The ABM Funnel That Works in Practice, Not Just in Theory

Nobody seems to agree on what a “good” ABM funnel should look like.

Online, you’ll find countless experts touting their frameworks, each claiming to be the secret sauce for success.

But in reality, whether your funnel is shaped like a triangle, a rectangle, or a kazoo, the goal remains the same—structure your efforts to build a clear path from awareness to expansion.

We’re going to walk you through how we handle our ABM funnel in practice, and hopefully, you’ll pick up some ideas on how to refine—or even reinvent—your own ABM funnel for maximum impact.

But first…

The simple answer is yes and no.

At its core, any of these funnels are created to convert and retain customers, but a truly successful ABM funnel stands out in two key ways:

First, you’re targeting specific accounts with outbound. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping to snag a few fish, you’re focusing on a specific group of big fish.

Within the ABM funnel, you’re working to close a group of high-value accounts, engaging them directly. That means every stage of the funnel is tailored to the priorities and needs of those accounts.

For us at Influ2, this also includes targeting specific people within accounts using contact-level advertising.

Second, Sales and Marketing are aligned. In a traditional funnel, Marketing might hand off leads to Sales once they hit MQL status, then step aside.

With ABM, both Sales and Marketing work in lockstep from start to finish—sharing insights, collaborating on outreach, and nurturing specific accounts as a unified force.

Essentially, the ABM funnel acts as a roadmap that shows how a prospect flows from the initial awareness to closed-won (and beyond). 

Each stage outlines what your team can do—from targeted ads to hyper-personalized outreach—to move prospects forward.

Our take? 

Forget the standard “funnel” shapes and adopt the bow-tie model: where sales and marketing work together to not just close a deal, but turn those deals into the kind of long-term relationships that fuel sustainable growth.

At Influ2, we divide our ABM funnel into four core stages. But these stages aren’t isolated checkpoints—they’re just bends in the river where a customer’s journey is consistently flowing.

When we look at the customer journey as a whole, we can create an adapted ABM funnel that keeps everyone aligned on how prospects progress from one stage to the next, what actions to take at each stage, and why those actions matter.

We’re going to walk you through how we handle each phase in practice.

At step one, the team has already done the heavy lifting of creating an ideal customer profile, researching potential customers, and building a pool of target accounts.

So, we enter the funnel view with a list of priority accounts that Sales wants to reach out to, but hasn’t yet. 

Oftentimes, these accounts are marked priority due to third-party intent data from ABM platforms. The problem is the data is often at the account level, so you don’t know exactly who the signals came from. It could be a high-level exec your sales team wants to talk to, or an intern doing some research. 

We use contact-level ads to warm up the specific people within the account that Sales wants to reach.

What Marketing does at this stage:

• Warms up strategic accounts: The ABM team launches targeted ads to specific people within each account (with Influ2), focusing on content that addresses their main challenges or piques their interest in the solution.
• Shares engagement data with Sales: Marketing monitors intent data, like ad clicks, site visits, and other engagement signals. When someone shows intent, they get flagged for the sales team to know exactly who’s warmed up.
• Builds initial awareness: Seeing your brand is key to warming up a cold lead. It’s Marketing’s job to get the brand out there, so prospects recognize who you are and what you do—making that first call or email feel less “cold.”

What Sales does at this stage:

• Prepares for outreach: Sales can focus on prioritizing accounts, researching potential pain points, and gathering relevant success stories or case studies to use in conversations.
• Keeps tabs on engagement: Your sales team can keep an eye on what Marketing is sharing about who’s clicking ads or visiting your website. Those signals help you prioritize which contacts are ready for direct outreach.
• Does some initial warm-up of the buying group: Soft introductions—like a connection request on LinkedIn or engaging with something they posted online—can help put your name on their radar and support Marketing’s efforts to build a foundation of awareness and trust.

Our secret weapon? Contact-level advertising. Instead of blasting ads to entire accounts, we can show content to specific decision-makers and influencers within a company. 

At this stage, we’ll target the buying group with content that builds awareness and trust, highlighting pain points and solutions to people who have likely never heard of our product.

