The funnel didn’t fail. It was outgrown.
For years, the B2B marketing funnel was treated as sacred.
Awareness led to interest.
Interest led to leads.
Leads led to opportunities.
Opportunities led to revenue.
It was clean. Predictable. Comforting.
And completely misaligned with how B2B buying actually works today.
Buying groups didn’t just “stress test” the funnel. They broke it entirely.
That’s not a problem. It’s progress.
The buying group reality marketers can’t ignore anymore
Modern B2B purchases are rarely made by a single decision-maker. Research from firms like Gartner and Forrester consistently shows that B2B buying groups now average 6 to 10 stakeholders, each bringing different priorities, risks, and levels of influence into the decision.
In practice, this means:
- One person downloads content
- Another joins a demo
- A third blocks the deal late due to security or compliance
- A fourth reopens evaluation because priorities shifted
None of this fits neatly into a linear funnel.
Yet many marketing organizations are still measuring success as if it does.
Why funnels fail in a buying group world
Funnels assume three things that are no longer true:
1. One person equals one decision
Buying groups invalidate this immediately. Influence is distributed, not centralized.
2. Progress is linear
Buying group engagement is asynchronous. Stakeholders enter, exit, stall, and re-engage at different times.
3. Qualification happens at the individual level
In reality, no single lead represents purchase intent. Intent emerges only when a group moves together.
Funnels collapse under this complexity.
What replaces the funnel is not chaos. It’s orchestration.
The answer to buying group complexity is not abandoning structure. It’s abandoning lead-centric structure.
This is where revenue marketing platforms, and specifically buying group-centric design, come into play.
Forrester’s B2B Revenue Marketing Platforms Wave makes this clear: platforms must support buying groups as a core capability, not a bolt-on feature.
Buying groups are not just a reporting lens. They are the unit of progress.
Why buying groups forced new platform architecture
Legacy marketing automation platforms were built around leads because leads were the smallest measurable unit of demand.
That design choice worked until it didn’t.
In a buying group world:
- Intent exists before you know all the people
- Missing roles matter as much as known contacts
- Engagement must happen at the group level, not just the inbox
This is precisely why Adobe made a critical architectural decision.
Why Adobe built buying groups outside Marketo
Adobe Marketo Engage is lead-centric by design. “Account” is context, not a primary object.
Rather than force buying groups into a model that wasn’t designed for them, Adobe built Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition on Adobe Experience Platform with a fundamentally different approach.
In AJO B2B:
- Account is a first-class object
- Buying group is a first-class object
- Roles exist even when people are unknown
- Product or solution interest belongs to the group, not the lead
This is not a feature enhancement. It’s a philosophical shift.
Funnels measure volume. Buying groups measure momentum.
One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is trying to “map” buying groups back into funnels.
That’s backwards.
Funnels ask:
- How many leads did we get?
- How fast did they convert?
Buying group models ask:
- Which accounts are assembling buying groups?
- Which roles are engaged or missing?
- Which groups are progressing, stalling, or regressing?
This changes everything about how success is defined.
The rise of Marketing Qualified Buying Groups (MQBGs)
In a buying group model, the marketing handoff is no longer a lead. It’s a Marketing Qualified Buying Group.
An MQBG represents:
- A defined account
- A set of required roles
- Evidence of collective engagement
- Alignment with sales on what “qualified” means
This is fundamentally different from MQL logic.
It also explains why so many sales teams distrust traditional marketing metrics.
They’re being asked to act on signals that don’t reflect how deals actually form.
Why sales and marketing alignment improves with buying groups
Buying groups create alignment because they:
- Mirror how sales already thinks about accounts
- Provide visibility into missing stakeholders
- Reduce false positives from individual activity spikes
Sales does not ask, “Which lead should I call?”
Sales asks, “Which account is real?”
Buying group models finally give marketing a credible answer.
The common objection: “We already do this with smart lists”
Many marketing teams believe they’re already doing buying group marketing because they:
- Tag roles on leads
- Build account lists
- Use ABM tools for ads
But these are approximations, not orchestration.
Smart lists still depend on known people.
They can’t represent missing roles.
They can’t trigger group-level logic.
Buying groups require a native data model, not clever workarounds.
Where ABM tools fit (and where they don’t)
ABM platforms like Demandbase or 6sense are powerful, but they excel primarily in paid media and intent discovery.
They are not designed to:
- Orchestrate end-to-end buying group journeys
- Manage lifecycle engagement post-opportunity
- Serve as the system of record for revenue progression
This is why Adobe explicitly positions AJO B2B as complementary, not competitive, to ABM tools.
Discovery happens in ABM. Conversion and progression happen in revenue marketing platforms.
This is where most organizations get stuck
Organizations often find themselves in a painful middle state:
- They believe in buying groups
- They own powerful platforms
- But they still measure success in leads
This mismatch creates:
- Confusing dashboards
- Endless attribution debates
- Executive skepticism
- Tool sprawl driven by frustration
The problem is not intent. It’s readiness.
Where Leadous creates leverage
Leadous helps organizations cross the gap between:
- Buying group theory
- And buying group execution
We help teams:
- Define buying group models that reflect real deals
- Align marketing and sales on qualification logic
- Design journeys around roles and group signals
- Measure momentum instead of volume
We don’t just implement platforms. We operationalize how revenue is created.
A better question to ask than “How many leads did we get?”
Instead of asking: “How many leads did this campaign generate?”
Ask:
- Which buying groups advanced this quarter?
- Where are deals stalling due to missing roles?
- Which accounts show collective intent but lack engagement?
Those are revenue questions.
And they can’t be answered by a funnel alone.
The bottom line
Buying groups didn’t break marketing. They exposed its limitations.
The organizations that adapt will move faster, align better, and earn more trust at the executive level.
The ones that don’t will keep optimizing activity while wondering why revenue stays unpredictable.
For additional resources on buying group readiness, orchestration, and revenue marketing design, explore the Leadous insights library:
