Traditional ABM frameworks are no longer enough.
In this episode of the OnBase podcast, Paul Gibson sits down with Declan Mulkeen, CMO at Strategic ABM, to explore how modern ABM strategies are evolving toward outcomes, relevance, and long-term customer value.
They discuss why customers do not buy “ABM models,” how buying groups should really be approached, the role of AI in accelerating insight without losing trust, and why lifetime value is becoming the most important metric for B2B growth.
If you are rethinking your ABM approach or struggling to prove impact beyond marketing metrics, this conversation will change how you look at account-based marketing.
About the Guest
Declan heads up Marketing at strategicabm. After some 20 years working as a CMO in the Professional Services, SaaS and EdTech sectors, Declan is now Agency-side building the strategicabm brand and running the Agency’s successful ABM program. Declan is also the host of the leading ABM podcast, Let's talk ABM.
Sales teams have more training, more tools, and more AI than ever — yet execution in the field continues to break down.
In this episode of the OnBase podcast, Barry Flaherty and David Thomson explain why traditional sales training fails and how teach-back sales training and AI coaching help teams build real capability without burning out sales reps.
Drawing on decades of experience across enterprise sales, scale-ups, and behavioural science, they explore why information alone never creates transformation, how onboarding and ramp time can be fixed, and why AI should act as a coach, not a cop.
If you lead sales, enablement, or go-to-market teams, this episode delivers practical insight you can apply immediately.
What you'll learn:
why most sales training doesn’t translate into performance
how teach-back sales training improves retention and confidence
the role of AI coaching in modern sales enablement
how to reduce ramp time and onboarding failure
how to scale sales teams without losing culture or empathy
About Barry Flaherty
Barry is a GTM and sales strategy Leader and Board advisor/member. He has 25 years of experience in Tech and Media that includes Enterprise Sales & Alliances in integration, cloud and automation. He is the Founder of All Good People and is now growing a portfolio of established Tech companies and scale up’s and capital raising.
Connect with Barry.
About David Thomson
Founder and CEO of Suada, David is dedicated to helping organisations unlock the full potential of their people through cutting-edge digital learning solutions. With over 25 years of experience in sales, technology, and business transformation, he lead Suada’s global mission to revolutionise online learning by incorporating the science of retention and persuasion.
Connect with David.
Roku’s John Rogers reveals how daily rigor, culture fit and a new programmatic playbook are shaping the future of CTV advertising.
🎙️ Episode summary
In this episode, John Rogers, director of global programmatic partnerships at Roku, takes us inside the systems and leadership principles driving Roku’s programmatic growth. We explore why the old sales playbook no longer works, how Roku balances programmatic and direct sales, and why ambiguity is becoming a competitive advantage in ad tech.
🔑 What you’ll learn
How Roku uses daily rigor to run programmatic like a high-performance engine
Why culture fit and curiosity matter more than a big Rolodex
How to empower teams to make decisions without perfect data
Why performance CTV is the next big industry shift
How collaboration across sales channels creates revenue tailwinds
💬 Standout quotes
“Daily rigor is the hill I’ll die on.” — John Rogers
“If your team doesn’t feel safe taking risks, you’ll never win.” — John Rogers
About John Rogers
John is an ad tech veteran, starting at Advertising.com in 2002. Leading teams through acquisition, hyper growth and even bankruptcy, he has developed an approach to driving client-focused teams to strong results in BD. He has been at Roku for 6 months and is developing their mid-market platform approach, focused on SSPs, DSPs and reseller partnerships.
In this episode of the OnBase podcast, host Paul Gibson sits down with Kate Mackie to unpack why humanizing B2B marketing is no longer optional—and how brand resonance directly impacts modern go-to-market success. Kate shares her journey from agency to EY, revealing why the traditional separation between brand and demand no longer works in today’s complex, elongated B2B buying cycles.
She explains why trust is a brand’s most valuable currency, how buying groups have doubled in size, and why marketers must deliver consistent yet human experiences across every GTM motion. From aligning sales and marketing, to building creative consistency without losing personalization, to proving brand impact on revenue, this episode is a masterclass in modern enterprise marketing.
Kate also explores the disruptions defining today’s market, how AI will accelerate personalization, and why human differentiation will matter more as buyers increasingly use AI as part of their research process.
