Keyplay

Closed won is great. Ring the gong, celebrate those wins. But this is the *real* goal.? Here's a slack from a new Keyplay customer, 26 days after kickoff. This is what I'm driving toward. We’re only successful if our customer’s ICP Program is successful. I’m proud of our software. But I’ve learned that much of the path to customer success depends on other factors. For us that means: — ICP methodology. — Dedication to service. — Focused sales process. It takes a whole team effort, but hinges on having a skilled quarterback for each customer after the sale. At Keyplay that person is Lauren. ?? She started as founding CSM and has now been promoted to a Strategic Account Manager role. We’re going to keep leaning into this. Services and software are blurring. In the AI era, I think it only gets more important. AI will give our teams leverage, but we’ll still have great people shaping the customer experience. #customersuccess #marketing

Keyplay can't "rip and replace" 6sense. I don't pretend we can. Sometimes I wish we could. But they offer a broad platform that does a lot of things. Intent. DSP / Ads. Data. Orchestration. Scoring. Reports. Some companies are bought into the whole platform. I understand why they made that choice. I see the value in certain scenarios (despite the cost and complexity). But... if you're just using pieces of 6sense. And what you really need is a world class ICP Program to power account selection. Then Keyplay is here for you. You'll get the foundation right. And you might be able to save a few hundred thousand bucks. Then you can layer additional specialized tools to fit your specific ABM strategy. Need to act on Intent signals? -- Check out G2, Fibbler, Foundry, Champify. Is outbound orchestration critical for you? -- Try Clay, Warmly, Common Room, UserGems ?? Want to personalize for ABM? -- Mutiny, Tofu, and Air Traffic Control can help. Need more advanced account-based ads? -- Check out Influ2, Smartly, or Metadata. This space has evolved quickly.?There are a lot of ways to go with your ABM tech stack in 2025. The "ABM Platform" isn't your only option anymore. The key is to put strategy first. It all starts with working the right accounts. #ABM #sales #marketing

Charles just showed me this report. It’s a 2024 pipeline analysis for one of our $100M+ ARR customers. The account tiers come from Keyplay. We are helping the customer update their ICP model based on last year's pipeline and results. We iterate on their models, and then look at how the new account scoring correlates to last year's ACV and win rates. This report tells me the model is “right.” Now our RevOps users can rollout their updated ICP with confidence. They can go to the marketing and say… ?— Target ads on A accounts and we expect 2x higher win rate and ACV.? ?— Allocate more budget to A and B for better CAC paybacks. ?— Audit existing campaigns to remove D accounts. They can go to sales and say… ?— Here are new A and B accounts for territories. We expect these to have higher ACV and close rates. ?— Here are the highest value lists for the SDRs this quarter. ?— These territories with Ds and Cs need to be reworked. A strong ICP program helps sales and marketing work the right accounts… together. Next step: Run this analysis by segment. That will help surface and prioritize micro campaigns for high-value niche audiences.? Need this account selection process? Keyplay can help :) #marketing #sales

"We paid a consulting firm $500k to make a deck about ICP… They gave me the deck and said operationalize this.” When I asked a Marketing Strategy leader at a 5,000+ person company how they built ICPs across business units, I heard this anecdote. There are many ICP marketing problems that only show up once you reach that scale. But we see this one all the time. The ICP Translation Gap. Leadership knows their ICPs. They have a definition on a slide somewhere. They’ve done work to study it and frame it. They’ve hired consultants and gotten the executive team aligned. They can describe it clearly. That work is important, but not the end. The key is operationalizing it for sales & marketing. That means answering the next questions: - Who are the specific accounts we’re going to work? - How will we carve territories? - How will we segment our market? - What ad targeting will we be using?? - How will we prioritize inbound leads? If you have a clear ICP definition, but you haven’t operationalized it, you’re stuck in the ICP Translation Gap. If you want to close this gap, take these steps first: - DEFINE your ICP with clarity. - TRANSLATE your definition into a usable model. - TEST your model to prove it works. - IMPROVE continuously to ensure it evolves with your business. We write a longer guide to this methodology here: https://lnkd.in/gF-_gBaw #marketing #sales

