Everyone’s talking about ABM and Demand Gen converging, and they’re not wrong, but the naming isn’t right; because what they’re really describing is Demand Gen becoming Growth ABM: a scalable, tiered, account-based methodology applied to your entire target list. The problem? Most companies try to “converge” without adding capacity or changing structure. That’s not convergence. That’s just more work for the same people.
Why “blended models” fail
The conversation about convergence assumes you can just align the teams and share a list, but alignment without capacity discipline collapses under its own weight.
I remember being at an event with a VP of Marketing at a Series C SaaS company in late 2023 who was sharing her experience. They launched their “converged” model in Q1. By Q3, the ABM manager had quit, the integrated campaigns team was underwater, and the CRO had stopped looking at marketing’s account lists. What went wrong wasn’t the strategy—it was the structure. They tried to run two models with one model’s worth of capacity.
Here’s what the collapse looked like in real time:
The ABM manager, who was hired to run strategic plays, got pulled into campaign support. Someone needed personalized emails for a product launch. Someone needed account-specific landing pages for the demand gen team’s next push. Strategic work got deprioritized because urgent always wins.
The integrated campaigns team tried to personalize at scale without tiering logic, because every account felt important, so they tried to customize messaging for all of them. No one had time to do it well. Personalization became surface-level—first name, company name, maybe industry—and stopped mattering.
Sales got conflicting messages because no one decided who owned which accounts, and Marketing sent a generic nurture email the same day the ABM manager teed up highly contextualized outreach. The rep didn’t know which message to reference. The prospect was confused. Trust eroded.
Everyone was busy. Nothing moved.
The problem wasn’t the people. It was the structure. You can’t run two models with one model’s worth of capacity and expect it to work. Convergence sounds like efficiency. It usually creates drag.
Growth ABM is what convergence looks like
Growth ABM isn’t a rebrand. It’s account-based thinking applied to your entire addressable market, not just your top 50 accounts. The “growth” piece isn’t about revenue scale—it’s about expanding ABM discipline across your full target list with clear rules about where you invest.
The structure:
1:Many model covering your entire target account list.
Three tiers dictate personalization depth and resource allocation:
- Tier 1: 3-8 accounts per practitioner, highest GTM priority
- Tier 2: 15-25 accounts, moderate personalization
- Tier 3: 50-100 accounts, scaled tactics
This isn’t “ABM lite.” It’s account-based methodology at every tier, with capacity designed into the model from the start.
This is how Growth ABM works in real life
Jen Leaver, Senior Director of Demand Gen at Rithum, runs what most people would call a “converged” model. But what she’s built is Growth ABM, and it works because she structured capacity according to account priority before she tried to scale.
Tiering structure:
Strategic accounts: one-to-one, handled by her ABM manager.
Enterprise accounts (A/B/C/D grades): tiered coverage. Sales doubles down on A and B accounts. Marketing provides air cover for all.
She didn’t “align” teams. She structured capacity.
The forcing function:
The Pipeline Council meets twice per quarter. This isn’t a status check. It’s a capacity allocation meeting with sales leadership, RevOps, marketing ops, field marketing, and product marketing.
They decide:
- Where are the pipeline gaps?
- What plays are viable given budget, timing, resources, product readiness?
- Which accounts move up or down in priority?
Then, they form tiger teams to execute specific initiatives, and the council forces the question: can we do this, or are we just adding it to the list?
Dedicated roles with clear swim lanes:
- Integrated campaigns manager: stage-based campaigns, scaled execution
- ABM manager: coordinated sales plays, strategic accounts
- Partner and customer marketing: expansion and ecosystem plays
They’re not “blended.” They’re structured. The integrated campaigns team uses an account-based methodology—stage-based targeting, tiering, intent layering. The ABM manager works strategic plays. They sit under one leader (Jen), but they don’t do the same job.
Measurement shift:
Jen’s CMO cares about pipeline velocity, influenced revenue, and whether their message is reaching the right people in target accounts.
MQLs still exist because people fill out forms, but they’re not the goal. The goal is: are we moving accounts forward?
Sales looks at the same metrics. That’s the alignment.
Results:
Within six months of restructuring, Rithum’s pipeline velocity improved across all tiers. Sales stopped complaining about conflicting messaging. The ABM manager stayed. The integrated campaigns team had the capacity to execute well instead of trying to do everything.
The model works because Rithum built the infrastructure before they scaled.
Capacity discipline makes it work
Here’s what Rithum has that most “converged” models don’t:
Clean data and operational hygiene.
Rithum spent six months cleaning Marketo and Salesforce before launching RevSure. Six months. Not a “we’ll fix it as we go” promise.
They rebuilt how they manage potential customers. They stripped out duplicate records, standardized field values, and rebuilt routing logic. The goal wasn’t perfection. It was trust. If the data feeding into your attribution platform is broken, every insight it generates is fiction.
