Why a Performance-First Mindset Will Define the Next Era of ABM

After several years of volatility in budgets, buyer behaviors, and technology, B2B marketing enters 2026 at a pivotal moment. The era of “brand-first and measurement-later” is over. So is the era of siloed campaigns, static ABM programs, and loosely coordinated buyer engagement.

In its place, a new mandate is emerging, marketing must operate from a performance-first mindset—one that prioritizes outcomes over activities, aligns revenue teams around shared objectives, and leverages data, AI, and emerging channels to guide real-time decision-making.

This shift isn’t just philosophical. It’s being driven by clear industry forces that will define the year ahead. Research from Madison Logic’s Harris Poll survey shows 84% of B2B marketers are moving away from traditional, impression-based tactics and toward performance-driven strategies that rely on intelligence and data to guide decisions. The trends below underscore why adopting a performance-first mindset is no longer optional, but the requirement for competing in 2026 and beyond.

ABM Goes Full-Funnel….

For years, ABM was treated as a top-of-funnel acquisition play to get the right accounts in the door. But in 2026, ABM is finally expanding to where it always belonged: across the entire customer lifecycle.

Growth, retention, cross-sell, customer experience have all become core ABM motions. The reason? Buying groups now expect personalized, relevant experiences at every touchpoint. With buying groups expanding and decision paths elongating, marketers can no longer afford to only target at the bottom of the funnel. Every interaction must reflect where an account is in its journey and what matters to each stakeholder involved. Personalization is not only about using someone’s name, it’s about understanding how a target audience consumes media and content and meeting them there, with content that is relevant to them.

…With Hyper-Personalization Powering It

This is where hyper-personalization finally shifts from aspirational to operational. AI, predictive analytics, and intent data now make it possible to dynamically tailor messaging, content, and offers to the unique needs of every account and decision-maker. Together, these innovations make what used to require armies of people—building microsites, crafting bespoke nurture journeys, or waiting on manual prioritization—now scalable, intelligent, and tightly aligned to the customer journey.

The convergence of full-funnel ABM and intelligent personalization is what will ultimately separate high-performing organizations from everyone else. Those who embrace it will orchestrate seamless lifecycle experiences, deepen relationships, and lift lifetime value. Those who don’t will continue optimizing for isolated campaign moments instead of revenue outcomes, and get left behind.

AI, Predictive Analytics & Intent Data Become Table Stakes

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a competitive advantage—it’s the cost of entry.

As buying groups grow larger and more self-directed, marketers need real-time intelligence to understand who is in market, what they care about, and how best to engage them. Gut instinct and static scoring models simply can’t keep pace with nonlinear, research-heavy buying journeys. Marketers who rely solely on historical engagement metrics or manual scoring models will find themselves increasingly outpaced by organizations using real-time intelligence to guide every touchpoint.

Predictive analytics and intent data now sit at the center of every high-performing ABM program. They determine where marketers focus, which accounts to prioritize, when to engage, and what message will resonate. The shift is from reactive to anticipatory: instead of responding to lagging indicators, marketers use behavioral, firmographic, and buying-group signals to guide campaigns before a buyer ever fills out a form.

Predictive scoring informs which accounts are most likely to convert, and at what stage. Intent data reveals what buying groups care about in the moment, shaping which content, offers, or conversations they’re most likely to respond to. AI-powered prioritization and automation enable teams to adjust journeys dynamically, tailoring outreach not just by persona or industry, but by what’s happening inside the account right now.

These capabilities have shifted AI and intent data from “nice to have” enhancements to foundational infrastructure. Marketers who invest in a signal-led operating model will be able to predict demand, personalize at scale, and move with their buyers. Those who don’t will struggle to keep pace with audiences who expect relevance the moment they engage.

Content & Engagement Shift Beyond the Desk

B2B buyers no longer live inside an inbox, desktop browser, or traditional 9–5 research window. They’re consuming content across more moments of their day while listening to industry podcasts, scrolling social feeds, participating in micro-communities, or researching from mobile devices well outside typical working hours.

