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Agentic Marketing: Inbound is Just the Beginning

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This week’s research note includes:

  • GTM Research: Agentic Marketing: Inbound is Just the Beginning

  • Poll Question: How is your company planning to use fractional GTM leaders in 2025?

  • GTM OS Certified Partner Spotlight: Sandy Yu

  • Upcoming Events and Access

Research: Agentic Marketing: Beyond Inbound

When we first introduced the idea of Agentic Marketing, the message was simple.

The traditional funnel is broken, and AI agents can finally fix it.

But what many leaders missed is that Agentic Marketing isn’t just about responding to inbound leads faster. It’s about transforming how every buyer interaction (inbound or outbound, digital or human) happens across your go-to-market engine.

The real shift isn’t speed.
It’s structure.

Once you see the structure clearly, it becomes obvious how outdated the traditional funnel really is.

Read the Agentic Marketing Report

Why Agentic Marketing Goes Beyond Inbound

In most B2B organizations, marketing’s influence ends at the handoff.
Leads are captured, scored, routed, and then — too often — ignored.
Even when follow-up happens, it’s inconsistent, delayed, or stripped of context.

Agentic Marketing doesn’t just automate that process; it replaces it entirely.

AI agents don’t live inside a single system or channel. They operate across chat, email, web forms, and events — engaging prospects in real time, qualifying intent, booking meetings, and keeping marketing connected to every stage of the funnel.

That means inbound isn’t the only place to deploy them.

The Agentic Funnel in Action

In the traditional model, marketing owns the top, SDRs own the middle, and sales owns the bottom.
In the Agentic Funnel, those boundaries dissolve.

Here’s what that looks like across the full buyer journey:

  • Attract: Agents identify high-intent topics, recommend content dynamically, and optimize web experiences in real time.

  • Capture: Every signal — from form fills to email clicks — triggers contextual follow-up within seconds.

  • Engage: Agents hold intelligent, human-like conversations across chat, email, and events — answering questions, qualifying intent, and personalizing next steps based on behavior.

  • Convert: They schedule meetings instantly, route leads intelligently, and learn from every interaction to improve precision over time.

  • Optimize: Agents analyze campaign performance, detect anomalies, and feed insights back into the system for continuous improvement.

This isn’t about adding one new tool. It’s about re-architecting the entire funnel into an always-on, adaptive system that engages every qualified lead — instantly and intelligently.

Inbound Use Cases: Modernizing the Front Door of the Funnel

Most B2B teams think of Agentic Marketing as an inbound play and they are an amazing inbound play.

But the key difference is that these agents don’t just respond faster; they engage smarter. They meet buyers the moment intent is expressed, wherever it happens, and convert that interest into booked meetings instantly.

Let’s look at what this new model actually looks like in action—and how companies are already putting it to work.

Inbound Agentic Marketing use cases include:

  • Demo Requests: Instantly qualify and schedule meetings—no waiting on SDR availability.

  • Web Form Fills: Trigger real-time engagement via chat, email, or SMS for immediate follow-up.

  • Email Clicks and Replies: Launch contextual re-engagement sequences based on specific behaviors.

  • Webinar Registrants and Attendees: Deliver personalized outreach referencing questions asked or content viewed.

  • Content Downloads: Follow up with tailored messaging tied to the asset’s topic or offer.

  • Website Visitors: Detect firmographic fit or buying signals and proactively start conversations in real time.

  • Event Engagement (Onsite or Virtual): Automate post-event follow-up for badge scans or session attendance, with contextual relevance to what the prospect saw or did.

Inbound use cases are where most companies start — plugging the leaks in their existing demand engine, eliminating delay, and proving ROI before scaling further.

Non-Inbound Use Cases: Expanding the Agentic Funnel

The most mature organizations extend Agentic Marketing beyond inbound to power engagement across every GTM motion — turning AI agents into a connective layer between marketing, sales, and customer success.

But inbound is just the beginning. The most advanced GTM teams are expanding Agentic Marketing far beyond the front door of the funnel.

Agentic Marketing use cases beyond inbound include:

  • Recycled or Stale Leads (“Wake the Dead”): Re-engage dormant but qualified contacts already sitting in your CRM.