Influ2 also tracks exactly who clicks or engages with these ads, so Marketing can tell Sales (via automated messages in Slack, email, or even your CRM) that John from XYZ Inc. just checked out three ads on ROI improvements. That way, when a sales rep reaches out, they already know who is interested and what resonated with them the most.

You’ve spent some time targeting your lead pool with relevant messages, which is basically like using a blow torch on a frozen pool. Now, that layer of ice at the top has started to melt, and the leads are getting warmer.

Decision-makers in your target account pool have seen your ads, might’ve connected with your sales team on LinkedIn, and are now aware of your product. But, you’re still in their peripherals. This stage is all about building the conversation.

Here’s how we do it at Influ2:

What Sales does at this stage:

• Prioritizes warmed-up contacts: Sales may have already begun outreach by this point. However, the intent signals from the warm-up stage give them a more efficient way to prioritize their lists. Instead of reaching out at random, they can start with contacts who have shown intent (i.e., engaged with ads) and work down from there.
• Creates manual outreach: For higher-value accounts or more complex deals, the sales team creates personalized outreach to shift their prospects from casual awareness to meaningful dialogue. This could be through emails, LinkedIn messages, or phone calls.
• Works through a clear follow-up strategy: Once the conversation is started, it’s time to keep it going. The goal here is to set meetings and uncover opportunities, so sales reps work their magic to turn interest into pipeline.

What Marketing does at this stage:

• Provides digital air cover: While Sales is sending emails and making calls, Marketing supports them with targeted ads. If you’re using Influ2, your marketing team can target the same decision-makers as your sales reps, and increase the chances of them booking a meeting.
• Aligns with SDR outreach: Marketing builds ads that echo the messaging used by Sales. That way, prospects see consistent, relevant content—both in their inbox and across the web (a.k.a. ABM orchestration).
• Adapts based on engagement: If prospects reply to emails, click ads, or respond to calls, Marketing can shift them to the next stage of their ad journey. If they go silent, Marketing might launch a specific campaign to help bring your company back to the top of their mind.

With contact-level ads, we can personalize the journey and shift the messaging based on the actions each person takes.

For example, when a contact’s status changes to “reaching out” in our CRM, we can add those contacts to a campaign featuring their SDR’s face or messaging. This “putting a face to the name” approach often nudges prospects who’ve been ignoring email sequences to take a second look.

And if a prospect stops responding to our sales team? We might shift them to a more urgent ad journey, saying something like “Hi, am I getting lost in your inbox?” to reignite interest.

Once the prospect books a meeting, their status is updated in the CRM. Then, they’re ready to move into a new campaign designed for the next stage of the funnel.

Casual awareness has now blossomed into real, proven interest and an open conversation with your sales team. Congrats! 

Now comes the real work.

At this point, your team is now actively working deals that can take months to close, especially if you’re dealing with enterprise sales. The challenge—keep that momentum going without overwhelming your prospects.

Here’s what our sales and marketing teams do at this stage of the ABM funnel:

What Sales does at this stage:

• Performs follow-ups and hosts discovery meetings: Now is when Sales ramps up communication with all relevant stakeholders. Those meetings the team booked? It’s time to host them. Sales reps take the time to ask questions that dig into each prospect’s specific needs and make sure your product is the right fit. During this process, SDRs hand over high-value prospects to AEs, who will continue to work with them until the deal is closed.
• Works through demos and negotiations: AEs now take over to show prospects the wonders of the product, creating tailored demos and answering questions and concerns. As negotiations progress, these reps will provide relevant ROI data, pricing options, or case studies that speak to their unique situation.
• Manages multiple stakeholders: Enterprise deals often involve a buying committee, including finance, IT, legal, and other department leads. Sales coordinates with each stakeholder, ensuring everyone’s concerns are heard and addressed.

