In partnership with
We've already vetted your next marketing agency
Vendry runs the agency search for you:
✅ 4,000+ vetted agencies, every channel and specialty
✅ Matched to budget and goals, no generic lists
✅ Your shortlist in about <7 days
✅ $0 for brands, no fees, no markups
✅ Trusted by Shopify, Coca-Cola, Columbia Records, Burt's Bees
This week, our ABM team kicked off our first real ABM pilot at Sphera, partnering with one of our industry demand gen teams and a group of Strategic Account Managers.
The goal isn't just to run a good campaign. It's to build a repeatable process for how marketing and sales work together on high-priority accounts, one we can carry into 2027 and roll out to every strategic account and AE team we have.
Most people, when they hear "ABM pilot," think the hard part is the account list. Get the right accounts, build the right tiers, ship the right content, and the pilot succeeds.
That's the wrong problem to solve first.
The account list is not the anchor
We do have a list — 50 accounts we've identified as best-fit for a cross-sell initiative. That part matters. But it's not what's going to make this pilot work.
What's going to make it work is that the pilot is anchored to something real: a product launch this fall, for a product that's had limited market awareness for years. That launch, paired with other channel activations, is supposed to drive real pipeline and revenue. It's not a marketing initiative looking for a business reason. It's a business reason that needed a collaborative sales and marketing motion.
That distinction is the whole story.
How to tell if you have a real anchor
A pilot with a real anchor looks different from a pilot built on a good idea. Three things separate them:
A defined business outcome already tied to revenue. Not "increase engagement" or "build pipeline." A specific initiative, a launch, vertical expansion, a category shift, that finance and sales leadership already track.
Executive alignment that exists before marketing shows up. Not a kickoff deck asking a sales leader to get on board. Alignment that's already there.
Accounts selected against the anchor, not just your ICP. Our 50 accounts weren't chosen because they fit a generic profile. They were chosen because they're the best fits for this specific cross-sell motion.
If you can't point to all three, you don't have an ABM pilot yet. You have a marketing project waiting for a business reason to attach itself to.
The proof is in who's already talking about it
The GVP of the sales team we're piloting with didn't need convincing. He was already aligned with the strategy and the product focus before we brought the pilot to him.
This week, he said the quiet part out loud a few times. Including how he’s been communicating with our ELT team about this motion as one of his big pipeline drivers for the rest of the year.
He also said something that stuck with me: "this type of motion is what the board cares about.”
That's not a sales leader agreeing to support a pilot. That's a sales leader who was already selling it internally before marketing arrived.
Why this is the actual selection criteria
We didn't choose this team, this product, or this account list because it was the easiest pilot to run. We chose it because there was a clear business objective, and the alignment was already top-down. If this works, and we're building the process assuming it will, it's repeatable specifically because sales leadership already believes in the motion, not because we convinced them to believe in ABM.
That's the piece most first-time ABM programs get backwards. They try to prove ABM works so leadership will care. We picked the place leadership already cared, and let that prove ABM works.
If you're choosing your first ABM pilot, or trying to figure out where to start: what's your anchor? Is there a leader in your business who's already talking about a specific initiative to their boss, or to the board?
Reply and tell me what it is, that's probably where your pilot should start.
What did you think about this week's newsletter?