Keyplay is leaning into our “white glove” approach for ICP modeling. We’re very proud of our software. We build specialized tech that actually works. By staying narrow, we've avoided building a bloated platform that confuses users to death. But I believe that we need to go beyond software to have an impact. As we become more AI-native, I believe this more. AI is powerful. But making it “work” for real use cases still requires a lot of work and practice. You can’t just let agents run wild IMO. You need good frameworks, prompting strategies, processes, and testing approaches to get accurate results. That’s why I’m excited to welcome Charles Bryant to our team. ?? He’s our first GTM Analyst. It’s a role we made up for our specific situation. He’ll be working with our customers (and POCs) on a range of projects to help then nail their ICP and get focused on the best accounts and segments. That includes: — Prompt writing / AI Agent setup. — Pipeline & customer analysis. — Backtesting analysis. — Custom signals. — ICP studies. All of this helps our customers build world-class ICP Programs. Lots of fun work ahead to figure out how to build for this new era of AI and services. Super excited to welcome Charles to our team! ??

Q4 was an exciting time at Keyplay. - Our first two cash flow positive months.?? - Doubled down on AI Agent product.? - Clarified our ICP methodology.?? - Record new ARR and growth. - Awesome new hires.?? I'm beyond grateful for our amazing customers. You trusted us, pushed us, and motivated us to keep building. Happy 2025 to you all! Here's why I'm excited for the year ahead: 1.) ICP is more important than ever.? Spray and pray is dead.? Focus and precision are the only path to efficient growth. 2.) ABM is being reimagined.? CMOs are thinking from first principles. They are unbundling ABM to do smarter marketing for less. You don't need a $300k platform to start. 3.) Beyond software.? We're not just selling a tool. We are working with brilliant GTM practitioners to develop a methodology for ICP success.? I know this is the path to outsized results for our customers. 4.) AI is moving from a toy to powering real solutions.? Our agent is crushing with early access users. We're doubling down and can't wait to share with the world. 5.) SaaS is back.? Those who survived the correction of 2022-2024 are poised to set records in the new year. The return to rigor will be a good thing in the long term. Thank you Keyplay customers for sharing our ICP obsession and practicing the new GTM playbook with us. Thank you PeerSignal.org subscribers for learning with us. Hope everyone had a little break over the holidays. Happy 2025!

We’ve all seen cases where sales loses trust in marketing. I've spent the last 2.5 years studying one specific aspect of this problem. We call it the ICP Translation Gap. Most companies intuitively understand their ICP. But they struggle to translate that intuition into account lists, territories, scoring, and ad targeting that consistently bring in *real* ICP pipeline. In a mature GTM organization, this problem (their ICP Translation Gap) can cost them millions of dollars a year in wasted spend, time, and energy. The solution isn’t just buying Keyplay (sadly). It requires a data-driven methodology for defining, modeling, and testing your ICP. The big steps: 1?? DEFINE: Customer analysis + market insight. 2?? TRANSLATE: Model that assesses fit. 3?? TEST: A good model backtests. 4?? IMPROVE: Treat ICP as a program, not a project. Companies like Ashby, Thoropass, Hone, and Mutiny have used our methodology with awesome results. Things like 2.3x ACV, 90% outbound conversion lift, dramatically better cost per qualified opp from LinkedIn Ads. Plus trust and confidence. We started publishing this methodology today (for free). Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/gF-_gBaw In 2025, we'll add more templates and resources to help GTM teams close their ICP translation gap, no matter what tools they use. What would you like to see expanded on next? #B2B #Marketing #Sales

