Krossings for Demandbase · for GTM leaders

Demandbase's 2026 GTM Blueprint.

Built by experienced revenue operators in 48 hours from public sources. Now imagine it pointed at your data.

6
Pipeline-ready accounts
48
Buying signals mapped
0
Calls needed to source it
Krossings for Demandbase · for revenue leadership

Six accounts. Ready to engage.

Built by a forward-deployed revenue team that becomes a second pipeline source.

6
Accounts ready to engage
3
Tier-1 priority accounts
0
Calls needed to source it
30d
To a live second channel
Why now

Three forces resetting the buying window.

Each observable in public data.

Commercial

The accountability clock

CFOs now demand pipeline attribution for every marketing dollar, and marketing budgets are at risk where it cannot be shown. Every Tier-1 account on this list installed a new revenue or marketing leader in the last 6 to 12 months. Freshworks added a CMO and a CRO, MongoDB a CRO and a CCO, Celonis an SVP RevOps from ServiceNow, each making foundational stack decisions inside the window where "evaluate later" turns into "decide this quarter."

Market

The category lock-in

Around 70% of B2B marketers now run account-based programs, and the ones without them are competitively disadvantaged. 6sense and ZoomInfo are pursuing the same accounts with intent-led plays. Choosing an account-based platform now decides which ecosystem a revenue team operates in for years. The window to pick is open and closing.

Technical

AI plus intent matured

Intent-sourced leads convert at 18.7% to closed-won versus 5.5% for cold ICP-match leads, a 3.4x gap that competitors using AI and intent are already capturing by reaching high-value accounts first. Third-party cookie deprecation is eroding the old targeting at the same time. The org still on static lists and lead-based metrics is bringing a clipboard to a data fight.

Our forward-deployed revenue team finds your next accounts, builds the plays, and runs the channels to close them. Live in 30 days. No new hires.

Part 1 · The Surprise

Verified accounts. Ready to engage.

Every account cleared exclusion, ICP fit, realism, and verified pain signals. Each one ships with a four-touch LinkedIn sequence ready to send.

Freshworks
Tier 188/100
Enterprise SaaS / Customer Service / CRM · ~4,500 employees · $839M revenue · NASDAQ: FRSH
Deep Dive Included ↓

Pain signals

HighNew CMO Kady Srinivasan (Jan 2026) — scaled marketing at Lightspeed, Klaviyo, and Dropbox; mandate to reframe the AI-led growth story and drive efficiency
High11% workforce layoff (May 2026) with S&M expense up 26% in Q1 2026 — textbook "spend more, get less" pipeline blind spot
HighHiring Director of Demand Generation (ABM) with a 7-figure budget — building the ABM function from scratch
MedNew CRO Ian Tickle (Mar 2026) + first $1M+ ARR deal — enterprise motion and buying-committee complexity rising
Kady Srinivasan LinkedIn unverified
Chief Marketing Officer, Freshworks
MongoDB
Tier 184/100
Database / Enterprise Software · 5,636 employees · $2.46B revenue · NASDAQ: MDB
Deep Dive Included ↓

Pain signals

HighHiring Sr. Director of Demand Generation to build "a modern, efficient, AI-enabled center of excellence" aligned with a $5B growth path
HighNew CRO Ryan Mac Ban (Apr 2026) — new revenue leader with a 90-day mandate to shape GTM strategy
MedEMEA ABM hiring (Demand Gen Coordinator + Paid Digital & ABM Programs Manager) — building ABM globally, not just domestically
MedNew CCO Erica Volini (Apr 2026) — broader GTM leadership refresh as PLG shifts to enterprise
May Petry Verified
Chief Marketing Officer, MongoDB
Celonis
Tier 180/100
Process Mining / Enterprise Software · 3,829 employees · ~$630M revenue · pre-IPO

Pain signals

High7+ marketing tools in use (Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, Power BI, plus LinkedIn and Google Ads) with no unified ABM — verified tech stack fragmentation
HighSVP RevOps Matt Taylor (Oct 2025) from ServiceNow, where he helped scale revenue $3B to $10B — consolidation mandate from someone who knows enterprise ABM
MedPre-IPO pressure at a $13B valuation — must prove efficient, attributable pipeline to public-market investors
MedDual Marketo + HubSpot configuration — running two MAPs is an integration-failure signal, not a strategy
Ashling Kearns LinkedIn unverified
SVP Marketing, Celonis (ex-Salesforce)
Conga
Tier 278/100
Revenue Lifecycle / CPQ-CLM · ~1,800 employees · $198M ARR · Thoma Bravo-backed

