychology requires momentum and early wins. Mason applies this exact logic to scaling an ABM program long-term.

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Instead of starting at the top with unaware buyers, Mason recommends starting with audiences that already know your brand. By focusing on Closed-Lost opportunities, customer win-back programs, or pipeline acceleration, you can skip the three to six months of brand recall. You get a quick win, prove that coordinated sales and marketing efforts work, and secure the momentum needed to build out the rest of the strategy.

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📌 What We Cover

1. Why starting your ABM program at the awareness stage often leads to the program getting cut.
2. How the psychology of the Debt Snowball method applies to securing early wins and generating pipeline.
3. Targeting known audiences first: Closed-Lost, win-back programs, referrals, and pipeline acceleration.
4. Using a conversion mechanism to offer a free one-to-one audit process that highlights the gap in a prospect's current state.
5. Validating your conversion mechanism with a highly targeted cohort of 30 to 50 right-fit accounts.
6. Building consistent feeder programs, like webinars, podcasts, or email nurtures, to build trust and drive opt-ins.
7. Scaling back up to the awareness stage only after validating the bottom-of-the-funnel steps.
8. A breakdown of a cybersecurity client progressing accounts from an automated assessment to a one-to-one consult.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. Actionable Tactical Playbooks: scrappyabm.com/newsletter
2. Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies
3. Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Buyers are not searching Google keywords in the dark funnel anymore. They are asking questions in private channels, large-language-model communities, Perplexity, and Slack communities. In episode 259 of Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby sits down with Lisa Sharapata to discuss this exact shift in buyer behavior.

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Lisa shares how she is rewriting marketing playbooks by getting closer to the customer through first and second-party intent signals, in-person events, and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). She explains how to use artificial intelligence to find content gaps, draft resources with human-in-the-loop oversight, and build highly specific dashboards using Claude code.

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Mason Cosby and Lisa also discuss why turning off your brand advertising is a mistake and how a strong partnership with sales is strictly required for any account-based marketing program to survive.

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👤 Guest Bio

Lisa Sharapata is the VP of AI and GTM Strategy at Metadata and the Founder of 4Profit GTM. With over 20 years of experience turning marketing into a revenue engine, Lisa specializes in building and aligning go-to-market systems. She previously built the marketing function from scratch at The Arbinger Institute and led GTM transformations at BoostUp.ai and Mindtickle.

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Today, she focuses on Answer Engine Optimization and agentic workflows to help B2B leaders scale. Connect with Lisa Sharapata on LinkedIn to join her free weekly AI Exchange on Fridays.

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📌 What We Cover

1. How buyer behavior has shifted from traditional search to private channels and large language models.
2. Ways to prioritize go-to-market signals without boiling the ocean.
3. Using Meta Match technology to reach B2B buyers on personal platforms like Instagram.
4. Building an Answer Engine Optimization strategy to rank higher in LLMs against competitors.
5. Creating an agentic workflow to automatically identify content gaps, generate drafts, and stage posts.
6. Re-imagining attribution and reporting by pulling CRM and advertising data into custom Claude dashboards.
7. Why in-person dinners and events remain the ultimate relationship accelerators.
8. The dangers of turning off brand spending and how it immediately drops demo request volume.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. Metadata
2. Air Ops
3. Claude
4. HubSpot
5. Perplexity
6. Gong
7. Lisa Sharapata's LinkedIn
8. Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies
9. Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

If you are not hitting your pipeline goals, you might be ignoring the easiest way to generate revenue: a systematic referral program. Mason Cosby argues that most organizations leave millions of dollars on the table simply because they do not know how to ask for referrals effectively.

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Many revenue leaders fall into the trap of thinking referrals are serendipitous or awkward to request. In this episode of Scrappy ABM, Mason breaks down a repeatable process to turn referrals into a scalable revenue engine. He explains exactly when to make the ask, how to structure incentives so everyone wins, and why even offboarding can be a prime opportunity for growth.

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What We Cover

1. The three common referral camps: Why most companies either never ask, only get referrals by accident, or rely on a single salesperson to do all the work.
2. The "Wingman Referral" concept: How to structure incentives (inspired by Acquisition.com) that reward both the person making the referral and the new prospect.
3. Asking at the close: Why new customers are actually the best source of referrals immediately after they sign the contract.
4. Leveraging QBRs: Using Quarterly Business Reviews to remind happy clients about referral incentives with a one-time invoice discount.
5. Monetizing offboarding: A strategy to waive final invoices in exchange for introductions when a client leaves due to budget cuts.
6. The economics of referrals: How to calculate the right incentive amount based on your existing Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).
7. Target Account Mapping: Moving away from generic "who do you know" questions to asking for specific introductions within your target market.

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Resources

1. Acquisition.com: The source of the "Wingman Referral" concept mentioned by Mason.
2. Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
3. Connect with Mason: Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

If you are struggling to make your revenue results highly repeatable, you need a simple system to ensure you cover all your bases. In this episode of Scrappy ABM, Mason Cosby walks through the "4D framework" that has helped generate a hundred million in revenue over the past three years.