Reporting is only as good as your data. If you skip this step, the entire model runs on bad inputs. Accounts get tiered using incomplete information. Leads route to the wrong reps. Impact measurement uses numbers that don’t reflect reality.
Most companies want to skip the cleanup and go straight to the new tools. Jen didn’t. That’s why her model works.
Tech stack that supports tiering.
6sense for intent and account scoring. RevSure for attribution across all channels. PathFactory for content experiences. Marketo and Salesforce as the operational backbone.
Then there are the AI co-pilot agents.
Rithum needed to solve a specific problem: sales reps were drowning in account research. They had intent data from 6sense, but translating that into what to say took too long. Reps would either skip the research or spend 30 minutes per account trying to synthesize it.
So Rithum built custom agents in Outlook that live natively in the Microsoft environment. Sales don’t have to leave their inbox.
What happened after they deployed: adoption went up within two weeks because the agents made the work faster, not harder. Reps who used to ignore intent signals started using them. Pipeline velocity from Tier 2 accounts increased because outreach became more relevant.
How the agents work:
- Scan the internet for account intel—earnings reports, news articles, executive changes, hiring spikes. They surface what matters and skip the noise.
- Pull insights from 6sense—who’s engaging, what they’re viewing, which buying stage they’re in—and translate that into action. Not just “this account is hot.” More like “these three people from this account consumed this content in the last 48 hours, here’s what that means.”
- Craft email messaging. The agents are trained on Rithum’s messaging maps, persona docs, and sales method. A rep can feed in the account context, and the agent writes a first draft—personalized, relevant, aligned to how Rithum sells.
This isn’t theoretical. Sales is using them. The agents didn’t replace human judgment—they gave reps their time back.
Capacity designed into the structure.
One ABM manager isn’t covering 500 accounts. One integrated campaign manager isn’t trying to personalize every touchpoint. They have clear coverage models:
- Strategic: one-to-one
- Enterprise Tier 1 and 2: one-to-few
- Enterprise Tier 3 and beyond: scaled, but still account-targeted
Most companies try to “do ABM” by adding it to someone’s plate. Rithum built roles for it.
Field marketing as a lever, not a silo.
Field owns in-person activation—VIP dinners, roundtables, flagship events. They sit in the Pipeline Council. They’re not running separate lists or separate plays. They’re executing the same account strategy through a different channel.
What to do if you don’t have this setup
Rithum has advantages most people don’t: a supportive CMO, aligned CRO, clean data, budget for tools, and a team they worked with before.
If you don’t have that, here’s your path:
If you don’t even have 15-25 clean accounts to start with:
Your first move isn’t Growth ABM—it’s data cleanup and ICP definition. Don’t skip that. Rithum spent six months on it. You might need three. But if you try to tier accounts before you know which accounts matter, you’re just organizing a mess.
Start here:
- Define your ICP with sales (not just firmographics—buying behaviors, pipeline conversion patterns, revenue potential)
- Clean your CRM enough to trust it (duplicate records, standardized fields, working routing rules)
- Get sales to agree on 15-25 accounts that actually matter
If sales don’t agree on the list, you’re not ready for Growth ABM. Fix alignment first.
Start with Tier 1.
Pick your 15 to 25 highest-priority accounts. Not 50. Not 100. Fifteen to twenty-five.
Build the Growth ABM motion there. Prove it works. This means:
- Clear ICP and account selection criteria
- Dedicated capacity (even if it’s partial—50% of someone’s role beats 10% of three people’s time)
- Stage-based campaigns aligned with how these accounts actually buy
- Measurement that tracks account progression, not MQL volume
Don’t scale before you have the operating system. If you can’t make 15-25 accounts work, adding 200 more won’t fix it.
Add Tier 2 only when Tier 1 is running clean.
Once you’ve proven the model with 15-25 accounts, you can expand to Tier 2. This is your next 50-75 accounts. Coverage per practitioner goes up (15-25 accounts each), personalization depth goes down slightly, but the account-based methodology stays intact.
You’re not doing less work. You’re doing different work. Tier 2 doesn’t get one-to-one dinners, but they do get intent-based outreach, stage-aligned nurture, and coordinated sales plays.
This is where most teams break. They try to run Tier 1 and Tier 2 at the same time without adding capacity. One person can’t cover 8 strategic accounts and 25 enterprise accounts well. You either hire, or you stay small.
Add Tier 3 only when you have the infrastructure.
Tier 3 is 50-100 accounts per practitioner. This is scaled, but it’s not spray-and-pray demand gen. You’re still applying account-based logic: fit scores, intent signals, buying stage progression.