Pain signals

HighNew CRO Lisa Martin (Nov 2025) from 8x8 — overseeing worldwide sales with a fresh revenue mandate
HighPROS B2B acquisition completed (Feb 2026) — post-M&A integration demands unified GTM across CPQ, CLM, billing, and pricing
MedFive new C-suite execs in six months (CRO, CFO, COO, CMO) — wholesale GTM reset
Med"Commerce, Lined Up" rebrand with new AiMe AI layer at Conga Connect 2026 — new positioning needs demand-gen support
Lisa Martin Verified
Chief Revenue Officer, Conga
Planview
Tier 276/100
Strategic Portfolio Management / Enterprise Software · 1,500-1,900 employees · $410-500M revenue · TA Associates / TPG

Pain signals

HighNew CEO Matt Zilli (Jan 2026) — scaled Marketo from $60M through the Adobe acquisition; deep marketing-technology pedigree at the top
MedRecord revenue approaching $500M and 120+ net-new customers in H1 2025 — scaling fast and needing infrastructure
MedPE-backed by TA Associates and TPG — aggressive growth and GTM-efficiency targets
MedMultiple acquisition integrations (Sciforma and others) — post-M&A GTM consolidation required
Marketing leadership (VP Demand Gen / CMO) Name unverified
Entry via marketing leader; Matt Zilli (CEO, verified) is the economic buyer
Finastra
Tier 272/100
Financial Technology / Banking Software · 12,502 employees · ~$1.7B revenue · Vista Equity Partners

Pain signals

HighAgency-led ABM via MeritMile with no ABM platform — campaign-level attribution but no continuous, account-level pipeline view across 8,100+ financial-institution customers
MedSr. Director Demand Gen Ops Harjeet Singh publicly calling to "evolve marketing into a measurable, performance-based engagement and demand generation engine"
MedGlobal Demand Gen & ABM director Elsa Montes running year-long campaigns — execution exists, the platform does not
MedPE-backed by Vista Equity Partners — portfolio-wide efficiency mandate
Harjeet Singh Verified
Sr. Director, Marketing & Demand Gen Operations, Finastra

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The proof

Less pitch. More proof.

Every tab below is real work on Demandbase's market, traceable to public sources.

CompanyTierScorePQS MatchTop SignalPrimary Contact
FreshworksEnterprise SaaS / CRM Tier 1 88/100 PQS-1, PQS-4 New CMO (Jan 2026) + 11% layoffs + hiring Director ABM Kady SrinivasanCMO, Freshworks
MongoDBDatabase / Enterprise Software Tier 1 84/100 PQS-1, PQS-2 Hiring Sr. Director Demand Gen + new CRO + $5B growth path May PetryCMO, MongoDB
CelonisProcess Mining Tier 1 80/100 PQS-1, PQS-4 7+ tools, no unified ABM + SVP RevOps from ServiceNow + pre-IPO Ashling KearnsSVP Marketing, ex-Salesforce
CongaRevenue Lifecycle / CPQ-CLM Tier 2 78/100 PQS-1, PQS-2 New CRO (Nov 2025) + PROS acquisition + full C-suite refresh Lisa MartinCRO, Conga
PlanviewStrategic Portfolio Mgmt Tier 2 76/100 PQS-1, PQS-2 New CEO ex-Marketo + record revenue + PE growth mandate VP Demand Gen / CMOUnverified; CEO Matt Zilli gets it
FinastraFinancial Technology Tier 2 72/100 PQS-1, PQS-3 Agency ABM, no platform + stated need for measurable demand gen Harjeet SinghSr. Dir. Marketing & Demand Gen Ops

The score is a layered read of what's observable, what domain knowledge unlocks, and what combinations reveal. 48 signal types mapped across the four segments.

18
Surface signals

What anyone can see

New CMO and CRO appointments, ABM and demand-gen job postings, layoffs and earnings detail, funding and IPO events, and public LinkedIn posts about "proving ROI." Easy to detect, widely searched, noisy alone.

16
Deep signals

What domain knowledge unlocks

SEC filing language on forecast and conversion, technographic gap detection (Marketo or HubSpot plus CRM but no ABM platform via BuiltWith), Glassdoor sentiment on "too many tools," and ads.txt analysis showing consumer-grade DSPs running B2B advertising.

