A CMO’s Wake-Up Call
A few months ago, I spoke with a CMO facing what looked like a paradox. Her team was generating more MQLs than ever—thousands of leads funneled into the CRM, nurtured with precision-crafted email sequences, scored and handed to sales.
But pipeline contribution? Flat.
Win rates? Dropping.
CEO? Frustrated.
It wasn’t that the team wasn’t executing. It was that the model they were executing on—the funnel—no longer reflected how buying decisions are actually made in 2025.
Behind every enterprise deal today is a buying committee of 5 to 15 stakeholders. Some research actively. Others never engage digitally at all. Procurement might only weigh in at the eleventh hour. The IT leader could kill the deal with one security objection. And the CFO? She’s reading peer reviews, not downloading your whitepaper.
Yet most of today’s MarTech stacks—and marketing strategies—are still chasing individual contacts. They were never designed to handle a consensus-based, non-linear, role-diverse buying process.
That’s why we built The Loop. And why leading CMOs are turning to it now.
Funnels Are Built for Contacts. Revenue Comes from Committees.
Funnels made sense in a one-buyer world. They helped marketing teams model a simple cause-effect progression—awareness, interest, decision. But in reality, buyers don’t move in a line—they move in loops. They circle back, gather consensus, shift priorities midstream, and interact across channels without leaving a trail.
The real shock? Most MarTech stacks still can’t see this.
Traditional tools measure volume and velocity. But they miss:
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The IT stakeholder who derails the deal in Q4
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The champion who never fills out a form
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The procurement contact who ghosts until contract redlines hit
Instead of surfacing these gaps, many platforms score irrelevant contacts, trigger automated emails, and declare “success” far too early.
Martech Wasn’t Built for This—and AI Has to Step In
Let’s get blunt: most MarTech platforms were built for a single-threaded world. CRM assumes a clean pipeline. Automation tools rely on predictable paths. Attribution software tells neat stories that make marketing look good but often miss what really drives deals.
Here’s what we’ve seen at The Pedowitz Group:
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Lead Management systems still rely on MQLs tied to activity, not true influence or buying intent.
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Attribution tools rarely reflect non-digital, off-platform influence.
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Lifecycle engagement is treated as post-sale ops, not a core revenue driver.
But this isn’t a lost cause—because this is where AI shines.
AI doesn’t just automate—it orchestrates:
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Identifies account-level buying intent before anyone clicks “Contact Us”
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Maps hidden stakeholders across a deal
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Surfaces content that aligns to buyer role and stage, in real-time
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Flags deal risk based on missing persona engagement
This is exactly why we emphasize AI-powered MarTech consulting as a critical part of modern RevOps design.
Narrative Flow: A Walk Through the Loop
Let’s reimagine the journey through The Loop—the customer lifecycle model we’ve been implementing since 2015.
Unaware → Aware
Buyers begin in the dark. You may not even be on their radar. But AI can track buying signals across third-party intent networks and help you target relevant content—before you’re officially “invited to the table.”
Consideration
One stakeholder engages. The others don’t. That doesn’t mean the deal isn’t real. With Loop-aligned lead management, you’re scoring engagement across roles, not just clicks.
Evaluation
This is where consensus must form. AI helps here, too—detecting who’s engaging and who’s missing, recommending role-specific content, and helping marketing enable—not just attract.
Decision
Traditional systems celebrate once an opportunity is created. But The Loop sees this as just the beginning. Because real revenue leaders don’t want closed-won—they want retention, expansion, advocacy.
Onboarding → Advocacy
Most funnel-driven orgs stop measuring here. But The Loop continues. AI helps monitor customer sentiment, product adoption, and expansion opportunity—all of which should flow back into your customer experience strategy.
Engagement: A CMO’s New Role
In 2025, CMOs are no longer measured by marketing metrics—they’re measured by revenue impact, customer lifetime value, and expansion potential. To succeed, you need:
✅ A GTM engine aligned to The Loop
✅ A MarTech stack that can see what the funnel hides
✅ A strategy that prioritizes enablement over automation
✅ A partner who knows how to pull it all together
We’ve helped dozens of marketing leaders make this shift through our consulting services, including personalized lead management audits, MarTech optimization, and RevOps transformation.
Funnels were built for an era of volume.
The Loop is built for an era of value.
The question is: which one are you investing in?
Call to Action
Ready to operationalize The Loop and see where your current systems fall short?
Join our flagship F the Funnel Workshop and learn how to evolve your GTM engine for a revenue-first, AI-powered future.
Or reach out directly via our Contact Page to discuss your unique challenges.