Key Takeaways
Brand builds broad awareness and trust; demand converts that trust into action. Separating them weakens both.
Enterprise decisions now involve 15 people, meaning brands must influence far more stakeholders, many of whom never speak to sales.
Emotional relevance and clear purpose help companies stay top-of-mind through long, nonlinear buying cycles.
Rigid, one-size-fits-all branding prevents teams from tailoring messages to different roles, needs, and motivations.
Disconnected campaigns and target lists create massive audience wastage and inconsistent buyer experiences.
Building brand trust with existing clients is cheaper, faster, and often more impactful than new-customer acquisition.
Brand salience requires tracking awareness, consideration, social listening, and pre/post lift, not just revenue metrics.
AI can tailor creativity at scale, but only when backed by strong segmentation, a clear brand truth, and human oversight.
As customers rely on AI for research, human experience, emotion, and trust become the true competitive advantage.
To secure buy-in, brand value must be tied directly to commercial outcomes, not marketing jargon.
Quotes
“Brand and demand are one and the same. It’s just the difference between talking to a mass audience or a targeted one.”
“When buyers use AI as part of their research, the human experience becomes the biggest differentiator.”
Resource Recommendations
Shout-Outs
About the Guest
Kate Mackie is a Partner (EYGP LLP) and the Global Marketing Lead at the global EY organization. She is a transformational global leader who drives innovative marketing strategies and helps the business embed lasting change. Her passion lies in transforming the narrative around B2B marketing and driving a humanized approach to growth. She is the author of 'B2B Marketing Fundamentals: Drive Impact Across Brand, Reputation, Relationships, and Revenue'.
In this episode of OnBase, host Paul Gibson sits down with Soumyajit Dey for a deep dive into why continuous brand building outperforms one-off campaigns every time, and how ABX becomes truly powerful only when rooted in purpose, consistency, and relevance.
Soumyajit shares his journey from early days in experimental digital marketing to leading global campaigns at ThoughtWorks, where he merges brand strategy with buying-group intelligence to drive sustained account growth. He explains why brand versus demand is the wrong debate, why ABX should be an experience, not a tactic, and how companies can orchestrate connected outreach that resonates emotionally and commercially.
From the importance of purpose-led storytelling, to measuring brand influence, to navigating AI and evolving buyer behavior, this episode is a masterclass in modern B2B marketing that actually works.
Key Takeaways
Soumyajit argues that ABX succeeds when it amplifies a strong brand narrative. Disconnected efforts create drop-off; integrated storytelling builds trust that sustains long-term growth.
Effective ABX expands reach inside accounts, engages the full buying group, and nurtures trust over time. It’s a long-term motion, not a magic wand for instant deals.
Integrating engagement scoring, intent, and outreach into a unified ecosystem creates the intelligence needed for relevance and personalization at scale. At ThoughtWorks, this has driven an 18–23% increase in reach.
Buyers, especially millennials and Gen Z, make decisions based on values like transparency, ethics, and inclusion. Purpose creates memorability and long-term loyalty.
When a brand shows up consistently through content, social proof, thought leadership, and human storytelling, ABX campaigns land on receptive audiences, not cold inboxes.
Agentic AI, buying-group-level insights, and responsible use of automation will redefine how teams run always-on ABX and brand plays.
Quotes
“Brand creates receptivity. ABX activates relevance. Together, they expand your circle of influence.”
Resource recommendations
Podcasts:
Books:
About the Guest
Soumyajit Dey is a digital first marketing and communications leader with 20 plus years of experience at the intersection of marketing, technology and communication. Currently, he serves as the Global Head of Digital Campaign Delivery and AI for marketing Lead at Thoughtworks. He has worked with multiple global tech organizations in various capacity and is equally at home with campaign delivery, execution and executive strategy. Soumyajit is passionate about building future ready functions and teams that blend in creativity, automation and measurable performance.
In this episode of OnBase, host Paul Gibson sits down with Joel Harrison for a wide-ranging and deeply insightful conversation about one of the most pressing issues in modern B2B: trust. Together, they unpack how trust is eroding across society, why it has become the backbone of successful ABX programs, and how marketers can differentiate in an era flooded with AI-generated “average content.”