14
Inference chains

What combinations reveal

Pain built by cross-referencing 2 to 3 points where no single source confirms it but the combination does. A single signal is a hypothesis; two aligned signals are a lead; three or more with context are a priority account.

Worked example · PQS-1 high-confidence rule A new CMO or CRO appointed in the last 6 months + an ABM or demand-gen hire with no ABM platform detected + Marketo or Salesforce in the stack. Freshworks hits all three (new CMO Jan 2026 and new CRO Mar 2026, an open Director ABM role with a 7-figure budget, and no ABM platform on a Salesforce-ecosystem stack), which is why it scores 88.

The content engine, on the call.

Bottom-of-funnel SEO/AEO topics mapped to each segment — the content that captures buyers researching the category through answer engines. We walk the live plan through on the call.

Book the walkthrough →

Four pain-qualified segments, defined by observable pain rather than firmographics. Open one to see its definition, target persona, trigger signals, and why-now.

Revenue teams spending $100K+ on marketing technology yet unable to attribute marketing activity to pipeline. Marketing reports MQLs and impressions while the CFO asks "what pipeline did this create?" The result is wasted ad spend on non-buyers, misaligned sales effort, and marketing budget at risk.

Target persona

VP Demand Gen / Head of ABM and CMO at B2B companies with 500+ employees, $100M+ revenue, and a complex sales motion on Salesforce or Marketo with no ABM platform installed

Trigger signals
  • Job postings for "ABM Manager" or "Demand Gen Director", building the function from scratch
  • Recent CMO or CRO hire within 6 months bringing a new revenue-accountability mandate
  • Marketo or HubSpot plus Salesforce in the stack but no ABM platform detected
Why now: Intent-sourced leads convert at 18.7% versus 5.5% for cold ICP-match, a 3.4x gap that compounds every quarter without intent-based targeting. The richest signal environment of the four segments.

Enterprise sales teams running complex, multi-stakeholder deals where the buying committee is invisible. Reps single-thread through one contact while 5 to 8 decision-makers evaluate silently. Deals stall in late stages because unknown blockers surface, and deal sizes stay suppressed.

Target persona

VP Sales / CRO and CMO at enterprise B2B companies with $50K+ ACV, complex cycles, and no buying-group tooling

Trigger signals
  • Average deal size declining or flat despite product expansion
  • "Sales Enablement" and "Revenue Operations" roles posted simultaneously
  • Using a CRM plus a sales-engagement tool but no buying-group intelligence
Why now: Palo Alto Networks reached 2.3x higher deal sizes and +17% closed-won rates with buying groups present. Single-threaded deals are systematically smaller and less likely to close.

B2B marketing teams running display, social, and programmatic through consumer-grade DSPs that cannot target at the account level. Budget sprays across impressions that reach non-buyers, attribution is cookie-based and unreliable, and the CMO knows spend is partly wasted but cannot identify which half.

Target persona

CMO and VP Demand Gen at B2B companies with $500K+ annual digital ad spend and no account-based advertising platform

Trigger signals
  • Display and programmatic running through generic DSPs (Google Display Network, The Trade Desk) without account targeting
  • Hiring for "programmatic" or "digital media" roles
  • LinkedIn posts about "cookie deprecation" or recently cut ad budget under CFO scrutiny
Why now: A native B2B DSP spends budget only on in-market accounts. Intent-targeted advertising generates 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower CPL, and top-quartile programs reach 4.7x lower CPL than the bottom.

Revenue operations teams managing 5 to 10 disconnected tools for account intelligence, intent, enrichment, advertising, orchestration, and analytics. Data flows break, there is no single source of truth, and RevOps spends 60%+ of its time on data hygiene instead of analysis.

Target persona

Head of RevOps and Marketing Ops at B2B companies with 500+ employees and 4+ tools in the GTM stack but no unified platform

Trigger signals
  • Technographic data showing 4+ point solutions in the ABM / intent / enrichment stack
  • RevOps or Marketing Ops postings emphasizing "system integration" or "data quality"
  • Recently hired a RevOps leader with a consolidation mandate
Why now: Fragmented stacks cost 2 to 3x more in total ownership than a unified platform while delivering worse data, and orchestration cuts data-sifting time by up to 80%. The most signal-rich segment of the four.

