New Report: Why Agentic Marketing Is the New Architecture for B2B Growth
The funnel is dead. Long live the funnel.
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This week’s research note includes:
GTM Research: Why Agentic Marketing Is the New Architecture for B2B Growth
GTM OS Certified Partner Spotlight: Celeste Jacroux at Swell Marketing Advisors
Upcoming Events and Access
Research: Why Agentic Marketing Is the New Architecture for B2B Growth
For the last two decades, B2B marketers have clung to the traditional funnel like it was gospel.
Top-of-funnel demand generation, gated content, lead scoring, SDR follow-up, and eventually—hopefully—a meeting.
But in 2025, it’s time to tell the truth: the funnel is broken.
Buyers are moving faster. Sales cycles are moving slower. And teams are stuck trying to bridge that gap with the same old playbooks.
The result? Missed opportunities, wasted ad dollars, and marketers left in the dark once leads hit the CRM.
Agentic Marketing offers a new answer.
It’s not just another AI plugin or chatbot. It’s a full re-architecture of the funnel—designed to operate at the speed, scale, and sophistication of the modern B2B buyer.
Here at GTM Partners, we have written a new research report on agentic marketing. Here are the highlights.
Why Traditional Funnels Are Failing
Despite marketing’s obsession with automation, attribution, and alignment, most funnels still rely on processes built for a pre-digital world:
80% of inbound leads are never followed up on
Average response times exceed 24 hours
Marketing has no visibility after handing off a lead
Sales development reps (SDRs) are overworked, inconsistent, and expensive
Lead leakage, delayed handoffs, and low-quality engagement aren’t just inefficiencies—they’re active blockers to growth. Buyers expect real-time, personalized, and intelligent interactions. Traditional funnels can’t deliver.
Enter Agentic Marketing
Agentic Marketing doesn’t try to fix the funnel with marginal improvements. It reimagines the entire system by replacing manual handoffs and slow follow-up with intelligent, always-on AI agents that operate like a digital SDR team—only faster, cheaper, and more consistent.
Agentic Marketing isn’t about outsourcing work to a bot. It’s about redefining what’s possible in pipeline creation:
Conversational AI that qualifies and books meetings in real time
Context-aware interactions across chat, email, and web forms
24/7 engagement, multilingual support, and instant response times
Agents that learn and optimize performance over time
These aren’t standalone tools. They integrate with your CRM, MAP, ABM, and sales engagement systems to manage the funnel holistically—with no blind spots.
From Crawl to Fly: The Agentic Marketing Maturity Model
Adopting Agentic Marketing is a journey, not a light switch. GTM Partners outlines a four-stage maturity model:
Crawl – Reactive Marketing
Manual follow-up, slow response times, and marketing blind spots. Most leads are ignored or mishandled.Walk – Automated Inbound
Some automation through MAPs and CRM rules, but SDRs still handle most of the follow-up. Lead scoring creates false negatives.Run – Agentic Assist
AI agents begin to engage with high-intent leads—like webinar attendees or site visitors—freeing SDRs to focus on more complex motions.Fly – Fully Agentic Funnel
AI agents own all inbound engagement across channels. Leads are worked in real time. Marketing gains full-funnel visibility and control.
Agentic Marketing in Action
This isn’t theoretical. Companies like Demandbase, Greenhouse, and Crunchbase are already running agentic funnels—and the results are hard to ignore:
Demandbase: Doubled pipeline sourced and meetings booked, while saving $80K in headcount.
Greenhouse: Achieved a 60% conversion rate on inbound chat and booked 130% more meetings quarter-over-quarter.
Crunchbase: Scaled to 67,000 AI-driven conversations, tripled meetings booked, and doubled MQLs.
These are all companies that have used Qualified’s Agentic Marketing platform for demonstrable ROI.
The ROI Framework: Measuring What Matters
GTM Partners identifies five types of ROI from Agentic Marketing:
Attributable ROI – Direct pipeline impact and bookings
Efficiency ROI – Increased SDR/AE productivity without more headcount
Indirect ROI – Enhanced brand trust and reduced lead decay
Transformational ROI – Redefining the marketing-sales partnership
Necessity ROI – Competing in markets where slow follow-up isn’t an option
These returns aren’t just theoretical—they’re measurable, repeatable, and increasingly necessary.
Getting Started: Your 3-Step Path
Audit Your Funnel
Where are the leaks? Where are leads getting dropped? How fast are you responding?Pilot an Agentic Use Case
Start with website chat, webinar follow-up, or email click engagement. Choose one area where lag is costing you pipeline.Evaluate and Expand
Monitor performance. Replace manual handoffs in stages. Expand to other touchpoints. Don’t rip and replace—layer in AI where it creates the most value.
The Future of GTM Is Agentic
This is more than a tech shift. It’s a GTM transformation. The companies that adopt Agentic Marketing early will unlock faster growth, tighter alignment, and a competitive edge in an increasingly crowded landscape.
Marketers don’t need more leads.
They need more pipeline from the leads they already have.
Agentic Marketing delivers just that—without waiting on headcount, bandwidth, or luck.
Want to stay ahead of the biggest shifts in go-to-market?
Join us at GTM University, where you’ll learn how to navigate today’s most pressing changes—from AI-driven engagement to full-funnel alignment, from evolving buyer behaviors to modern measurement models.
Whether you’re a seasoned GTM leader or building your first go-to-market engine, our courses are designed to equip you with the frameworks, tools, and community you need to drive results in a changing landscape.
GTM is evolving. GTM University helps you evolve with it.
GTM Certified Partner Spotlight: Celeste Jacroux at Swell Marketing Advisors
Strategic Marketing for High-Growth Startups
If your team is doing all the right things but results still feel flat or unpredictable, Swell Marketing Advisors can help. Led by GTM strategist Celeste Jacroux, Swell helps growth-minded companies uncover misalignment, clarify strategy, and build real momentum—without the overhead of a full-time executive.
Through GTM consulting or fractional CMO support, Swell uses the GTM Operating System to align sales, marketing, and CS, so every part of your revenue engine pulls in the same direction. Whether you need a strategic reset or hands-on execution, Swell delivers world-class marketing leadership tailored to your stage and scale.
If you’d like to be a certified GTM Partner like Celeste Jacroux and many others, we’d love to talk to you about how to make that happen.
Events: Where We’ll Be Speaking in 2025
(DM Sangram for a discount code to attend or to get slides after the talk)
Summer is usually a bit quieter for events, but it’s not too early to grab tickets for the Fall schedule:
Revenue Growth Summit (hosted by HGInsights), July 14-16 in Palo Alto
INBOUND (hosted by Hubspot), September 3-5 in San Francisco
DRIVE 2025 (hosted by Exit Five). September 10-11, Burlington, VT
Register for the GTM OS Certified Partner Course - join here ( to get $499 off use promo code: fractional100)
Love,
Sangram and Bryan
The last decade is full of companies espousing chatbots as the future. I've definitely seen AI emails and pressed 0 / 'give me a human' on the chatbots... but them as the future of sales?