Joel shares his personal journey from magazine editor to industry leader, and why he believes trust, not just technology, is the true engine behind influence, brand affinity, and long-term customer relationships. The conversation explores how AI is challenging credibility, how strategic thought leadership can reclaim it, and why authenticity must be built intentionally rather than assumed.
Whether you’re a marketer, seller, or B2B leader navigating the new era of AI-driven engagement, this episode provides a powerful framework for building trust at scale, without losing the human touch.
Key Takeaways
Trust isn’t a soft metric, it’s the oxygen of B2B relationships. Without it, brands will struggle to generate engagement, earn consideration, or influence buyers who are increasingly overwhelmed and time-poor.
AI has made it easier than ever to produce content, but most of it lacks authenticity, depth, and accuracy. Joel argues that this creates an opportunity: brands that invest in high-quality thought leadership will stand out faster than ever.
According to Joel, true thought leadership:
When executed well, these programs deliver 52% better ROI than traditional marketing.
Customer recommendations, peer validation, and community influence play a foundational role in trust, but most companies underinvest in structured advocacy programs. Joel highlights emerging “TrustTech” tools that are beginning to change this.
AI is powerful for efficiency, research, and content acceleration, but hallucinations and inaccuracies can damage credibility. Human oversight is non-negotiable, both at the beginning and the end of the workflow.
Signals alone aren’t enough. Buyers won’t engage with sales if they've never heard of you or don’t trust your brand. Trust-building must begin long before intent signals surface, and it must extend through the entire customer lifecycle, not just new logo acquisition.
Quotes
“Thought leadership isn’t a blog post. It’s a strategic, data-driven idea deployed across the entire customer journey.”
Resource Recommendations
Shout-Outs
About the Guest
As editor-in-chief of B2B Marketing and one of its founders, Joel plays a strategic role in the company, focusing on the development of all B2B Marketing’s content, products and services – including events, training, reports and the magazine.
He’s also an ambassador and evangelist for B2B more generally, and a regular speaker at conferences and at in-house marketing team meetings.
In this episode of OnBase, host Chris Moody sits down with Corrina Owens to explore the evolution of account-based marketing, the misconceptions that still persist, and why most companies miss their biggest growth opportunity: their existing customers.
Corrina details her non-traditional path into marketing, the value of being a generalist, and how ABM shifted from a set of disconnected tactics to a true go-to-market operating model. She breaks down the critical role of ICP development, the importance of analyzing first-party data, and why sales alignment is still the strongest predictor of ABM success.
The conversation also dives into customer expansion strategies, the rise of AI as a democratizer of data, and the ABM plays every B2B organization should be running. Corrina shares practical examples, thoughtful commentary on relationship-building skills in the age of automation, and the mindset sellers and marketers need to stand out in modern B2B.
Key Takeaways
Most teams still define ABM as direct mail or targeted ads, but sustainable ABM success requires cross-functional alignment, sales process maturity, and clarity on the ICP.
Instead of wish-list accounts or executive bias, the strongest ICP definitions come from analyzing a full fiscal year of closed-won and closed-lost data to uncover patterns.
On average, companies land only about 30% of a customer’s total ARR potential on initial purchase. Yet most marketing and ABM efforts stop immediately post-sale. Customer ABM should be a core motion.
What once required multiple tools and data science resources can now be achieved with ChatGPT and well-structured prompts. AI helps teams iterate faster, brainstorm creatively, and pressure-test messaging.
Sellers struggle with relationship-building across channels, especially in a digital-first world. The ability to communicate authentically, not from templates, is becoming a critical skill.
Podcast invitations, industry award nominations, and sponsoring internal team events create memorable, non-transactional experiences that earn trust.
Quotes
“The best ABM plays are pure give tactics. You’re not asking for anything back.”
Tech recommendations
Resource recommendations
Shout-outs
About the Guest
Corrina Owens is the go-to GTM mind behind some of the most effective ABM plays in B2B SaaS. She’s led award-winning programs at Gong and now works fractionally, advising and implementing pipeline-driving strategies at companies like Orum, TripleLift, Navattic, and UserGems.
In this episode of OnBase, Paul Gibson talks with Tejal Patel about why ABM often falls short in large enterprises and how companies can fix it. Tejal shares how her B2C background shaped her customer-centric approach and explains the key issues she sees inside big tech—misalignment, data quality gaps, siloed teams, and overreliance on ABM as a standalone strategy.
