Personalized ABX engagement is no longer a luxury, it’s the baseline. But in a noisy, AI-driven market, real differentiation comes from how you apply it. This month’s Brief explores what happens when B2B teams stop talking about personalization and start operationalizing it—using AI, UX, and brave experimentation to create experiences that actually move revenue.

In this issue:

• The CTMO & CTRO Era: What to Do About It

• The UX Differentiator: Personalizing Journeys Through Design

The CTMO & CTRO Era: What to Do About It

In the last few weeks, I’ve brushed shoulders with growth leaders from some of the world’s biggest B2B tech brands across multiple events and roundtables. And the key feedback I keep hearing?

Enough with the theory. We’ve had enough of philosophical AI.

I’m taking the phrase “CTMO” from our client, Ben Munroe, APAC CMO of Cloudflare, because it’s just too delicious not to use. It captures the moment perfectly. The age of the Chief Tech Marketing Officer is here; where marketers are as fluent in APIs as they are in ABX, and where ‘ad spend’ now sits next to ‘prompt engineering’ on the growth agenda. So, enough of AI as a fluffy theory. The reality is that we’ve all got to become a little more technologist.

So here’s a message for the CTMOs, CTROs, and the bold HOTS (Heads of Tech Sales) out there: it’s a difficult and overwhelming time, yes. But it’s also one brimming with opportunity… as long as you’re willing to seize it. The era of the willful MQL chasers and paid media abusers is over. It’s time to shake things up. 

Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

Echoing Signals from the Frontline

Welcome to the New Buyer’s Journey

In 2025, the first moment most B2B buyers begin researching no longer starts on Google. It starts in Gen AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude etc. And this is reshaping consumer behavior and expectation. Personalization isn’t craved, it’s expected. 

If your brand isn’t being cited in LLMs and if you’re not serving meaningful and tailored, impactful content through ABX, your brand is invisible or irrelevant. 

That’s the new reality: Content is the king, the queen and the whole royal party. And efficacy is the new silver bullet. 

It’s time to audit, disrupt, and innovate. Brand relevance, long-term nurture, and true ABX are finally winning over short-term lead gen. And sales-marketing alignment isn’t  conversation anymore - it’s critical.

The New Reality: From Brand Relevance to True ABX

1. Shift from Performance to Brand

The smartest brands are rebalancing. Shifting budget from pure performance marketing to long-term brand building to ensure that when buyers are in-market, they’ve already selected you as a contender.
Our recent panel at the APAC B2B Marketing Leaders Forum found that Cloudflare, Twilio and Red Hat are all investing in Gen AI Optimization (GEO) to strengthen visibility inside AI ecosystems.

This isn’t about going broad - it’s about going smart. Layer behavioral, firmographic, intent, and LLM data to refine audiences and build journeys that pre-empt and mirror buyer needs.

2. Go Back to the Basics (and Interrogate the Approach)

Now AI is taking control of buyer discovery, the fundamentals matter more than ever. So ground your strategies in data that actually matters - from LLM visibility to market and engagement insights and a clear map of the buying committee.

Why? Because true ABX isn’t about serving ads to known companies and hoping you catch those in market (based on what your sales teams tell you). It’s about anticipating intent and perception signals before they surface. And meeting buyers where they are.

As B2B Tech decision-making is becoming decentralized and the committee is growing into roles you’d normally deprioritize, like HR. The hidden funnel and buyers are becoming more important than ever to demystify.

“It’s not just about AI - it’s about integrating everything we do and really understanding the mechanics of the buying committee.” says Sulo Hardie, VP Marketing APAC at SAP Concur. “Agentic AI (ROI DNA Ignite) gives us a huge leap in how we connect our value proposition and messaging. The next challenge is turning that intelligence into personalized plans and scalable execution.”

By connecting LLM data, 3rd party intent data and CRM intelligence via dashboards and AI platforms like Gemini, Notebook LM and Chat GPT, you can build a wealth of insights for ABX that feels personal, timely, and memorable.

3. Practice Brave Incrementalism

Another quotable phrase from Ben Munroe (thank you - paying it forward): this is the era of brave incrementalism - moving fast and thoughtfully through strategic experimentation is the only path to growth.

Apply it to Generative AI optimization and true ABX by:

• Testing how AI models surface your brand across ecosystems.

• Aligning marketing, sales, and customer teams around shared learning loops.

• Leveraging AI to build more personalized journeys, faster.

• Turning experimentation into evidence.

“Brave incrementalism isn’t hesitation. It’s momentum you can control.”

4. Leverage AI-Powered Intelligence for Deeper Targeting and Resonance

Forward-thinking brands like Cloudflare are using AI-powered intelligence to build broader yet deeper resonance.

Working with Hotwire & ROI·DNA, they’ve scaled ABX (or ABE) by layering industry, account, and stakeholder insights to design hyper-personalized journeys that move faster and convert better. Turning reports into relationships… and to revenue.

