12th November 2026 | GCL

 

Last week, the GCL team exhibited at The Global ABM Conference in London.

It was a busy day full of conversations with marketing and sales professionals about what’s working in ABM, where the challenges still sit, and how businesses are trying to turn account engagement into measurable commercial results.

That focus was reflected throughout the event itself, with sessions centred around practical ABM, sales and marketing alignment, AI and data, buying groups and proving commercial impact.

During the day, one of the recurring challenges we heard at our stand wasn’t necessarily identifying the right target accounts, but knowing how to engage the right people within those accounts – and, crucially, how to maintain momentum once that initial interest had been generated.

We also heard a lot of marketing decision-makers voicing their frustration around wasted opportunities and the difficulty sales and marketing teams can face in converting MQLs into genuine SQLs.

For us, those conversations reinforced three critical ingredients for turning ABM engagement into pipeline.

 

ABM might be increasingly sophisticated, but the fundamentals haven’t gone away.

If you’re targeting a defined group of accounts, you need confidence that the data behind that strategy is accurate:

Because poor data can quickly undermine an otherwise strong ABM campaign.

It can mean time is spent targeting the wrong people, important stakeholders are missed, and sales teams are asked to follow up accounts without enough context.

This becomes even more important as AI and automation play a greater role in ABM. The faster businesses can act on account signals, the more important it becomes that the underlying data and assumptions are reliable.

That was reflected in the conference agenda too, with sessions exploring data provenance, buying-group intelligence and the risks of acting on ambiguous account-level signals.

For GCL, this is why data is such an important part of any campaign.

Before the first conversation takes place, we can help clients build, cleanse and enrich their target data so the campaign starts with the strongest possible foundation.

 

One of the biggest themes we took away from the day was the importance of what happens after an account engages.

ABM can help businesses identify the right accounts, build awareness, generate intent and create engagement.

But ultimately, somebody still needs to turn that engagement into a conversation… and that is often where the gap appears.

Someone might download content, attend an event, visit a landing page or show increased intent. But:

• Who follows up?
• How quickly does follow-up happen?
• Who do they speak to?
• What questions do they ask?
• What qualifies that account as a genuine opportunity?
• And what happens if the account is interested, but isn’t ready to buy yet?

The conference agenda described this particularly well in one session: a lead is only useful to sales if it carries enough context for the seller to act on it.

That is where SDR support can become an important part of an ABM programme.

A dedicated SDR resource can help to:

For businesses running ABM programmes at scale, that additional capacity can also ensure valuable account engagement doesn’t simply disappear because internal sales teams don’t have the time to follow everything up.

 

Sales and marketing alignment has been discussed for years, but ABM makes it particularly important.

Both teams might agree on the accounts they want to target, but that doesn’t automatically mean the process works once the campaign starts.

There still needs to be agreement around:

The Global ABM agenda placed significant emphasis on shared ownership and on marketing and sales working together across the buying journey.

For us, that’s an important reminder that successful ABM isn’t simply about selecting the right accounts.

It’s about building the process around them.

At GCL, we help bridge the gap between Sales and Marketing by understanding the objectives, challenges and expectations of both functions.

We recognise that what Marketing considers a lead does not always translate into what Sales considers a qualified commercial opportunity. Equally, what Sales regards as valuable prospect intelligence may differ from how Marketing defines engagement or lead quality.

That difference matters, because it directly affects what happens next; who owns the follow-up, when that follow-up takes place, and what happens to accounts that are showing interest but are not yet ready for a sales conversation.

By working closely with both teams, GCL helps align expectations, clarify what constitutes data, engagement, a lead or a genuine opportunity, and ensure that marketing activity translates into meaningful sales engagement at the right point in the ABM journey.

We can also help take ownership of the processes that often sit in this ‘grey area’ between Sales and Marketing – making sure nothing is missed, every account has a clear next action and appropriate timeline, and ultimately helping businesses get more value from their ABM investment.

 

Perhaps our biggest takeaway from the event was that there is still a critical gap between identifying an account and creating a genuine commercial opportunity.

A simple ABM journey might look like this:

Technology, intent data and AI can help businesses become smarter about who they target and when.

But complex B2B buying decisions still involve people, and at some point, somebody has to start the conversation.

That’s where GCL fits.

We support B2B marketing and sales teams with:

• Target account and contact data
• Data cleansing and enrichment
• Outbound SDR campaigns
• ABM and campaign follow-up
• Lead qualification
• Pipeline nurture
• Multilingual outreach
• Event and marketing campaign follow-up

All designed to help turn marketing activity into meaningful conversations and measurable pipeline.

 

If you’re planning an ABM campaign, some useful questions to ask are:

If any of those questions are difficult to answer, that may be the place to start.

Because ultimately, successful ABM isn’t just about reaching the right accounts.

It’s about turning the right accounts into the right conversations.

If you want to turn more target accounts into sales conversations, talk to GCL about data, SDR support and ABM follow-up.