She contrasts this with the agility of smaller organizations and outlines practical ways to improve targeting, use intent data, strengthen sales–marketing alignment, and unify brand and demand. This conversation offers clear, actionable advice for anyone trying to make ABM work at scale.
Key Takeaways
Tejal argues that ABM only works when paired with brand, awareness, nurture, and customer-centric messaging. Without broader demand creation, ABM becomes narrow and ineffective.
Large enterprises struggle with global vs. regional disconnects, mismatched KPIs, and long internal approval cycles, slowing execution and creating misfire between strategy and action. Smaller companies excel because they have fewer layers, faster decision-making, and shared prioritization.
Messy CRM data, fragmented systems, mismatched account naming, and inconsistent scoring models undermine targeting, personalization, and sales handoff. Clean data and agreed lead quality criteria must come first.
Great ABM prioritizes first-party data, then layers on external intent. Messaging should be mapped to where accounts are in their journey, not just industry segmentation. Audience clusters can be built based on behaviors, not just firmographics.
Brand builds trust with the 90% who aren’t yet buying; demand captures the 10% who are. Both motions must reinforce each other with consistent messaging across all touchpoints, internal and external.
Tejal shares examples where hundreds of micro-campaigns were consolidated into fewer, audience-grouped programs, leading to clearer measurement, stronger engagement, and faster pipeline.
AI can accelerate content, sales enablement, and buying-group messaging, but only when built on a foundation of strategy, quality data, and customer-centric principles. Otherwise, AI simply amplifies the noise.
Quotes
“Smaller companies succeed because they’re aligned, agile, and closer to the spirit of ABM.”
Tech recommendations
Resource recommendations
Shout-outs
About the Guest
Tejal Patel has 25+ years experience in marketing transformation, strategic planning, organisational design & change management. She has held senior leadership roles at Cisco, Microsoft & Nokia. She specializes in creating practical yet ambitious strategies that deliver tangible success. She is skilled at building and retaining high-performing teams. Known as a turnaround expert, Tejal combines strategic vision with hands-on execution and inspires a culture of collaboration and empowerment.
In this episode of OnBase, host Chris Moody sits down with Chelsea Wells to discuss how AI is reshaping the future of demand generation, campaign creation, and attribution. Chelsea shares practical insights from her role at MasterControl, how clean, accessible data powers scalable, high-quality campaigns and how marketers can balance automation with creativity to stand out in a crowded digital landscape.
From solving data challenges to embracing multi-touch attribution, Chelsea explains how she’s redefining what effective ABM looks like today. She also shares a behind-the-scenes look at a successful one-to-few ABM campaign that leveraged both digital and physical tactics, achieving rapid funnel movement and opportunity creation.
Whether you’re navigating the complexities of AI adoption or rethinking your attribution models, this episode offers an actionable roadmap for marketers aiming to stay ahead of the curve.
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“Every channel has a purpose. Measure them by their role in the funnel, not by a single model.”
Tech recommendations
Resource recommendations
Shout-outs
About the Guest
With 8 years of demand generation experience in the tech SaaS space, Chelsea Wells is a seasoned B2B marketer with a proven track record of driving pipeline growth in complex industries including cybersecurity and life sciences manufacturing. She currently serves as a Senior ABM Program Manager and Demand Generation Team Lead at MasterControl, where she leads the strategy and execution of high-impact, omni-channel campaigns. Chelsea specializes in campaign orchestration, account-based marketing, and full-funnel demand strategies, leveraging data and insights to optimize performance across every stage of the buyer journey. Her approach is grounded in experimentation and agility, continuously testing and iterating to keep ahead of the rapidly evolving marketing landscape. She is passionate about aligning sales and marketing, delivering customized experiences at scale, and using data to uncover what truly moves prospects from awareness to closed-won. Chelsea holds a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin, a certificate in Global Management, and an MBA from Southern Methodist University (SMU). She brings a global, cross-functional lens to marketing strategy and thrives in fast-paced environments that demand strategic thinking and executional excellence.