The buying committee mapped — each role with the pain that defines it and the hook that moves it.

Economic Buyer
CMO
"I have to show the board marketing's revenue contribution, not activity. Justifying a six-figure platform means proving pipeline impact, not impressions."
Hook: Lead with board-ready pipeline metrics and marketing as a revenue center. Decision criteria are analyst recognition, peer references, and total cost versus pipeline impact. Proof: 367% average customer ROI.
Champion
VP Demand Gen / Head of ABM
"Our attribution is clunky and questionable, static account lists go stale every quarter, and buying-group engagement is invisible because we treat committees as single leads."
Hook: Lead with pipeline attribution, intent-based targeting, and buying-group visibility. This persona leads the evaluation and builds the business case to the CMO.
Technical Owner
Head of RevOps
"Data is fragmented across CRM, MAP, and third-party tools, account-to-contact matching is broken, and another long onboarding will drain the quarter."
Hook: Lead with Salesforce integration depth, account-to-contact match rates, and tech stack consolidation. Holds veto power on technical grounds; wants a sandbox and data-quality SLAs.
Co-Sponsor
VP Sales / CRO
"SDRs get generic lead scores with no account context, sales and marketing argue over target accounts, and reps waste time on low-probability deals."
Hook: Lead with sales-ready accounts, pipeline velocity, and larger deals through buying-group intelligence. Owns pipeline; will champion or block based on sales-team impact.
Evaluator
Sales Enablement
"If reps won't adopt it inside their workflow, none of the intelligence matters. Show me how it fits the daily motion, not another tab."
Hook: Lead with adoption and in-workflow usability. Validates UX and change management; the gate on whether the platform actually gets used.

Where Demandbase wins and where rivals are exposed, benchmarked against the closest comparator set — sourced from the GTM blueprint's competitive analysis.

DimensionDemandbase6senseZoomInfo MarketingRollWorks
Category position Unified Account-Based GTM / Pipeline AI platform; Gartner MQ Leader (5 years), Forrester Wave Leader with the highest strategy score in 2026 The most direct rival, an ABM and revenue-AI platform Data-first platform with ABM add-ons Lower-complexity ABM aimed at mid-market
Intent data Proprietary intent at scale: 2T+ signals per month, 70B+ page views per day, 133 languages Strong predictive and intent modeling, a core strength Intent layered onto a contact-database core Intent available but narrower in scope
B2B advertising Only platform with a native B2B DSP; account-based advertising with no third-party dependency Relies on third-party ad platforms, no native DSP Not the primary surface; advertising sits outside the core Native ad capability, simpler scope
Buying group orchestration AI buying-group assembly from 176M+ contacts; automated committee detection Account and persona modeling, lighter on committee assembly Contact data is the strength; orchestration is thinner Limited buying-group tooling
Platform breadth & AI Unified intent + DSP + buying groups + orchestration + AI agents in one operating system Strong AI revenue suite, no native advertising layer Data-centric model rather than a unified GTM platform Focused ABM scope rather than full-platform breadth
Enterprise validation Salesforce, Adobe, Palo Alto Networks, and Visa as reference customers; Salesforce chose Demandbase "based on trust" Strong mid-market to enterprise traction Backed by ZoomInfo's data scale and install base Best fit for mid-market, lighter enterprise proof

The sequences are drafted and waiting.

Every account ships with a four-touch sequence — A/B tested, with an opener tied to that account's observed signals. We walk you through the live ones on the call, so you see the channel that produces the pipeline before you commit.

Book the walkthrough →

Paid plays, ready to deploy.

Account-matched ad variants plus the Tier-1 to custom-audience loop that turns your best-fit accounts into a retargeting layer. Shown live on the call — the second half of the second pipeline source.

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The receipts

Two Tier-1s, in depth.

The top two accounts, worked end to end, why they're at the top, the evidence behind the score, and how we'd open them.

Freshworks
88 / 100 · Tier 1

Why they're at the top

An $839M-revenue enterprise SaaS company mid-transformation, with the enterprise segment now driving 60% of ARR. Three forces converge on the same quarter: Kady Srinivasan was hired as CMO in January 2026 with a mandate to reframe the AI-led growth story and drive marketing efficiency; an 11% workforce reduction in May 2026 landed while S&M expense rose 26% in Q1, the textbook "spend more, get less" pipeline blind spot; and an open Director of Demand Generation (ABM) role with a 7-figure budget signals they are building the ABM function from scratch. New marketing leadership plus acute efficiency pressure plus no ABM platform is the textbook PQS-1 buying window, and the function is being staffed right now.