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Mason breaks down the four critical components of every successful program: Data, Distribution, Destination, and Direction. He explains why simply sending mass emails to a database fails to create nuanced messaging and how to align your outreach triggers with the right people. You will learn why the standard "book a call" page is often the wrong destination for prospects and how to measure success based on where a buyer actually sits in their journey.

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📌 What We Cover

1. The 4D framework: Data, Distribution, Destination, and Direction
2. Defining Data: Identifying your target list and the specific reasons for reaching out
3. How to create personalized messaging using triggers rather than mass blasts
4. Categorizing Distribution: Direct channels (email, phone) vs. Indirect channels (ads, events)
5. Destination strategy: Matching your landing page content to the prospect's problem or product interest
6. Why "book a call" is not always the right call to action
7. Direction: Aligning your measurement of success (engagement vs. meetings) with the goal of the channel

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. Download the Program Template (ScrappyABM.com/plan)
2. Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
3. Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Mason Cosby shares a webinar on finding a treasure trove of opportunities in closed-lost programs. If you are looking for a quick way to generate a pipeline right now, this is it. You have already spent money to acquire these accounts, built relationships, and uncovered real pain. Mason explains why 60 to 80 percent of closed-lost opportunities are lost for reasons that can change: budget, timing, and priorities.

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This episode breaks down the 4 D framework: Data, Distribution, Destination, and Direction. Mason outlines a systematic approach to re-engagement rather than just reaching out when the pipeline is low. He walks through specific playbooks designed to address industry changes, overcome past objections, and engage missing personas in the buying committee.

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What We Cover

1. Defining ABM as a Revenue Strategy: Aligning marketing, sales, and customer success around shared target accounts that reflect your best customers.
2. Why ABM Programs Fail: How a lack of sales marketing alignment, measurement difficulties, and undefined ownership stall progress.
3. The 4D Framework: Using Data (targets and triggers), Distribution (channels), Destination (content), and Direction (measurement) to build repeatable processes.
4. Vertical Specific Playbooks: Reactivating deals by addressing industry changes—like tariffs or regulations—that impact your target accounts.
5. Objection-Based Playbooks: Creating campaigns that directly address and diffuse reasons for saying no, such as pricing, missing features, or status quo.
6. Persona-Based Playbooks: Identifying deal cycles where key decision makers were missing or single-threaded, and re-engaging with a multi-threaded approach.
7. Roles in Distribution: Why the Account Executive should lead outreach to known contacts while SDRs and Executives support with new contacts and alignment.

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Resources Mentioned

1. Scrappy ABM Plan Template
2. ABM in a Day Workshop
3. Fathom
4. HubSpot
5. LinkedIn

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Resources:

Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.

Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM: Mason Cosby

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Mason Cosby connects with Putney Cloos, the Chief Marketing Officer at Bombora, to clarify exactly what intent data is and how revenue teams should use it. While many marketers view intent data strictly as a tool for sales prioritization, Putney argues that the use cases go much deeper. She explains the difference between first-party data collected from owned properties and third-party data gathered from across the web.

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A major focus of the conversation is data provenance. Putney highlights a critical but often overlooked question: Does your data provider actually have the right to use the data they sell? She details how Bombora uses a proprietary tag within a data co-op to ensure consent is explicitly granted for intent tracking.

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Mason and Putney also explore how to operationalize this data without buying a massive, all-in-one platform. They discuss the "unbundled" ABM stack, where data is ported directly into the tools teams already use, such as CRMs, CDPs, or advertising platforms like The Trade Desk and LinkedIn.

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Guest Bio

Putney Cloos is the Chief Marketing Officer at Bombora, where she leads marketing and communications to expand the company's "Data Co-op" and intent data solutions. She previously served as CMO at Cision, where she built the company's first account-level data strategy. Putney also spent nearly a decade at American Express, rising to Vice President of Commercial Demand Generation and creating Amex's first commercial demand-generation and ABM capabilities. She holds an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

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What We Cover

1. Defining intent data: Putney clarifies that intent is behavioral data showing when a company is actively researching a solution, distinct from static firmographic data.
2. First-party vs. third-party signals: The difference between tracking known visitors on your own site versus capturing research behaviors across the broader B2B internet.
3. The importance of data rights: Why marketers must ask if their provider has explicit consent to use data for intent purposes, rather than relying on repurposed bidstream data.
4. Reducing customer churn: How customer success teams use intent signals to spot when current clients start researching competitors before the renewal conversation happens.
5. Informing the product roadmap: Using search behavior to identify unmet market needs or features that prospects are actively seeking.
6. The unbundled tech stack: How to deploy intent data directly into existing platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, or programmatic ad exchanges without needing a standalone ABM platform.
7. Start simple: Putney's advice to pick one specific use case—like sales prioritization—and master it before adding complexity.

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Resources

1. Bombora
2. Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
3. Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!