How to identify buying groups and activate the right revenue signals

What you’ll learn

By the end of this playbook, you will know how to:

• Shift from optimizing individual leads to understanding account-level buying behavior.
• Identify the personas and buying group roles involved in a purchase.
• Interpret fit, intent, engagement, and CRM signals in context.
• Turn buying group insights into Journey Stages and coordinated campaigns.
• Align the revenue team and measure account progression, pipeline impact, and revenue outcomes.

Why is this important?

For years, B2B marketing teams have optimized around individual leads: form fills, MQLs, hand raises, and nurture paths built for one person at a time.

But complex B2B purchases are not made by one person. They are shaped by buying groups: the decision makers, champions, influencers, technical evaluators, users, procurement stakeholders, and blockers who collectively determine whether a deal moves forward.

That reality is not new. B2B teams have always known that complex deals are won through groups of people, not individual leads. What has changed is the ability to act on that knowledge.

Technology has made it possible to identify buying group signals, understand stakeholder roles, coordinate Marketing and Sales action, and measure progress in ways revenue teams can operationalize.

The challenge is no longer collecting data. It is knowing how to turn that insight into coordinated action across Marketing and Sales.

This playbook explains how to bring buying group understanding into modern Account-Based GTM: why the shift matters, how to identify meaningful signals, how to activate campaigns across the buying journey, and how to measure success as one revenue team.

What you need to get started

Before putting this playbook into action, assemble:

• One priority ICP segment, account tier, product line, or use case.
• A selection of recent won, lost, and stalled opportunities.
• Access to fit, intent, engagement, sales activity, opportunity, and customer data.
• An initial view of the personas and roles involved in the buying process.
• Representatives from Marketing, Sales, SDR/BDR, Customer Success, RevOps, Digital, and Field or Events.
• Baseline account engagement, MQA conversion, opportunity, pipeline, and revenue metrics.

Start with one meaningful segment and buying motion rather than attempting to redesign your entire GTM strategy at once.

Part 1: Why the shift is happening

Lead-centric GTM was built for a simpler buying strategy

Lead-based GTM is familiar because it is easy to count.

One person fills out a form. One person receives a score. One person becomes an MQL. One person gets routed to Sales.

But that model breaks down when buying decisions involve an entire committee.

A single lead might be interested but not influential. A highly engaged account might have no clear hand raiser. A deal might stall because a technical evaluator, economic buyer, or procurement stakeholder was never engaged.

In those moments, more leads do not solve the problem. Better buying group insight does.

The shift is not from Marketing to Sales, or from demand generation to ABM. It is a shift from optimizing individual activity to orchestrating revenue motion around account-level buying behavior.

Leads give you a name. Accounts give you a company. Buying groups show you who moves a deal.

Step 1. Recognize where the lead-centric model falls short

Review recent marketing and sales activity for signs that individual lead behavior does not reflect the full account opportunity:

• High-fit accounts showing meaningful activity without a traditional hand raiser.
• Multiple people from the same account being treated as unrelated leads.
• Highly engaged individuals with little influence over the purchase.
• Opportunities that depend too heavily on one contact.
• Deals that stall because an important stakeholder was not engaged.

The objective is not to eliminate lead data. It is to stop treating one person’s activity as a complete representation of the buying decision.

Step 2. Adopt the four operating shifts

These shifts change the questions revenue teams ask.

Instead of asking only how many leads a campaign generated, ask:

• Which target accounts became more active?
• Which stakeholders were involved?
• Did engagement expand across the buying group?
• Did the account progress?
• What should Marketing or Sales do next?

Part 2: What a buying group is

A buying group is a map of influence, not a longer contact list

Start by identifying the buying group: the people who influence, evaluate, recommend, approve, champion, use, or block a purchasing decision.

It includes the stakeholders your team already knows, as well as less visible influencers who may shape the outcome behind the scenes.

A buying group is not simply every contact at an account. It is the right people, playing the right roles in a specific buying decision, showing the right signals at the right time.

Step 1. Distinguish personas from buying group roles

One of the biggest misconceptions about buying groups is that personas and buying group roles are interchangeable. They are not.

A persona describes who someone is within the organization: their job function, responsibilities, or area of expertise. Examples include IT Director, Marketing Operations Manager, CFO, Procurement Manager, or Sales VP.

A buying group role describes the part that person plays in a specific purchase. The same persona may play different buying group roles depending on what is being evaluated.

Understanding both dimensions gives revenue teams a more complete picture.

Personas help determine what messages and content someone is likely to care about. buying group roles help determine when to engage them, what part they play in the decision, and where gaps exist in the buying process.

Step 2. Define the roles that matter

Framework: Personas and Buying Group Roles

Step 3. Map the buying group

1. Start with your best recent deals and map the roles involved.
2. Identify which people appeared early, which appeared late, and which were missing when deals stalled.
3. Create a simple buying group role model for your top segment or use case.
4. Align Marketing, Sales, SDRs, Customer Success, and RevOps on the role definitions.
5. Avoid overcomplicating the model. Start with three to five roles that influence deal progression.