What Marketing does at this stage:

• Provides ongoing air cover for specific stakeholders: Now that prospects are in the deal cycle, Marketing can move beyond generic brand awareness and show targeted ads that address each stakeholder’s concerns. For example, if Finance is part of the buying group, we could serve them ROI or cost-saving content. If the IT team is involved, we might highlight security and integration capabilities.
• Nurtures non-decision-makers: Not everyone in the account has a direct say in purchase decisions, but they may be valuable influencers. For example, at Influ2, we target marketers, but sales teams reap the benefits of our product as well, even if they aren’t direct users (they use the intent signals provided by marketing). So, we may run educational or trust-building campaigns to help get their buy-in early on.
• Provides trust content and industry proof: Marketing works to create case studies, testimonials, and other content that the sales team can use to nudge stakeholders toward a final decision. We also use contact-level ads to show how others have used the product successfully—especially in similar use cases.

Inside the deal cycle, there are plenty of moments where a well-timed ad can help bring our company back to mind for stakeholders.

For example, as soon as a prospect enters the “Meeting Booked” stage in the CRM, we might trigger ads that remind them about the upcoming meeting and encourage them to show up.

We also use trust-building content featuring third-party reviews, case studies, or playbooks that showcase exactly how other similar customers have succeeded with our product.

This is often the longest stage of the ABM funnel, and your team will spend time refining the actions they take while deals move forward. But after all that effort comes the reward: a signed contract and a brand-new deal.

Oh, did you think we were done?

Actually, you could say we’re just getting started—this last stage of the ABM funnel can last as long as this new customer’s lifetime.

Now that you’ve closed the deal, you want to make sure they fully adopt your product and, ideally, expand their usage over time. 

This is where a strong collaboration between Sales, Customer Success (CS), and Marketing can keep that momentum going.

What Sales and CS do at this stage:

• Create a smooth handoff: Once the contract is signed, the sales team transitions the account to Customer Success. The customer’s assigned CSM gets introduced early on, making sure their first experiences are smooth and helpful.
• Work toward onboarding and adoption: It’s the job of the CSM to guide the onboarding experience—answering questions, providing training, and highlighting best practices. If the customer faces obstacles, the CS team addresses them before they grow into bigger issues. The goal here—set this new customer up for success.
• Look for opportunities to upsell or cross-sell: As the customer settles into using the product, the sales team (often in tandem with CS) can propose additional features, modules, or products that fit the customer’s evolving needs.

What Marketing does at this stage:

• Showcase “getting started” materials: Marketing has probably already created plenty of content to help new customers get started. At this stage, the team may serve targeted ads featuring this content—from playbooks to step-by-step guides on how to successfully adopt the product into their workflow.
• Promote new features or upgrades: If there’s a new product release or upgraded plan, Marketing can run ads or show in-product messaging to existing customers demonstrating how those new features can bring them even more value.
• Keep trust content flowing: Content that builds trust literally never goes out of style. It’s valuable for every stage of the ABM funnel, including the post-sales stage. You can use testimonials, reviews, or success metrics from customers who have expanded their usage to reinforce adoption and encourage new users to explore more of what you offer.

Whenever we roll out a major update here at Influ2, we target existing customers with ad creatives that highlight what’s new.

Meanwhile, CSMs can see who’s engaging with these ads, helping them prioritize follow-ups for those who seem most interested.

On the other hand, if usage data shows a customer isn’t getting the most out of the product, we might launch a campaign that features their dedicated CSM, inviting them to schedule a call or explore training materials.

As you and your customer ride off into the sunset at this final stage of the ABM funnel, the goal isn’t just to retain them—it’s to help them maximize the value they get from your product. This leads to higher satisfaction, more expansion opportunities, and a deeper, more profitable relationship.

At the end of the day, the main reason to create and follow an ABM funnel is simple: convert and retain more customers.

But there’s a bonus benefit.

When both Sales and Marketing know exactly where they fit into each stage, they can support each other seamlessly. For our own team, that has meant fewer dropped prospects, fewer wasted hours, and more deals moving through the pipeline.

Boosting collaboration and driving a higher-value pipeline? Yes, please.

Of course, all of this would never be possible without our secret sauce—Influ2. We’ve shown you some ways we use our own product throughout the ABM funnel, and we have even more here. But now it’s your turn to give it a spin.

Sign up for a demo now to see how contact-level advertising can bring your ABM funnel to life.