Your ABM Program Is Failing Because Sales and Marketing Still Aren’t Actually Aligned

By Meg McParland

You can build a beautiful ABM program – with a perfect target account list. Your ICP is on-point. You created personalized content for every vertical. You built out the automation and workflows, and then you present it… And sales will look at it, nods politely, and then go do whatever they were already doing.

The account list nobody asked sales about

A lot of ABM programs get started with marketing doing the research… then building the list. Then, marketing presents the list to sales and says, “Here are our 25 target accounts! Yea! We are going to run a coordinated, multi-touch, highly personalized program against these accounts and it is going to be awesome.”

And sales smiles and says, “Cool.” And then nothing happens. Not because the list was wrong or that the strategy was bad. But because sales did not build it. They did not fight for it, argue about it, lose sleep over it, or feel any particular ownership of it. It was handed to them like a homework assignment from a class they did not sign up for.

You cannot ABM your way into accounts that sales is not actively working. The motion does not work without both engines firing. And if sales is not bought-in from the very beginning, you are running a very expensive “awareness” campaign and calling it ABM.

What alignment actually looks like

I have sat in a lot of “sales and marketing alignment meetings.” Everyone agrees on things – or so it looks and then, nothing changes.

HubSpot’s 2026 data found that more than 27% of marketers name sales and marketing alignment as a top challenge. Only 8% say fixing it is a top goal. We all know it is broken. Almost nobody is actually prioritizing fixing it. Which explains a lot, honestly.

Real alignment is not a meeting. It is a shared list that sales helped select, fought over, and feels personally responsible for closing. It is a shared definition of what “engaged” means before the campaign launches. It is sales reps who text you when they see one of your target accounts interact with something, because they are watching too — and they are excited about it. That is how ABM actually works.

How to get there without losing your mind

Start the account selection process with sales, not before them and not after them. Sit in the room together and let them push back on your data. Take your emotions out of it and Push back on their gut feelings with yours. The list that comes out of that back and forth is a list both teams will fight for.

Then agree on three things before you launch anything:

1. What does a target account engagement look like that is worth a sales follow-up? Define it. Write it down. Make someone sign it if you have to.
2. Who owns the relationship with each account? The human or humans at the account. Sales needs a name, not a logo.
3. How will you both know if it is working? Fast…If that is six weeks – it is 6 weeks. Build in an early check-in and adjust if you need to.

The uncomfortable part

If you have tried all of this and sales still will not engage, that is not an ABM problem. That is a leadership problem. And it requires a different conversation, one that goes up… and they are not always receptive.

ABM is not a marketing program with a sales component bolted on. It is a joint go-to-market motion that requires genuine co-ownership at every level. If your sales leadership is not in on it, your CMO needs to be having a conversation with your CRO. Full stop.

Marketing can build the engine. But sales has to want to drive it.

If you are building or rebuilding an ABM program and hitting walls with sales, I would genuinely love to compare notes. Drop a comment or find me in my DMs – No pitching… Just war stories please.

Meg McParland is a marketing leader with 20 years of B2B SaaS experience. She specializes in demand generation, ABM, and having the conversations with sales that nobody else wants to have.

Originally published on LinkedIn on August 3, 2026 → Read the original on LinkedIn