By generating custom persona and industry reports in days - not weeks - Cloudflare is 3x faster to market and has sped up execution, sharpened targeting, and deepened relevance across priority buying committees for $60m worth of market opportunity. 

5. Rethink Sales as Part of Brand Building

As Graham Hawkins, Founder of Gro3 and Qoos AI noted in our recent Growth Leader roundtable, buyers are forming opinions before sales even show up.
Sales and marketing must mirror one another, reinforcing a consistent story from awareness through conversion.

Mel Ivory, Swoogo’s APAC Sales Director calls this “the human loop”: marketing builds trust; sales extends it.

And as Nicholas Kontopoulos, CMO of Twilio, argues: most CMOs talk customer-centricity, but few treat sales alignment as a superpower.

In the era of AI theory and practicality, that sales and marketing alignment grounds every brand promise in customer reality.

Closing Thoughts

The CTMO and CTRO era isn’t about titles, it’s about evolution. It’s about curiosity over complacency. Velocity over vanity metrics. Collaboration over silos.

The leaders who thrive won’t optimize their way through disruption - they’ll build their way through it.

So go on. Question everything. Test the untested. Break a few things.

Because the future isn’t waiting for you to catch up - it’s already experimenting without you.

The UX Differentiator: Personalizing Journeys Through Design

In B2B marketing, “personalization” is everywhere, and often nowhere.

We pour so much energy into ABX programs, AI-driven targeting, and sophisticated martech stacks designed to reach the right person with the right message at the right time. But for all the talk of precision and intent, the moment a buyer actually clicks through is where most experiences fall apart.

Because personalization isn’t only about how you attract your audience.
It’s about what happens once they engage.

Where Personalization Becomes Real

When that high-value prospect lands on your website, what do they find? A thoughtful journey that anticipates their needs—or a generic experience that treats everyone the same?

UX and design are where personalization becomes tangible. It’s where relevance is translated into reality through intuitive navigation, frictionless paths, and content that surfaces naturally based on intent.

Every click is a signal. Every scroll is a story.
UX is what turns those signals into experiences that feel intentional, human, and built for the buyer—not just the brand.

Case in Point: Mindtickle’s Website Transformation

Mindtickle, a leader in revenue enablement, faced a familiar challenge: its website wasn’t keeping up with the strength of its business. Traffic was rising, but the experience felt dated and difficult to navigate. Prospects struggled to see how Mindtickle’s AI-powered platform solved their real-world challenges.

Competitors were raising the bar with sleek, AI-first web experiences, so Mindtickle partnered with ROI·DNA to reimagine its site, not as a static brand hub, but as a growth engine.

The vision was bold yet simple: transform a multi-product SaaS offering into a digital experience that feels modern, outcome-driven, and trustworthy.

We reorganized journeys so key personas—CROs, enablement leaders, and RevOps teams—could find relevant content in a click or two. Proof points, like customer stories and ROI metrics, appeared earlier in the journey to build confidence faster. We also developed a modular design system that balanced clarity, motion, and accessibility, making a complex platform feel intuitive and authoritative.

Launched in February 2025, the new site became a benchmark for what thoughtful design can do. Within six months, Mindtickle saw:

• Nearly 13% lift in pipeline

• Higher conversion rates and deeper engagement

• Visitors reaching relevant content in fewer clicks

• Organic sessions up 33% and new users up 37%
  

The transformation proved what many marketers miss: UX isn’t cosmetic—it’s commercial. 

That proof is validated by recent insights into the revenue potential of strong UX. Foundational Forrester research found that conversion rates can be boosted up to 200% with a well-crafted user interface. What’s more, they found that every $1 invested in UX can yield a $100 return—a 9,900% ROI. That’s market-shifting potential.

From Interface to Impact

UX is personalization in motion. It’s how your brand shows understanding instead of claiming it.

When design, data, and content strategy work together, you move beyond static buyer journeys into living, adaptive experiences that evolve with intent. That’s where AI becomes an accelerator, not a gimmick.

Platforms like Mutiny, our no-code AI personalization partner, make this orchestration scalable. Mutiny allows teams to dynamically tailor web experiences for different audiences in real time—bridging the gap between intent and interaction without the usual dev bottlenecks.

Paired with a strong UX foundation, tools like these transform personalization from a marketing tactic into an ecosystem that learns, adapts, and drives measurable growth.

The Differentiation Imperative

Personalization is the baseline. Experience is the differentiator, and it’s where pipeline is won or lost.

In a noisy, AI-driven market, every brand can target, optimize, and personalize on paper. But few can make buyers feel it. That’s where the true moat lies: in the quality of the journey, the clarity of the design, and the human thought behind every interaction.

Because at the end of the day, the most personalized thing you can do isn’t say someone’s name—it’s design an experience that feels like it was built just for them.

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