Podcast Summary: The Dave Gerhardt Show (Exit Five)

Episode: ABM: What Ramp, Snowflake, and Hightouch are doing in 2026

Date: February 19, 2026
Host: Dave Gerhardt (Exit Five)
Guests:

• Kasey Hoham (Head of ABM, Snowflake)
• Drew (Director of Growth & Data Science, Ramp)
• Brian (CMO, High Touch)

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into modern Account-Based Marketing (ABM) as practiced in 2026 by some of SaaS’s standout brands—Ramp, Snowflake, and High Touch. Host Dave Gerhardt moderates a highly tactical, candid roundtable with three ABM leaders. Together, they dissect how ABM programs are evolving, reveal what they’ve stopped doing, what they’re scaling, and how cutting-edge technology is fundamentally shifting the practice. The result is a practical, lived-in take, packed with playbook insights, hard-won lessons, and actionable ideas for both large and lean teams.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining ABM: Sales-Led, Not Marketing-Driven

• ABM is not one-size-fits-all. For these teams, ABM means tightly aligning marketing with sales strategy and focusing marketing resources on the accounts that sales cares about most.
• Kasey (Snowflake, 08:17):

  “We talk about [ABM] as bringing sales strategy to life through marketing channels. We don’t start with the marketing part—we start with the sales part. ...What we really need is the director at this customer account to give us the time of day so that we can get into this new line of business, and ABM can go procure that contact, nurture that contact, deliver it to sales outbound. All of those things are what sales cares about the most.”

2. How Teams Pick Target Accounts

• A science and art: Data models make the initial cut, but sales always adjusts based on deep account knowledge—deals are removed for invisible reasons, like relationships or contractual blockers.
• Brian (High Touch, 11:04):

  “It’s actually pretty much a CRO level activity here...we really work very hard to pick the right accounts...as part of territory planning, working...which account are we going to send seller A, B or C to pursue and why? Once they’re in the list...all these business processes and workflows get kicked off.”

• Drew (Ramp, 12:39):

  “For us it’s really a partnership between data science and sales. The first cut is like a data science model of who’s a good fit...sales leadership whittles it down. But the list changes throughout the year—the people who know the accounts best are the salespeople working them...The team updates constantly.”

3. Stop: ABM Tactics They’ve Abandoned (2026)

a. Overly Large Account Lists

• More is not better. ABM stopped being ABM when account loads ballooned to unmanageable sizes.
• Kasey (Snowflake, 14:29):

  “We’ve fallen into the trap of targeting too many accounts...each of my team members now has an account limit so we’re not going to 200 accounts. That’s not ABM anymore, that’s targeted demand gen.”

b. Paid Social for Awareness

• With ultra-narrow audiences, top-of-funnel paid campaigns often blur into expensive, ineffective demand gen—except in special cases.

• Drew (Ramp, 16:35):

  “We’re stopping paid social ads for ABM brand awareness...it can quickly just morph into targeted demand gen. We found it’s not super effective. Digital is getting more and more saturated...so we’re super focused on going back to in-person and physical [touchpoints].”

• Brian (High Touch, 17:23):

  “I have some evidence that you can use paid social, display...but the creative fatigue happens so fast that it’s nuts. When you only have 20 accounts...they see the ad like 300 times a day.”

4. Start & Scale: What’s Working Now

a. In-Person & Physical Experiences

• In-person events—hosted dinners, themed gatherings, creative offline activations—are where ABM delivers disproportionate value. They’re most effective when initiated or owned by sales.

• Drew (Ramp, 18:58):

  “Best in-person events we’ve seen are the ones where the salesperson comes up with the idea...sometimes hyper-specific dinners around a specific pain point in a specific industry.”

• Kasey (Snowflake, 19:27):

  “Field marketing, thoughtful gifting, localized events, and peer-to-peer customer discussions—all in response to where sales wants to win now.”

b. Gifting and Direct Mail

• Hyper-personalized gifts (not “gift cards for a meeting”) and creative direct mail remain effective, with platforms like Reach Desk and Sendoso used for logistics. For very high-value accounts, curation and thought matter most.

c. Data-Driven Personalization at Scale

• AI and data models drive just-in-time segmentation, tailored landing pages, and social proof insertions everywhere—from ABM ads to SDR enablement.

• Drew (Ramp, 44:01):

  “My team just built a similarity model...for every prospect, it tells us who are the top customers we have who are similar...We’ve piped it into ad platforms, our website, our CRM tools...so sales can use that for instant personalization and references.”

• Brian (High Touch, 45:23):

  “Once you have modeled the right data, use it everywhere—nurture emails, SDR scripts, gifting recommendations, etc.”