How we'd open it

Lead with the pipeline-attribution angle, framed against her track record at Lightspeed where she doubled market share while quadrupling marketing efficiency. The wedge is the compounding stack decision: the ABM hire she is making now will build on whatever account-level data layer exists when they arrive, and with the first $1M+ ARR deal closed, buying-committee complexity just became immediately relevant for the CRO. LinkedIn DM to Kady plus a Week-2 thread to Ian Tickle (CRO); she is squarely in the decision window for the ABM stack.

MongoDB
84 / 100 · Tier 1

Why they're at the top

A $2.46B-revenue developer-data platform on a stated $5B growth path, transitioning its demand engine from PLG-centric to enterprise. The clearest signal is a Sr. Director of Demand Generation role explicitly chartered to build "a modern, efficient, AI-enabled center of excellence." Ryan Mac Ban arrived as CRO in April 2026 and Erica Volini as CCO the same month, a GTM leadership refresh in the window where infrastructure decisions get made. EMEA ABM hiring confirms they are building account-based capability globally, not just domestically, and no ABM platform is detected at enterprise scale.

How we'd open it

Lead with the PLG-to-enterprise attribution gap. The intent versus cold ICP-match conversion difference compounds hard against a $5B target, and the question the new demand engine must answer is which enterprise accounts are evaluating database alternatives right now, before AWS, Oracle, or Snowflake reach them first. May Petry is active on LinkedIn and verified, so a light warm-up on her content precedes the DM, with a Week-2 thread to Ryan Mac Ban on buying-committee visibility for enterprise deals. Time it to the demand-gen leader hire, who will need a platform on arrival.

The upside

Public data got us here. Yours compounds it.

What we used (public)

All linked in the Verification Log
  • SEC filings (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K) and earnings-call slides and IR pages
  • Company press releases and newsroom feeds (BusinessWire, GlobeNewswire, FFNews)
  • LinkedIn job postings (ABM, Demand Gen, RevOps, CMO and CRO roles)
  • LinkedIn profiles and recent post activity
  • BuiltWith and HG Insights for visible GTM and marketing-tool stacks
  • Crunchbase, PitchBook, Tracxn, and Getlatka for company snapshots
  • G2, TrustRadius, FeaturedCustomers, and Cuspera review libraries
  • Analyst and trade coverage (Gartner, Forrester, Yahoo Finance, Constellation)
  • The Org, RocketReach, and Lead411 for leadership and persona verification
  • Demandbase and 6sense customer and case-study pages (for the exclusion check)

What your systems unlock (private)

8 systems Demandbase's revenue org already runs
  • Salesforce CRM — deal stages, pipeline value, contact engagement
  • Demandbase One — first-party intent, account engagement, and buying-group signals
  • Marketo — full campaign and email engagement history
  • Outreach or Salesloft — sequence performance and reply data
  • Internal win/loss tagging and account-health scoring
  • Third-party intent feeds (Bombora, G2) at the account level
  • Billing and ARR telemetry for expansion-path triggers
  • Product and trial usage telemetry — adoption, seat expansion, login frequency
The first 90 days

From signature to a live channel.

No lengthy discovery. The audit gates everything downstream, infrastructure builds in parallel, and by day 90 you're reviewing pipeline against the number you set at kickoff.

Days 1–5

Onboarding

Contract signed. Customised onboarding doc within one business day covering goals, ICP hypotheses, and access. You have five days.

Days 1–21

The audit

ICP and segment analysis, competitive intel, voice-of-customer mining, AEO positioning, and a custom signal catalogue. Full readout + 90-day revenue roadmap at week three.

Days 1–42

Infrastructure

In parallel: CRM hygiene, LinkedIn activation, domain warm-up, signal-to-rep routing, system integrations. Engine live by day 42.

Days 21–90

Execution

Workstreams go live as the audit dictates: signal layer, content, outbound sequences, paid, orchestration. Weekly working sessions keep it moving.

Day 90

Executive review

Pipeline generated and closed-won attribution reviewed against the success criteria agreed at kickoff. Channel ROI ranked. Next quarter set.

Part 4 · The Ask Part 6 · Next Steps

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