In this episode of OnBase, host Chris Moody sits down with Jasmeet Sawhney to explore what it means to lead marketing in an AI-driven world. Jasmeet shares his unconventional journey from engineer to marketing executive, emphasizing how technical fluency and creativity are now inseparable in leadership roles.
They dive deep into the evolving responsibilities of marketing leaders, how AI is reshaping strategy, execution, and team structures, and why the biggest risk is failing to evolve. From scaling personalization to rethinking attribution and ROI, Jasmeet offers a candid and forward-looking perspective on how leaders can guide their teams through this transformation.
This episode is a must-listen for marketing, sales, and business leaders navigating the AI revolution and seeking actionable insights for long-term success.
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“This is the biggest opportunity of our generation. If we don’t leverage AI, that’s what’s really at stake.”
Tech Recommendations
Resource Recommendations
Book:
Podcast:
Shout-Outs
About the Guest
Jasmeet is a marketer with deep roots in technology, data analytics, and AI. He is currently Global Head of Marketing at Axtria. Earlier, Jasmeet was CEO of YibLab, which was one of the fastest growing marketing technology and solutions providers, ranked Top 50 among the fastest growing companies in NJ. Jasmeet has 20+ years of experience building and scaling marketing operations for both small and large companies. He is an investor, advisor, and mentor to multiple firms, and has received several company and individual awards - Inc. 500, Deloitte 500, Crain’s Fast 50, SmartCEO Future 50, Red Herring, NJBiz Business of the Year, Top CMO, and Forty Under 40, among others.
In this episode of the OnBase Podcast, host Chris Moody sits down with Craig Abramson of Workday to discuss how data quality, timing, and automation shape the future of account-based marketing (ABM) and experience (ABX).
Craig’s story, starting as a content writer, evolving through startup marketing, and now running enterprise-level ABX programs at Workday, offers a rare view into how strategy scales with data maturity. From early experiments targeting QuickBooks users to Workday’s global predictive engagement models, Craig breaks down how precision targeting drives faster deals, cleaner funnels, and measurable growth.
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“The right message at the wrong time is just as bad as the wrong message altogether.”
Tech Recommendations
Resource Recommendations
Blog:
Podcast:
Shout-Outs
Matthew Miller - Sr Principal, Global ABX. Workday.
About the Guest
Craig Abramson is a strategic and results-driven marketing leader with extensive experience driving growth for B2B software companies. He has proven expertise in developing and executing full-funnel marketing strategies that dramatically increase brand awareness, accelerate lead generation and drive pipeline, consistently exceeding KPIs. A master of implementing bootstrap marketing techniques to achieve outstanding results regardless of budget, he is skilled in Go-to-Market planning, AI optimization, SEO/SEM, Marketo automation, content strategy, and analyst relations, with a history of leading companies from startup to successful acquisition. Craig most recently was brought on to lead marketing at Zimit, a services configure price quote SaaS solution. Zimit was acquired by Workday in 2022. Craig continues to work at Workday on the Account Based Experience team, running global programs to drive pipeline from the top 15% of accounts that are most likely in the market for Workday’s solutions.
In this OnBase episode, host Chris Moody reconnects with marketing visionary Jon Miller for a deep dive into the evolution of B2B marketing and the transformative role of artificial intelligence in shaping the future of go-to-market strategy.
Jon shares his remarkable journey, from studying physics to co-founding Marketo and Engagio, joining Demandbase, and now launching his next venture at the cutting edge of AI. He reflects on the lessons learned from past technology revolutions, drawing parallels between the early internet era and today’s AI boom.
Listeners gain an inside look at how AI is fundamentally changing both software innovation and buyer behavior, why marketers must shift from quantity to quality-driven personalization, and what it takes to build organizations that thrive in an AI-first world.
This episode is packed with insights for anyone navigating marketing’s AI transformation, from creative storytellers to data-driven tacticians.
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“Don’t use AI like a faster typewriter. Use it as a new form of intelligence that helps you think better.”
Tech recommendations
Resource recommendations
Books
Newsletter
Shout-outs
About the Guest
Jon Miller is a marketing technology pioneer and serial founder. He co-founded Marketo, Engagio, and later served as CMO of Demandbase, helping redefine how B2B companies go to market. Now building his next AI-focused startup, Jon also advises tech companies on strategy and growth. A frequent keynote speaker and author of The Definitive Guides to ABM and Marketing Automation, he’s been recognized as one of the world’s top B2B marketers.