  • Customer Marketing: Automate expansion plays by engaging current users around new features, renewals, or upsells.

  • Account-Based Campaigns (ABM): Execute personalized, multi-contact outreach at the account level, coordinated across channels.

  • Advertising Campaigns: Engage ad responders who don’t convert onsite using first-party or retargeting triggers.

  • Social Campaigns: Activate leads who interact with paid or organic posts (clicks, comments, form fills).

  • Direct Mail or Offline Triggers: Use QR codes or personalized URLs to launch AI agent conversations that bridge physical and digital engagement.

  • Blog or Resource Center Visitors: Detect high-value content consumption and start proactive outreach with relevant offers.

Non-inbound use cases are where Agentic Marketing becomes transformational — not just increasing efficiency, but expanding reach, reclaiming lost pipeline, and creating true full-funnel visibility for marketing teams.

Read the Report

Getting Started: Crawl Before You Fly

So how do you actually begin? Like any GTM evolution, the journey to becoming fully agentic happens in stages.

The companies we studied that saw the fastest results all started the same way:

  • They audited their funnel for leaks (speed, coverage, conversion).

  • They piloted one use case — like website chat or webinar follow-up.

  • They expanded in phases, replacing manual handoffs as results proved out.

Agentic Marketing doesn’t require a rip-and-replace motion.
It rewards iteration — layering intelligence into the moments where it matters most.

Here’s how you can use Agentic Marketing to Crawl → Walk → Run → Fly — building maturity one stage at a time.

The Real Promise of Agentic Marketing

If the last decade of B2B was about automation, the next one will be about agency — systems that think, decide, and act across the funnel on behalf of your team.

Agentic Marketing isn’t a tool or a trend.
It’s a new operating model for growth — one that restores marketing’s control, unites GTM functions, and finally closes the gap between interest and opportunity.

The future of pipeline creation isn’t human or AI.
It’s both, working in sync.

Want to learn more about agentic marketing?

Sangram will join Matt Heinz at the Agentic Marketing Summit on November 18th to explore what the agentic marketing era means for today’s marketing leaders.

They will be diving into just how many of our GTM motions are going to be impacted by AI agents and where we see this revolution heading in the future.

The Agentic Marketing Summit is presented by @Qualified, alongside leaders from ServiceNow, Zoom, G2, and more.

Tuesday, November 18th
10AM - 1PM PT | Virtual

Save Your Spot

Put This Into Action

Ready to build your own Agentic Funnel?

Explore GTM University Today

Poll Question: How is your company planning to use fractional GTM leaders in 2025?

The market for fractional GTM leaders has exploded over the past two years.
We’re curious—how will that trend shift in 2025?

In a few weeks, we’ll be releasing a new report on the state of fractional leadership in 2026.

:point_down:

Certified Partner Spotlight: Sandy Yu

Helping New CROs Scale Through Retention & Expansion

New CROs are expected to scale fast—often aiming for 10x growth—but many overlook a critical part of the GTM equation: retention and expansion.

That’s where Sandy Yu with Revenue Retention Advisors comes in.

As a hands-on operator and GTM-certified advisor, Sandy helps CROs build the post-sales engine most companies neglect. Her work focuses on turning customer success and support teams into strategic revenue drivers—and building systems that make Net Revenue Retention (NRR) the foundation of sustainable growth.

Where Sandy Adds Value:

  • Transforms CS and support into upsell/cross-sell engines

  • Operationalizes retention and expansion across the post-sales journey

  • Helps CROs lead with confidence across the entire GTM motion—not just top-of-funnel

Whether you’re a newly minted CRO or leading a company through scale, Sandy brings the playbooks and partnership to help you deliver.

Learn more: Sandy Yu Partner Page →

If you’d like to be a certified GTM Partner like Sandy and more than 50 others, we’d love to talk to you about how to make that happen.

Make Me a Certified Partner

Upcoming Events: Where Sangram, Bryan, or a GTM Certified Partner Will Be Speaking

(DM Sangram for a discount code to attend or to get slides after the talk)

Love,

Sangram and Bryan

p.s. Access GTM University | Hire GTM OS Certified Partners | Read Fractional Friday

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