#48 - Most ABM programs don't fail because of tactics. They fail before a single campaign runs — because the accounts were wrong, the structure wasn't there, and nobody agreed on what success actually looked like.
Brandon Redlinger has spent his career inside account-based marketing — from building ABM strategy at Engagio and Demandbase to running it across a portfolio of companies today as founder of Stack and Scale. In this conversation, he cuts through the noise on what ABM actually is, when it's the right strategy for your business, and the framework he uses to bring real structure and accountability to how resources get deployed against target accounts.
If you're thinking about launching an ABM program or trying to understand why your current one isn't producing, this episode gets into the details most conversations skip.
About Brandon Redlinger:
Brandon Redlinger is a fractional CMO and the founder of Stack and Scale, where he leads marketing strategy across companies ranging from seed stage to $200M in revenue. He spent years inside some of the most influential ABM platforms in B2B — including Engagio, Demandbase, Chili Piper, and revenue.io — and now applies that experience across a wide range of go-to-market environments.
In this episode, we cover:
- What ABM actually is — and how to tell it apart from just doing demand gen more carefully
- The ACV and TAM thresholds that signal ABM is the right motion for your business
- The account entitlements framework: how to deploy resources against target accounts with real SLAs and accountability
- How to run a thoughtful ABM pilot — and the mistakes that sink most early programs before they get started
- ABM for expansion: why going deeper into existing accounts is often the highest-leverage starting point
- What's actually working in ABM right now — events, direct mail, experiences — and what isn't
- The GTM engineer role and how it's changing what's possible in ABM execution
- Stage-based attribution and how to prove ABM is working before the deal closes
- Brandon's emerging model for account-level sentiment analysis using AI — and why it may be where ABM measurement is heading
- Why sales and marketing alignment still breaks ABM programs — and how incentive structure is almost always the root cause
Chapter Markers:
- (00:00) Welcome and Guest Background
- (04:13) Defining ABM and When It's Right
- (10:22) The Account Entitlements Framework
- (21:15) ABM Pilots, Expansion, and What Works
- (33:38) Measuring ABM and AI-Powered Signals
Resources:
Brandon Redlinger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonredlinger/
Stack and Scale newsletter: https://stackandscale.ai
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