But Tier 3 requires infrastructure most teams don’t have yet:
- An attribution platform that works (like RevSure)
- Intent data you trust (like Demandbase or 6sense)
- Clean CRM data and routing rules
- Automated workflows that trigger based on account behavior, not just individual form fills
If you don’t have this, Tier 3 becomes “campaigns” again. You’ll lose the account-based discipline. Better to stay at Tier 1 and 2 until you’ve built the pipes.
Force the capacity conversation early.
Don’t ask your integrated campaigns manager to “also do ABM.” Either restructure their role or hire for it. Convergence without capacity is a math problem, not a strategy problem.
Use the Pipeline Council model even if you’re small.
You don’t need monthly meetings. You need a quarterly forcing function where sales leadership, RevOps, and marketing decide together: where are we placing bets, and do we have the capacity to execute?
If the answer is no, you cut. You don’t add it to the backlog.
Get your data house right before you buy more tools.
6sense, RevSure, Demandbase, PathFactory—none of it matters if your lead management process is broken or your Salesforce data is a mess. Fix the pipes first.
Pitfalls
- Calling it “convergence” without changing structure. Alignment isn’t a strategy.
- Trying to tier accounts without tiering capacity. If everyone’s Tier 1, no one is.
- Running a Pipeline Council as a status meeting instead of a capacity allocation meeting.
- Measuring MQLs and pipeline separately. If sales looks at one thing and marketing looks at another, you’re not converged.
ABM and Demand Gen aren’t converging. Demand Gen is becoming Growth ABM. But that only works if you build capacity for it. The Rithum model works because it structured roles, forced capacity decisions, and built operations that support tiering at scale.
Growth ABM Takeaways
Growth ABM is an account-based methodology applied to your entire target account list, not just your top 50 strategic accounts. Traditional ABM typically focuses on one-to-one or one-to-few coverage of high-value accounts with deep personalization. Growth ABM extends that discipline across all accounts that matter using a tiered structure: Tier 1 (3-8 accounts per practitioner, highest priority), Tier 2 (15-25 accounts, moderate personalization), and Tier 3 (50-100 accounts, scaled tactics). The key difference is capacity design—Growth ABM builds dedicated roles and coverage models for each tier instead of asking existing teams to “also do ABM.” The “growth” piece isn’t about revenue scale; it’s about expanding account-based discipline across your full addressable market with clear rules about where you invest resources.
Most convergence models fail because companies try to align teams and share account lists without adding capacity or restructuring roles. What typically happens: the ABM manager gets pulled into campaign support and strategic work gets deprioritized; the integrated campaigns team tries to personalize for every account without tiering logic and execution quality drops; sales receives conflicting messages because no one decided who owns which accounts. The result is everyone’s busy but nothing moves. Convergence without capacity isn’t a strategy—it’s just more work for the same people. Companies that succeed, like Rithum, restructure roles before they scale, dedicate specific capacity to each tier, and use forcing functions like a Pipeline Council to make explicit decisions about where to invest resources.
A Pipeline Council is a capacity allocation meeting (not a status check) that brings together sales leadership, RevOps, marketing ops, field marketing, and product marketing to decide where to place GTM bets. At Rithum, the council meets twice per quarter and answers three questions: Where are the pipeline gaps? What plays are viable given budget, timing, resources, and product readiness? Which accounts move up or down in priority? After those decisions, they form tiger teams to execute specific initiatives. The council forces the critical question: can we actually do this, or are we just adding it to the list? This prevents the common pattern where companies keep adding accounts and tactics without cutting anything, which leads to capacity collapse. The Pipeline Council makes Growth ABM sustainable by treating capacity as a constraint, not an assumption.
Tier 3 (50-100 accounts per practitioner) requires operational infrastructure most teams don’t have when they start. You need: an attribution platform that actually works (like RevSure) so you can measure account progression across all tiers; intent data you trust (like 6sense or DemandBase) to know which accounts are in-market; clean CRM data and routing rules so accounts tier correctly and leads route to the right reps; and automated workflows that trigger based on account behavior, not just individual form fills. Without this infrastructure, Tier 3 becomes spray-and-pray demand generation again—you lose the account-based discipline that makes the model work. Companies like Rithum spent six months cleaning Marketo and Salesforce before they scaled to Tier 3. If you try to skip data cleanup and go straight to scaling, every insight your systems generate will be fiction because the inputs are broken.
Start with data cleanup and ICP definition before you attempt Growth ABM. Work with sales to define your ICP based on buying behaviors, pipeline conversion patterns, and revenue potential. Clean your CRM enough to trust it: remove duplicate records, standardize field values, fix routing rules. Then get sales to agree on 15-25 accounts that actually matter. Once you have clean data and a vetted account list, build the motion for Tier 1 only (15-25 accounts) with dedicated capacity. Prove the model works at Tier 1 before expanding to Tier 2. Don’t try to run multiple tiers without adding capacity.