In this OnBase Podcast episode, host Chris Moody sits down with Brynna Self to unpack how Hexagon SIG moved from “running ads to accounts” to a true account-based GTM—and what changed when they adopted Demandbase as their shared sales–marketing system of record. Brynna details the journey from agency days to client-side leadership, why data discipline beats “order-taking,” and how a North America pilot became the blueprint for global rollout.
They cover what actually fixes sales–marketing silos (hint: shared facts beat opinions), why clean CRM + intent + journey data created pull from sales, and how one-to-one onboarding for reps, weekly pipeline rituals, and regional frameworks turned ABM from theory into closed-won outcomes
Key takeaways
Quotes
“We need each other. Sales and marketing can’t be order-takers; we’re partners driving growth.”
Tech Recommendations
Resource Recommendations
Newsletter:
Blog:
Shout-outs
About the Guest
Brynna Self is a seasoned growth and marketing executive with 20 years of experience driving global digital strategy, demand generation, and account-based marketing. As Director of Global Digital Marketing at Hexagon’s Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial division, she leads initiatives that align marketing, sales and customer success to create stronger go-to-market execution. Recognized for advancing ABM adoption, AI-powered analytics, and data-driven decision-making, she has delivered measurable growth across the software, manufacturing and e-commerce sectors. Brynna holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Maryland.
In this episode of OnBase, host Paul Gibson sits down with Callum Brodie to explore the evolution of content marketing in B2B and why every brand today needs “content with a pulse.” Drawing on his unique background in journalism, Callum explains how storytelling, empathy, and a genuine understanding of the audience’s “why” can help brands build trust and long-term relationships.
The conversation dives into the shift from promotional messaging to value-driven narratives, the importance of human stories in corporate content, and how to sustain momentum in audience-first marketing. Callum also discusses how AI is reshaping creative industries and how to balance automation with human creativity.
Listeners will gain practical insights into building brand trust, uncovering authentic stories, and fostering a “drumbeat” approach to content that resonates with customers across every stage of the funnel.
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“An effective piece of content marketing should leave the audience more informed and engaged. They may not be ready to buy, but you’ve taken that first step toward trust.”
Resource Recommendations
Blog:
Books:
Shout-outs
About the Guest
Callum Brodie is a seasoned multimedia business journalist with extensive experience in the insurance industry. Currently serving as Associate Director of Marketing at Firstsource since April 2023, Callum has held various prominent roles including Senior Account Director and Deputy Team Lead at Formative Content from May 2017 to April 2023. Previous positions include Senior News Reporter at MoneySavingExpert.com and multiple editorial roles at Incisive Media, where responsibilities ranged from News Editor to Senior Features Writer. Callum's journalism career began at the Grimsby Telegraph and Slough Observer. Callum holds a BA in History from Bangor University, completed in 2007.
In this episode of The OnBase Podcast, host Chris Moody dives deep with Vincent DeCastro to unpack one of the most dramatic shifts in marketing history: the rise of zero-click search and AI-driven buyer journeys.
They explore how generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude are transforming how buyers discover and evaluate solutions, often without ever visiting a brand’s website. Vincent shares how this new reality is disrupting search, reshaping ABM, and forcing marketers to collapse silos between brand, demand, and content functions to stay relevant.
From the death of traditional SEO to the new rules of visibility in the age of AI, this episode offers a masterclass on how marketers must evolve to survive and thrive in a post-click world.
Key Takeaways
Generative AI is now giving users answers directly in the results — before they ever reach your site. That means impressions go up while clicks go down, creating a new paradox that marketers must understand and address.
Your website is no longer just for prospects. It’s for LLMs to read, parse, and summarize. Structuring your content for AI consumption is the new SEO.
Brand, content, demand gen, and ABM can’t operate independently anymore. AI interprets your business holistically — your teams must do the same.
Technical readiness is step one. Run audits to ensure your site can be crawled by AI tools, update evergreen content regularly, and monitor how your brand is being summarized by these new “AI engines.”
Generative platforms like ChatGPT will soon monetize results the way Google did with ads — but based on personalized prompts, not keywords. Brands must adapt early.