For the love of annual planning, please make this chart before you lock in your 2025 targets. Lately I’ve been borderline obsessed with pointing out the?flaws?of the marketing qualified lead (#MQL) paradigm. If we’re ever going to find out what works, we need a?unified (and account-based) view?of go-to-market effectiveness. It starts with figuring out *exactly* where you stand with your target accounts in real-time. What this means: 1?? You know exactly how many accounts are in your ICP. 2?? You've *identified* the buyers at those accounts and can market to them. (This is easier than ever with next-gen GTM tooling.) 3?? You know how many are *aware* of you. They're consistently opening your emails, engaging with your ads, visiting your website, etc. 4?? You know how many are *interested*. These prospects are self-educating through interactive demos, signing up for a free account, attending a webinar, or viewing high-intent website pages. (Ideally these become high-intent leads for warm outbound.) 5?? You know how many are *considering* a purchase. (You can think of these are SQLs within your ICP, but they could be PQLs or self-service team buyers as well.) 6?? You know how many are *selecting* a vendor, meaning they're engaging in a buying process. (Typically translates to proposal stage.) 7?? You know how many have chosen your product, becoming a customer. (Of course, you can extend this framework post-purchase, too!) If you look at GTM effectiveness this way, it doesn't matter whether you invest more in PLG, automated outbound, SEO, paid ads, BDRs/SDRs, or something else entirely. What matters is that you ultimately reach the right people and turn them into customers. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/epMfYgER #marketing #abx

I'm excited to introduce Keyplay's new ICP testing tools. Don't guess if your ICP is "right." Prove it with data. And don't promise your sales team "it's good." Show them the report. ?? Through hundreds of engagements with the smartest RevOps and marketing leaders in SaaS, we've learned how to build trust + confidence in your ICP program: 1.) Use data to find patterns in your best customers. 2.) Back-test your models against historical results. 3.) Set a cadence to refresh + repeat (i.e. not one and done). This simple approach works when applied consistently. Unfortunately, legacy ABM platforms and traditional data providers make it nearly impossible to execute, even for the most savvy teams. Their blackbox models are extremely difficult to test or validate. Keyplay makes it easy. You can now backtest your ICP models against a wide range of accounts lists. So that you can finally prove, and improve, your ICP with inspectable data. No advanced data science degree required -- this is built for marketers and RevOps teams. And of course, our team is here to help. Video tour below. Get your ICP backtested at Keyplay.io #marketing #sales #ABM #ICP

In the last 6 months, I've grown obsessed with the idea of unbundling ABM. Why? 1.) "ABM" became a tired buzzword.? -- Great concept, but too much vendor spin. 2.) Marketers are clamoring for simpler frameworks. -- E.g. See Kyle Poyar's ABX measurement post. 3.) There's growing skepticism about 6sense, especially in the mid-market. -- Not just Adam Robinson shitposting, the users too! ?? 4.) CMOs are buying 6sense just for "intent signals" (i.e NOT buying the whole ABM platform). -- Example: https://lnkd.in/gfScqrXU 5.) I saw the value of putting ICP strategy first, rather than spending $100K for the platform first! -- E.g. Mutiny's story: https://lnkd.in/gG5sB-Gs 6.) Dozens of wonderful modern tools have emerged to unbundle ABM. -- Signal aggregators and orchestrators are hot (e.g. Common Room, Clay, Warmly, UserGems ??) -- You can get best of breed 1P, 2P, and 3P signals (e.g. G2, Fibbler, Koala) -- ICP modeling & scoring has leveled up (i.e. Keyplay) -- Dozens of tools to help with focused ABM engagement and personalization so you can create a surround sound effect with your best accounts. Not every CMO agrees. Broad platforms work for some. But more modern GTM leaders are feeling this shift and moving to an unbundled ABM stack. i.e. They are pro ABM, but skeptical of “ABM Platforms.” To help you find the best modern tools for a strategy-first ABM approach, PeerSignal.org has started tracking this space. This post outlines our market map and framework. And you can get the full spreadsheet where we're tracking 48 players and will be continually adding more as we learn. Excited to keep pulling this thread in 2025. #ABM #marketing #sales