Step 4. Match content to the persona and role

Personalize by Persona. Prioritize by Buying Group Role.

Personas tell you what message someone needs to hear. Buying group roles tell you when they should be engaged, how they influence the decision, and where they fit in the buying process. Modern Account-Based GTM requires both.

Where Demandbase Buying Groups helps

Demandbase Buying Groups helps teams identify relevant personas, map known contacts to buying roles, and fill gaps with relevant contacts.

It also gives teams a clearer view of missing roles, active engagement, and silent influencers so they can understand who is involved, who is engaged, and where action is needed.

Part 3: Move from signal volume to signal quality

Not every signal matters. The right signals show buying group momentum.

The lead-centric model often treats every action as a scoreable event.

A page visit adds points. A form fill adds points. An email click adds points. Eventually, an individual crosses a threshold.

When teams bring buying group understanding into their Account-Based GTM strategy, they start asking better questions:

• Who is engaging?
• What role do they play?
• Is engagement increasing across the account?
• Are multiple members of the buying group active?
• Are the right roles present, or are critical stakeholders missing?
• Does the activity look like research, evaluation, consensus building, or deal acceleration?

The goal is not to collect more signals. The goal is to interpret signals in context.

Step 1. Organize the signals that matter

Framework: The four signal categories for identifying your Ideal Customer Profile

No single signal category provides the complete picture.

Fit indicates whether the account deserves investment. Intent indicates whether the account is researching a relevant problem. Engagement shows direct interaction with your brand. Relationship and CRM data reveal whether an active sales or customer strategy already exists.

Step 2. Layer in buying group context

Once those signals are available, evaluate them through a buying group lens.

Step 3. Determine who should be engaged next

Buying groups are dynamic. Not every buying group member will engage at the same time or at the same stage of the buying journey.

As buying decisions evolve, new stakeholders often enter the process while others become less active.

The goal is not to engage everyone immediately. It is to understand:

• Who is involved today.
• Which roles are active.
• Who is missing.
• Who should be engaged next.

Where Demandbase Buying Groups helps

Demandbase provides a centralized view of buying group insights, helping teams identify missing roles, actively engaged contacts, and silent influencers.

AI-powered recommendations can help surface relevant contacts by buying group roles, while Sales views help teams prioritize accounts that may require action. Those insights can then support campaigns, CRM workflows, reporting, and the broader revenue technology stack.

Part 4: Turn insights into Journey Stages

Buying group understanding is most valuable when it tells you what to do next

Signals by themselves do not create revenue impact.

Revenue impact happens when teams use those signals to understand where an account is in its journey and what action should happen next.

A simple Journey Stage model helps teams turn buying group signals into action without overcomplicating the process. Instead of building dozens of micro-stages, start with a practical model that tells Marketing and Sales how to respond.

The operating model should move accounts from Unengaged to Engaged, MQA/SQO, Active Pipeline, and Closed-Won, with unified GTM responsibility rather than functional silos.

Recommended Journey Stage model

How to put the model into practice

1. Define the Journey Stages your team will actually use.
2. Decide which signals move an account from one stage to the next.
3. Align each stage to a primary team owner and supporting teams.
4. Map the next-best Marketing and Sales action for each stage.
5. Review stage movement weekly with Sales and SDR teams.

Part 5: Execute buying group campaigns

Build campaigns around role, stage, and signal strength

Traditional campaigns often start with a list and a message.

buying group campaigns start with a revenue question:

• Which accounts are showing meaningful buying activity?
• Which people are involved?
• Which roles are missing?
• Where are they in their journey?
• What action should Marketing, Sales, or Customer Success take next?

That context determines the audience, message, channel, and handoff.

This is where personas and buying group roles come together.

Use personas to tailor messaging, content, and creative. Use buying group roles to determine who to engage, when to engage them, and what action should happen next within the account.

Step 1. Define the campaign strategy

Campaign planning framework

Step 2. Select the appropriate campaign play

Choose the play that matches the account’s Journey Stage, buying group activity, and desired outcome.

Campaign Example 1: Awareness Play

Use when: Target accounts fit your ICP but show limited engagement.

Campaign Example 2: MQA Activation Play

Use when: An account shows strong engagement across multiple people or roles.

Campaign Example 3: Opportunity Acceleration Play

Use when: There is an active opportunity, but stakeholder coverage or momentum is incomplete.

Campaign Example 4: Expansion Play

Use when: Existing customers show new interest, adoption signals, or expansion potential.

Step 3. Coordinate the campaign across teams and channels

Campaign orchestration should connect:

Meaningful signal trigger → account and buying group context → role-specific message → coordinated channels → Sales or Customer Success action → measurable progression

Avoid running separate channel programs against the same account without shared context.

Where Demandbase Buying Groups helps

Demandbase Buying Groups connects insight to action by helping teams see buying group activity, identify role gaps, prioritize active accounts, and recommend relevant contacts.

Teams can then use those insights across campaigns, CRM workflows, reporting, CDPs, BI platforms, and advertising programs such as Demandbase JourneyIQ.