Quotes
Zero-click search isn’t killing Google — it’s redefining it.
Tech recommendations
About the Guest
Vincent DeCastro is the Founder and CEO of ABM Agency, a B2B marketing leader that’s been reshaping account-based marketing since 2009. With over a decade of experience at the intersection of search, ABM, and AI, Vincent helps enterprise organizations navigate the massive changes in digital behavior driven by zero-click search and generative AI. His agency has been at the forefront of understanding how AI and large language models (LLMs) are redefining visibility, authority, and buyer intent in the modern B2B landscape.
In this episode of OnBase, host Chris Moody sits down with Madhup Mishra to explore how AI is collapsing traditional go-to-market funnels and reshaping product marketing as we know it. From redefining buyer journeys to measuring real engagement, Madhup offers a candid, strategic look at what it takes to win in an AI-driven world.
He shares his philosophy of “clarity through confusion,” explains how product marketing has evolved from storytelling to enablement, and offers insights into building trust and advocacy with increasingly skeptical, data-driven buyers.
Listeners will come away with a modern blueprint for product launches, buyer enablement, and authentic community building, all while balancing automation with the human touch.
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“Advocacy isn’t optional anymore. If your community isn’t talking about you, AI search engines will recommend your competitors instead.”
Tech recommendations
Resource Recommendations
Books:
Shout-Outs
About the Guest
Madhup leads Product Marketing for SmartBear, creating product and solutions messaging, positioning, and sales enablement, and launching new products. He deeply understands SmartBear’s core developer and development team audience and can strategically communicate the impact of its products throughout the software development lifecycle. With over two decades of technology experience in companies like Hitachi Vantara, Volt Active Data, HPE SimpliVity, Dell, and Dell-EMC, Madhup has held a variety of roles in product management, sales engineering, and product marketing. Madhup lives in Central Massachusetts with his lovely wife, their son, and their dog. In his free time, he loves to travel, bike, and run.
In this episode, host Paul Gibson talks with Meta Karagianni about the critical shift toward a client-led go-to-market strategy. Meta shares powerful insights from her recent study of over 100 global CMOs, revealing their top priorities and challenges for 2025. This discussion is a masterclass for any leader looking to move beyond siloed functions and build a truly unified, client-centric organization.
Meta provides a clear, actionable framework for success. The conversation covers everything from defining your North Star to developing the right skills within your team. You will learn why optimizing for audiences is more important than optimizing for channels and how to prove marketing's value as a driver of profitable growth, not just a cost center. This is your playbook for building a GTM strategy that wins.
Key takeaways
Quotes
"We are moving away from that mindset that existed a few years back, growth at all costs. No, that's no longer growth at all costs. It is growth that is sustainable, that is profitable."
Resource recommendations
Books:
Shout-outs
About the Guest
Meta Karagianni is the Chief Consulting and Growth Officer at MomentumABM. With a rich background that includes pivotal roles at Gartner and SiriusDecisions, Meta is a leading authority on building and executing powerful go-to-market strategies. She specializes in driving cross-functional alignment and helping organizations place the client at the absolute center of their growth engine. Her work is dedicated to helping CMOs and their teams navigate change and achieve sustainable, profitable growth.
This episode of the OnBase Podcast dives headfirst into the seismic shifts transforming the marketing landscape. Host Paul Gibson sits down with Fiona Shepherd to discuss the "change imperative", the urgent need for marketing leaders to reinvent their strategies, structures, and mindsets for 2026 and beyond. This isn't just another conversation about AI; it's a strategic look at how generative AI, shifting buyer behaviors, and new organizational models demand a complete overhaul of the go-to-market playbook.
Fiona makes a powerful case for bravery, collaboration, and a renewed focus on revenue. She explains why the traditional funnel is broken, why sales and marketing must finally achieve true alignment, and how to retrain your entire organization to thrive in this new world. This episode is your guide to navigating the chaos and leading your team with confidence.
Key takeaways
Stop thinking of marketing as a cost. It is the lifeblood of the organization, driving revenue, reputation, and growth. Invest in it, especially in turbulent times.
The buyer journey is no longer linear. With over 60% of searches satisfied by generative AI, you have to find new ways to be present in the 80% of the buying process that happens outside your direct influence.
