How to build a stronger pipeline with answer engine buyers
This article is part of a continuing series, highlighting conversations with MC Powers and Jay McGrath, founders of Unicorn Kreative, one of our go-to-market partners. The new zero-click path to purchase, outlined in our previous article, has slowed the pipeline for many companies. Here we share the insights on how to regain momentum in this new reality.
SHIFTING FROM NOISE TO SIGNAL:
How to build a stronger pipeline with answer engine buyers
How are companies generating high quality pipeline in a very competitive environment in 2026?
The new zero-click buying journey isn’t just reducing site traffic. Because you’re losing those early discovery moments, we’re seeing that it’s also choking pipeline. To rebuild momentum, companies need to let go of what’s worked in the past and shift to more modern strategies. This means evolving metrics, deepening stories, unifying cultures, and using AI as an intelligent tool, not a blanket solution. The net-net of these strategic shifts is a new, more modern GTM engine that’s built on three key actions.
- Unifying your GTM organizations
- Focusing on connection before conversion
- Sharing the funnel from top to bottom
Unifying GTM Organization:
One of the most impactful things a company can do to generate a high-quality pipeline is to better align sales and marketing teams. Admittedly, this is a well-worn bit of advice. But it bears repeating because, in addition to increasing prospect-to-pipeline conversion rates by 65%, strong alignment is proven to yield 38% higher win rates, 67% faster deal closures, and 208% higher revenue.
What are three things you can do to unify your GTM culture?
1. Shift into a universally shared definition for leads
MQLs and SQLs are both divisive and outdated. They create two different goals and two different success standards, which siloes performance mindsets and divides the power of your team as a whole. Additionally, zero-click buyer journeys that happen outside your owned channels can’t be seen or scored, so these metrics are now misleading.
Instead, bring sales and marketing together to decide as a team exactly what makes a lead worth chasing. This list should be short and to the point. For example, ICP fit, return site visits, and high intent site behavior, such as demo requests and interacting with your chatbot.
2. Tie KPIs to Revenue
Prioritize speed-to-revenue and trial-to-paid times over lead counts. This, along with the updated lead definition, will kill the blame game that hobbles early-stage momentum and bring an end to bickering over who’s at fault while your funding runway burns.
Then, create a single source of truth where everyone sees the same real-time numbers on leads, deals, and revenue. This eliminates the chaos of siloed dashboards and enables more accurate forecasting and faster nurturing of the most promising opportunities.
3. Tell a singular, shared value story
Product marketing is no longer your lead horse. Educated buyers have already read summaries, compared options, and self-checked for solution fit before arriving at your door. Which means you need to pick up the conversation with a value story that focuses on the outcomes your solutions deliver. And you need to tell that value story in a unique and branded way on every platform and at every touchpoint so that you stand out in the insanely noisy AI conversation.
Shifting into this requires a value framework and a brand narrative. If you’re building this internally, step one is to agree on your audience. One ICP definition for everyone. Step two is to align on a clear and concise set of outcomes and proof points that will speak to that audience. Step three is to develop a brand so that you can wrap that value story in an ownable narrative to cut through the clutter and connect on a human level. Finally, bake that into messaging, AI-optimized content, decks, enablement, and campaigns.
Focusing on connection before conversion
Pipeline is the start of your official buyer relationship. And healthy, long-term relationships are not built on transactional dynamics. So, coming at them with an obvious sales pitch right out of the gate doesn’t work. First, you need to show potential buyers you care about who they are and what they need. Only after that should you talk about how you can help them with their needs.
How do you build connection for quicker conversion?
1. Don’t make assumptions on what buyers care about
If AI empowered buyers don’t care about your latest feature, your latest award, or your latest funding round, how do you find out what they do care about? Do what they do: Turn to the answer engines. Prompt for what questions buyers in your category ask most often. Once you’ve taken note of that, scroll to the bottom of the answer. There, you’ll usually find the link for “Other questions similar buyers ask.” Dig in there, too, to gain even more understanding.
Once you have a sense of what’s driving your buyers, build your conversation around these topics. Create thought leadership that walks through “How to solve [insert problem you discovered in research.] Make sure the piece is educational and focuses on the big picture at the industry level, not just on your company. Now you are speaking the language of your buyer and building credibility across your entire ecosystem.
2. Prioritize personalized messaging over massive scale
Most prospecting focuses on generating more activity. More BDRs, more emails, more cold calls. This mindset of “just do more” leads to generic outreach. The only message this sends is that you haven’t done the work to understand your buyer and that you’re more concerned with your quota than their reality.
Shift your mindset from “How can I sell?” into “How can I help?” This forces you to think more personally about ways to educate, inspire, and solve challenges. Keep it specific to their role and their company. Lastly, avoid using CTAs that ask for a meeting straightaway. Do you meet with total strangers from companies you never heard of? Of course not. Personalized CTAs perform 202% better , which is why building connection needs to come first.
3. Host intimate gatherings over big events
Big events are a feeding frenzy of vendors and a constant stream of people mostly looking for free giveaways. This is traffic driven by curiosity, not intent. And after the excitement fades, studies show 80% of trade show leads die in CRM, never having generated any usable pipeline.
For better results, create smaller events with higher-intent buyers. Bring people together with similar roles and interests. Gather for a meal to organically create conversation. Give them space for networking to catalyze their growth. Address burning industry concerns to earn their trust. These more intimate events can create four times more ROI than big trade shows.
Share the funnel from top to bottom:
Traditionally, companies have operated under the misguided belief that the top of the funnel belongs to marketing and the bottom to sales. In truth, if you’re looking to build a stronger pipeline, both teams have an important role to play throughout. At the top, marketing campaigns and sales prospects. At the bottom, sales closes and marketing assists with bespoke materials to secure buy in. Because the zero-click path to purchase has accelerated the entire funnel motion, every role is critical for the win.
How to work a shared funnel strategy:
1. Top of the Funnel:
Instill a cross-functional feedback loop at the very tip of the funnel, because sellers have the insights to guide powerful conversations. The questions they are hearing shine a light on the concerns buyers have. Creating content that answers these questions early on connects with buyers to both build pipeline faster and eliminate barriers to keep the momentum up in future sales conversations.
The same applies in reverse. Through behavioral data, marketers have insights into what is resonating on the site and in the market. Sellers can use this to build prospecting sequences that talk about things buyers want to hear, increasing the odds of a positive reply and a stronger pipeline.
2. Bottom of the funnel:
One of the biggest challenges at this juncture is a buyer’s ability to gain internal buy-in within their company. The buying committee can often be 8 -10 people who span different departments, each with executive level stakeholders who have a different set of objectives. A few bespoke pieces of collateral can go a long way in ensuring the win.
Reactivate your feedback loop. Just like you don’t want your top-of-funnel messaging to be generic, your champion cheat sheet shouldn’t be a one size fits all. Using specific KPIs that have been shared with sales, customize the value for the CTO vs. the CFO vs. the CEO. Not only does this help close the deal, the story you create here can be repurposed to build pipeline via ABM campaigns, where you want to speak more specifically to the audience.
As 2026 unfolds, GTM organizations that stay connected to value, to story, and to each other are the ones who will build the pipeline that, in turn, builds the sales needed to be one of the leading companies of tomorrow.