Part 6: Work as one revenue team

Account-Based GTM only works when Marketing and Sales share the same view

Account-Based GTM is not a Marketing-only strategy.

It requires Marketing, Sales, SDRs, RevOps, Customer Success, Digital, Field, and leadership to work from the same account and buying group context.

Marketing should not simply generate engagement and throw it over the wall. Sales should not treat every account alert the same. RevOps should not measure success only through legacy lead stages.

The team needs a shared operating model: shared definitions, shared signals, shared plays, and shared accountability.

Step 1. Define each team’s role

Revenue team operating model

Step 2. Run a weekly revenue-team review

Use a consistent agenda:

1. Which accounts moved stages this week?
2. Which accounts show the strongest buying group activity?
3. Which roles are active?
4. Which important roles are missing?
5. Which accounts need Marketing air cover?
6. Which accounts need Sales outreach?
7. Which opportunities need stakeholder expansion?
8. What did we learn from last week’s plays?

End each account discussion with a clear next action and owner.

Part 7: Start with a 90-day activation plan

You do not need to rebuild your entire GTM strategy at once

The fastest path to Account-Based GTM is not a massive transformation project.

Start with one segment, one use case, one set of roles, and one shared view of what meaningful buying activity looks like.

The goal of the first 90 days is to prove that buying group insight helps the revenue team focus, personalize, and progress accounts more effectively than lead volume alone.

Part 7A: Days 1–30 — Define the strategy

Start with a segment your executive team already cares about, then connect every insight, campaign, and result back to those priorities.

Choose the right deployment model

Not every account deserves the same level of investment.

Once you have selected your priority segment, determine the appropriate deployment model based on account value, buying complexity, and available resources.

The right deployment model determines how much personalization, orchestration, and Sales engagement each account should receive, ensuring resources are aligned with the accounts that matter most.

Continue learning: For a deeper look at deployment models, account prioritization, and resource allocation, explore the Account-Based GTM Certification on Demandbase Academy.

Part 7B: Days 31–60 — Build and launch the play

Continue your Account-Based GTM journey: Explore the Account-Centric Growth Metrics Strategy Playbook to learn how to build executive-ready dashboards, align Marketing and Sales around shared KPIs, and measure the business impact of Account-Based GTM.

Part 7C: Days 61–90 — Optimize and scale

Low-lift starting point

Pick your top in-flight opportunities and map the buying group.

Identify who is active, who is missing, and what each role needs to move forward. Then align Marketing and Sales on the next action for each opportunity.

Buying groups are dynamic. As priorities shift and new stakeholders join the buying process, revisit your definitions, signals, and plays to keep the strategy aligned with how customers actually buy.

Part 8: Measure progress and success

Measure revenue progress through buying group engagement

Measuring the success of a buying group strategy requires a different approach than measuring lead-centric marketing.

Traditional activity metrics still matter because they help diagnose engagement, but they should not be the headline.

Clicks, opens, form fills, and impressions provide useful context, but they do not measure revenue progress on their own.

Instead, measure whether:

• Target accounts are progressing through the buying journey.
• The right buying group members are engaged.
• Marketing and Sales are acting on shared insights.
• Those efforts improve pipeline creation, deal progression, and revenue outcomes.

As the strategy matures, evaluate performance across two complementary dimensions:

• Which personas are engaging with your content? This shows whether the messaging is resonating with the right audiences.
• Which buying group roles are participating in the buying decision? This shows whether the opportunity has the stakeholder coverage needed to move forward.

Strong buying group engagement requires both the right personas and the right buying group roles.

Step 1. Use the measurement framework

Step 2. Change the reporting questions

Step 3. Set the reporting cadence

Where Demandbase Buying Groups helps

Demandbase Buying Groups supports this measurement shift by helping teams centralize buying group insights, identify engaged and missing roles, prioritize accounts, and make buying group data available to downstream tools such as CDPs, BI platforms, and advertising systems.

Part 9: The practical checklist

Account-Based GTM readiness checklist

Use this checklist before launching your first buying group campaign.

The results

Modern Account-Based GTM starts with buying group understanding

The move from leads to buying groups is more than a measurement shift. It is a more complete way to understand how buying decisions happen and how Marketing and Sales can work together to influence them.

When teams understand who is involved in the buying decision, what role each person plays, which signals matter, and how the group is progressing, they can stop reacting to isolated lead activity and start coordinating engagement across the people who influence the decision.

Modern Account-Based GTM is not about replacing persona-based marketing with buying groups. It is about bringing the two together.

Personalize by Persona. Prioritize by Buying Group Role.

Personas determine what message someone needs to hear.

Buying group roles determine when to engage them, how they influence the decision, and where they fit in the buying process.

When revenue teams personalize by persona and prioritize by buying group roles, they engage the right people with the right message at the right time—creating more opportunities to move deals forward.

That is the promise of bringing buying group understanding into modern Account-Based GTM:

• Better focus for Marketing.
• Better context for Sales.
• More relevant buyer experiences.
• Greater visibility into what drives revenue.

Every step should lead to a specific outcome that supports revenue impact.