The current level of change is a true inflection point. Businesses that are brave enough to embrace it and adopt new technologies like agentic AI are already pulling ahead. Those who wait will be left behind.
The biggest imperative is to take your people on the journey. From the C-suite to the front lines, everyone needs to be retrained and made comfortable with AI to be the human control layer that ensures trust and fairness.
AI and new buyer behaviors make a unified GTM motion mandatory. Organizations must restructure to ensure sales and marketing work as one cohesive team, armed with the same insights and goals.
Quotes
"We are not a cost center. Marketing is a profit center. It drives revenue, reputation, and brand. It is the very center and core of how a business operates."
Resource recommendations
Podcast:
TV shows:
Shout-outs
About the Guest
As Head of Agency Services Europe, Marketbridge, Fiona is embracing the opportunity to establish Marketbridge in this critical Region. She leads an incredible Leadership team focused on organic expansion, acquisitions, innovation, strategic partnerships, and operational excellence. A proven leader in expanding global markets with 25+ years of experience, Fiona excels at building high-performing teams, deepening executive client relationships, and evolving service portfolios to meet changing enterprise needs. Fiona plays a pivotal role in securing material growth across the region, forging partnerships that deliver lasting impact.
Demandbase CEO Gabe Rogol hosts a critical conversation with Craig Miller of AWS to tackle the seismic shifts reshaping the advertising landscape. They dive into how generative AI and LLMs are fundamentally disrupting digital advertising, from the very definition of context to the future of SEO and SEM. The discussion moves beyond the hype to identify the AI use cases that are delivering real outcomes for marketers right now.
This episode is essential for any go-to-market leader navigating this transformation. You'll gain a clear understanding of the blockers holding teams back and the data strategies required to win. Craig provides a visionary yet practical roadmap for embracing the future, ensuring your organization not only survives but thrives in the new era of AI-driven advertising.
Key Takeaways
Despite rapid technological change, the fundamental goals of marketing—acquiring, retaining, and upselling customers—remain constant. AI is a powerful new tool to achieve these goals more efficiently.
Your data strategy is the most critical ingredient for success. Winning in the AI era depends on your ability to unify and activate high-quality first-party and third-party data.
AI is creating a new advertising channel. Marketers must learn to influence AI agents at the "point of reasoning" to ensure their products and services are discovered.
Don't wait for the future to take shape. The winners of tomorrow are building their organizational knowledge and operational muscle today by starting with achievable, high-value use cases.
Overcoming internal data and organizational blockers is complex. Working with integrated platform partners like Demandbase and AWS accelerates time-to-market and removes the undifferentiated heavy lifting.
Quotes
"Data is absolutely the critical ingredient. It's kind of a garbage in, garbage out problem."
Tech Recommendations
About the Guest
Craig Miller is the Global Industry and Solutions Lead for Advertising and Marketing at AWS. With decades of experience at the forefront of digital advertising, from building the first third-party ad server to driving innovation at AppNexus and Xandr, Craig brings a powerful perspective on the convergence of data, AI, and marketing technology. His work at AWS places him at the center of how the world's most innovative companies are preparing for the next chapter of advertising.
In this episode of OnBase, host Paul Gibson sits down with Michelle Wrede to explore how businesses can transform customer reviews into powerful drivers of revenue and trust. Michelle shares her unique career path, why psychology plays such an important role in marketing, and how reviews are often undervalued in B2B.
From building credibility to improving internal processes, Michelle outlines practical strategies for embedding reviews into sales and marketing funnels. She emphasizes the importance of timing, emotional vs. functional insights, and how reviews can help reduce internal resistance while creating measurable outcomes in areas like conversion optimization, SEO, and customer retention.
The conversation also covers the future of AI in review management, the growing importance of transparency, and why testing and iteration are key for success.
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“From psychology we know reviews work. The key is testing how and where they have the best impact for your business.”
Tech recommendations
Resource recommendations
Shout-Outs
About the Guest
As Head of Marketing for Benelux and Sweden at Trustpilot, Michelle works across a wide range of topics within the marketing and e-commerce space. In her current role, she focuses on consumer feedback, broader marketing trends, and the use of social proof and reviews across both B2C and B2B companies. Her background in psychology also gives her valuable insight into cross-border marketing, behavioral psychology, and nudging.