This shift has fundamentally changed how influence is built. The most effective marketers aren’t just optimizing for the website visit or the webinar registration, they’re showing up in the places where modern B2B research happens. That means rethinking formats like short-form video, interactive explainers, audio content, and bite-sized insights, while reshaping distribution to incorporate emerging channels like CTV, podcasts, social snippets, and mobile-first content—all to curate experiences that feel natural in the environments where buyers spend time.

This performance-first mindset will be vital for marketers in 2026 as they continue to seek to stretch their budgets and meet decision makers where they are.  This is also why Madison Logic has been expanding its ABM portfolio since the start of 2025 and most recently, announced the global expansion of its ABM Connected TV (CTV) and ABM Audio Advertising channels, with an aim of driving and delivering on a major evolution in how enterprise brands connect with buying committees worldwide.

Meeting Buyers Where They Are

As the buying journey becomes more fluid and multi-contextual, the bar for relevance is rising. B2B audiences now expect the same intuitive, high-quality, bingeable content experiences they encounter as consumers. Marketers who still cling to desktop-bound, strategies will steadily lose visibility as buying groups spread their attention across channels that better fit their real lives.

The advantage now belongs to organizations who meet buyers where they are, not where they used to be. That requires moving beyond channel-by-channel planning and instead embracing a unified, multi-channel strategy that ensures your narrative follows the buyer across every format and moment of engagement. Modern content ecosystems must be built for streaming, scrolling, listening, and on-the-go consumption. They need to live natively across CTV, audio, social feeds, short-form video, search surfaces, newsletters, communities, and more.

When your content strategy is coordinated across channels rather than siloed within them, you create a cohesive presence that travels with the buyer throughout their day. A story introduced in a streaming ad can be reinforced through social, deepened through a podcast, validated through thought leadership, and acted on through personalized follow-up. This level of consistency and visibility is what keeps brands relevant in a world where attention jumps between devices, platforms, and formats in minutes, not hours.

The Bottom Line: Performance Is the New Mandate

The through-line across every 2026 trend is simple: performance is no longer a metric—it’s a mandate. In a landscape defined by expanding buying groups, fragmented attention, AI-driven expectations, and continuous engagement across every stage of the lifecycle, marketers can no longer rely on isolated tactics, vanity metrics, or broad-brush strategies.

The organizations that win in 2026 will be those that treat performance as a discipline, not a department, using data to guide decisions, embracing AI to work smarter, activating across the entire customer journey, and meeting buyers wherever and whenever they choose to engage.

Performance-led marketers will build tighter alignment with revenue teams, orchestrate more relevant experiences, and deliver measurable impact at every stage of the funnel. Those who cling to legacy models will continue to see diminishing returns, eroding influence, and shrinking visibility in a market that won’t slow down for them.

The mandate is clear: move with intelligence, operate with precision, and execute with performance at the center. 2026 won’t reward those who do more—it will reward those who do what matters.

As Chief Executive Officer at Madison Logic, Keith leads all business initiatives that further establish the company as a leading global account-based marketing solution that empowers revenue-driven marketers to accelerate the buying journey with more targeted, measurable, and effective strategies. Keith’s experience driving corporate growth with expertise in business strategy, marketing technologies, and advertising spans three decades. Prior to Madison Logic, Keith served as Chief Growth Officer at MERGE, where he led double-digit new business growth, and as Chief Commercial Officer & President, Americas of EVRYTHNG, Inc., where he was instrumental in driving global strategy and accelerating growth before its sale to Digimarc Corporation. He also served as EVP, Worldwide Managing Director of Ogilvy, where he was a member of Ogilvy’s Global Leadership Team; President/CEO of gyro NY, a global B2B agency network with 15 worldwide offices, that was acquired by Dentsu; and SVP, Head of Global Corporate Marketing of CA Technologies (now Broadcom).