The real reason your ABM campaigns stall: Missing cross-channel intent signals

Most B2B marketers running ABM campaigns are doing everything “right.”  They build account lists, personalize landing pages, run targeted ads, and send thoughtful emails. But somehow, pipeline still stalls. Engagement looks good on paper with clicks, opens, and maybe a few responses, but deals don’t move.

Why?

Because the signals you are acting on are incomplete.

In today’s buyer journey, intent does not live in a single channel. It is scattered across platforms, roles, and tools. A VP of Marketing might read your blog. A Product Manager might visit your pricing page three times. A Sales Director might follow your company on LinkedIn. And none of these people may ever fill out a form.

If your ABM program only sees form fills and ad clicks, it is missing the moments that actually matter. That is why campaigns stall.

This article will show you how to identify cross-channel signals and use them to build ABM campaigns that move faster and convert better.

Most intent lives in the dark funnel

One of the biggest blind spots in ABM is assuming buyer interest starts when someone fills out a form. But in reality, most intent lives in the dark funnel. This is the part of the journey where potential buyers are researching, evaluating, and discussing solutions quietly, without raising their hand.

Some examples:

• someone at a target account reads two or three blog posts;

• a teammate shares your case study in Slack;

• the Head of Product checks your pricing page multiple times;

• the CMO likes your LinkedIn post linked in the newsletter;

• a follow-up email is forwarded to a technical decision-maker;

• several visits from the same domain appear over a two-week period.
  
  

None of these behaviors generate a lead or trigger a notification. But they all point to rising interest inside the account. The problem is that most tools only track isolated signals. They don’t connect behavior across people, channels, and time. So the interest stays hidden.

You are tracking the wrong signals

Most teams still rely on surface-level metrics. Open rates. Clicks. Pageviews. These are easy to measure, but they tell you very little about who is actually interested or where they are in the decision process.

What gets missed:

• repeat visits to high-intent pages like pricing or product comparisons;

• content being viewed by multiple people from the same company;

• blog engagement that leads to branded search or direct traffic;

• LinkedIn activity triggered by newsletter clicks;

• whitepaper downloads that happen without form fills.
  
  

This scattered engagement is exactly what precedes a sales conversation. But if you are only looking for form submissions, you will never know it happened. That means you miss your window to follow up, and the buyer moves on.

Read next: The hidden buyer signals in your content you’re probably ignoring

Your campaigns are misaligned with buyer behavior

When you cannot see the real signals, your timing gets thrown off. Your messaging sounds generic. Your ads show up too early or too late. And your outbound emails go out with no context.

Instead of aligning with what the buyer cares about, you end up:

• pitching too soon and pushing the account away;

• waiting too long and losing momentum;

• sending case studies to people who haven’t even read your homepage;

• missing out on accounts that are quietly heating up.
  
  

Buyers don’t follow a linear journey. Their interest builds across touchpoints, devices, and teams. One person might engage with content on LinkedIn. Another might visit the website through organic search. A third might open your newsletter and forward it to procurement. But unless you can stitch these signals together, the account looks cold.

Sales has no visibility and no reason to act

Even if marketing sees engagement, it often stays stuck in dashboards or slides. Sales teams don’t get the context they need to prioritize or personalize their outreach.

Without connected signals, sales is left guessing:

• which accounts are actually warming up;

• who inside the company is engaging;

• what content has already been seen and shared;

• when is the right time to reach out.
  
  

So they default to cold outreach, skip warm accounts, or send irrelevant follow-ups. And the campaign momentum dies.

ABM results suffer, even with great content

You can have amazing content, clear targeting, and strong positioning. But if you can’t tell when a buyer is showing intent, your results will always be inconsistent.

The truth is, intent exists. You’re just not seeing it.

Buyers are sending signals. You’re just not capturing them. And until you fix that, your ABM campaigns will continue to stall.

What to do instead

If your ABM campaigns are missing the mark, the solution isn’t to push harder. It’s to get better visibility and act on the right signals at the right time. That means focusing on two core capabilities:

Get visibility into cross-channel intent signals

Most buyer journeys are scattered across multiple touchpoints, roles, and sessions. One person from a target account might read your blog. Another might check out your pricing page. A third might follow your LinkedIn profile or watch a short demo video. None of these actions show up in your CRM, and most of them happen anonymously.

If you are only looking at lead forms or email clicks, you will miss these behaviors. But these are often the first signs that a company is in research mode. To surface these patterns, you need tools that go beyond traditional analytics and attribution.

Start by asking:

• Are people from the same company visiting your site multiple times in a short window?

• Are they engaging with specific types of content like product docs, integration pages, or case studies?

• Are these visits coming from high-value personas or departments?

• Are there signs of movement between channels, such as reading your blog and then clicking a LinkedIn post or visiting your About page?

  
  

Seeing this activity in isolation is not enough. You need to connect the dots across sessions and platforms and group behaviors at the account level. That way, you are no longer relying on individual lead actions. You are watching how buying interest grows across a team.

Surface and act on account-level patterns

Once you have better visibility, the next step is making that data useful. The biggest mistake ABM teams make is failing to act on the signals they already have. They might see increased traffic from a target company but have no system to recognize it or respond quickly.

To fix this, you need a simple way to detect high-interest activity across people and channels, and then trigger timely actions. This can include:

• detecting clusters of engagement from the same domain;

• scoring accounts based on actual behavior, not just firmographics or email opens;

• notifying sales when specific thresholds are met, such as three or more visitors from the same company viewing high-intent pages;

• tailoring outreach based on what the account has viewed, rather than relying on generic messaging;

• prioritizing follow-up for accounts that are warming up, even if no one has filled out a form yet.
  
  

For example, imagine this happens in a single week: a Head of Marketing reads your thought leadership piece, a Product Manager downloads a whitepaper, and a RevOps lead visits your integrations page. Traditional tools may treat these visits as separate events, but they are actually signs of coordinated research inside the same company.

When your ABM program can surface those patterns, you can act while the account is still in research mode. That means faster campaigns, more relevant outreach, and fewer missed opportunities.

ClearCue helps you see the dark funnel

ClearCue tracks engagement across your funnel and connects anonymous and known signals back to companies. You’ll see when multiple people from the same account are exploring your content, coming back to your site, or comparing your solution to competitors. And you can use this data to prioritize accounts, tailor messaging, and act at the right time.

No more guessing. No more missed signals. Just better ABM that actually moves the needle.

Try ClearCue and see how much intent you’re missing.