Three tiers of account investment. Three buying-committee lenses. One operating cadence. This is the ABM framework Chris Salazar delivered live at B2BMX West to a room of B2B CMOs. Free to read. Meant to be run.
→ Delivered at B2BMX West · IG's proprietary methodology
Every B2B agency selling "Performance ABM" runs the same three-bucket menu: 1:1, 1:Few, 1:Many. The buckets are correct. The failure mode is what happens between them.
Programs that spend all their money at the peak (1:1 custom microsites for ten accounts nobody has heard of you) collapse because the target buyers do not have enough brand context to trust the personalization when it lands. Programs that spend all their money at the base (1:Many programmatic on 500 accounts) collapse because no single account moves.
The Pyramid works because it forces three-tier investment in parallel. Base warmth so the middle tier lands. Middle-tier cluster campaigns so the peak converts. Peak intimacy on the ten accounts that produce the biggest ROI. Same 90-day cycle. Same operating cadence. Different investment shape at each tier.
You don't pick a tier. You run all three concurrently.
The metaphor is not accidental. A balanced diet gives you protein, carbs, and vegetables in the right ratios. A balanced ABM program gives your target list depth, scale, and reach in the right ratios. Fads (all protein, all carbs, all cardio) fail the same way in both.
Extreme personalization on your premium accounts. This is where the biggest ROI per account lives.
Account clusters that share a real, present-tense characteristic. Not shared industry code. Shared shared reality.
Content syndication, display, LinkedIn, programmatic retargeting. Keeps the brand top of mind so 1:Few and 1:1 land warm.
Without an AI-powered creative and media foundation, even the best demand gen falls flat. This is BrandGen — brand-grade content and media that gives the pyramid its narrative shape.
Enterprise B2B decisions rarely have one buyer. They have a committee. On a Fortune 500 target account the committee can be 25 to 100+ stakeholders. Each seat rates the program on a different axis. The Pyramid ships persona-differentiated selling into every tier because each buyer at the table judges the same marketing on a different axis.
The CFO reads the top of the pyramid first. Efficiency and ROI. High-impact spend on conversion-ready accounts. Clear marketing attribution. Predictable long-term growth. The 1:1 tier is what the CFO signs off on because it's the tier where dollars-per-account is legible.
The VP Marketing lives in the middle tier day to day. Precision and scale. Personalized engagement at scale. Reduced spend on unqualified leads. Brand positioning strengthened through thought leadership. This is where the operating story of "the marketing works" gets told inside the client's own boardroom.
The CTO evaluates the base. Data-driven and AI-powered. AI and automation enhancing outreach. Marketing data connecting to sales without overloading internal teams. The 1:Many programmatic scale is the signal layer that makes the whole pyramid computable.
No 90-day discovery. No pre-strategy PowerPoint. Six weeks from cold list to the 1:1 tier running.
Every named account gets scored on fit, intent signal, buying-committee coverage, and engagement history. First 30 accounts named. Cluster criteria set for 1:Few. Operating cadence agreed.
Content syndication live across the 1:Many base. Display and LinkedIn retargeting hooked into intent signals. 1:Few cluster campaigns launched with vertical-specific thought leadership. First measurable touch attribution.
Custom microsites live for the top 5-15. Executive concierge outreach begins. Buying-committee stakeholder maps drafted. VIP-format events pencilled in for the following quarter.
Fractional CMO chair holds the cadence. Monthly buying-committee coverage review. Quarterly account-tier promotion (a warmed 1:Few account moves up to 1:1). Yearly reset of the target list against pyramid fit.
The methodology is portable. Six-sense, Demandbase, Terminus, HubSpot — the Pyramid overlays any stack. IG runs its clients inside Next-Best Action, our proprietary agentic marketing platform, because that's where we get the fastest activation and the tightest attribution.
The Fractional 360 CMO seat holds the operating cadence week over week. The seat is what turns the methodology into a rhythm. Without the seat, ABM programs default back to "campaign season" instead of continuous account motion.
Pricing sits at two tiers: $12,500/mo for ABM Lite (1:Few + 1:Many + BrandGen), $25,000+/mo for full-pyramid programs (all three tiers plus BrandGen and executive concierge). Every engagement includes the Fractional CMO chair. See the ABX page for the full engagement shape.
Send us your target account list. We'll come back with a Pyramid-shaped activation plan: which accounts get 1:1, which cluster, which sit in the 1:Many base. Free. No deck.
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