5. Measurement, Budget, and Executive Buy-In

• Leadership and sales alignment matter more than huge budgets.

• Start small: Test ABM as a “lift” experiment, comparing “treatment” (targeted) vs. “control” (untargeted) groups for conversion and progression through the funnel.

• Track all the way to revenue—meetings and opportunities matter less than qualified pipeline and closed-won rates.

• Kasey (Snowflake, 25:41):

  “Budget is one lever, sales alignment and executive alignment is another. You can carve out some budget from digital, not add any net new, and test ABM and say is this worth it? Not every company needs enterprise ABM. Start small and measure by lift.”

• Drew (Ramp, 26:46):

  “You shouldn’t measure these the same way as traditional marketing campaigns...on MTA or other measurement, they’ll look terrible, and that should be okay.”

6. KPIs and Attribution in ABM

• Use multi-stage engagement and “opportunity awareness” levels as your leading KPIs.

• Attribution fights are a waste of energy; control/treatment and progression are better indicators.

• Brian (High Touch, 30:13):

  “Culturally, we adhere a lot to...not fighting over attribution...We use control and treatment groups. Each account is tracked from unaware, lightly engaged, quite engaged, etc., before even becoming an opportunity. We monitor movement—are these accounts progressing?”

• LLMs as Attribution Storytellers:
  AI compiles “deal stories” using all available touchpoints to offer qualitative success narratives—filling gaps traditional models miss.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• ABM’s Real Definition:

  “Bringing sales strategy to life through marketing channels.”
  – Kasey Hoham (08:17)

• On Account List Size:

  “One person cannot know 200 accounts intimately. That’s not ABM anymore, that’s kind of targeted demand gen.”
  – Kasey Hoham (15:23)

• On Paid Social and Creative Fatigue:

  “The creative fatigue happens so fast. When you only have 20 accounts…they see the ad like 300 times a day!”
  – Brian (17:59)

• On the Power of In-Person:

  “The best [in-person] events we’ve seen are ones where the salesperson comes up with the idea...a lot closer to it.”
  – Drew (18:58)

• On Scrappy ABM:

  “Start with direct mail—pattern interrupt...if you did something like a handwritten envelope, I’d open it. At least you’d get my attention.”
  – Dave (39:24)

• On Measuring ABM Success:

  “As you get more mature, you should do the data work to figure out what does it take to convert an enterprise account? How many people, how frequently? We use that as a rough metric for ABM success.”
  – Drew (29:28)

• On Budgeting for ABM:

  “You can do ABM for effectively $0 and start immediately—just pick good accounts.”
  – Brian (28:34)

• On Post-Event Followup:

  “If you have a great date, you don't wait a month to check in. I want to see follow-up immediately.”
  – Brian (36:32)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | | --- | --- | | 04:32 | Guest introductions: Kasey (Snowflake), Drew (Ramp), Brian (High Touch) | | 08:17 | ABM definitions, sales alignment as core | | 11:04 | How target accounts are picked—CRO/data + sales input | | 14:29 | Stopped tactics: over-large lists, limits on AE/marketer account loads | | 16:35 | Stopped: top-of-funnel paid social for ABM awareness | | 18:58 | In-person, sales-led events as the new ABM sweet spot | | 19:27 | Data enrichment, targeted gifting, and account-specific physical plays | | 20:35 | Building ultra-targeted ad audiences with Snowflake/High Touch | | 25:41 | Budgeting, experimentation, and scientific method for ABM | | 29:28 | KPIs and measurement for ABM (engagement, progression, pipeline) | | 33:44 | Pipeline velocity: creative physical activations, dinners, “Super Bowl suite” | | 37:58 | Scrappy/lean ABM: direct mail, lunch and learns, 1:1 landing pages | | 42:01 | What’s new/scaling: AI-assisted campaign orchestration, real-world lunch & learns, social proof modeling | | 44:01 | Data model for social proof and reference automation (Ramp example) | | 45:23 | Using AI-piped data for nurturing, SDR tools, hyper-personalization everywhere |

Practical Plays for ABM in 2026

For Big Budgets:

• Hyper-personalized in-person events, dinners, and creative field activations (think: suites at concerts/Super Bowl, but only for engaged targets).
• Rich direct mail, highly curated executive gifting, often in partnership with sales suggestions.
• Real-time, AI-powered content, personalized by account and persona at every touch.

For Scrappy Teams:

• Manual, sales- and data-driven account selection
• Direct mail and offline “pattern interrupts” (e.g., hand-written notes, memorable items).
• 1:1 landing pages tied to specific sales campaigns, using marketer-time not cash.
• Customer social proof tailored for each prospect.
• Small, high-value lunch-and-learns, ideally with a customer or SME.

Measurement Guidance:

• Use experiment design: lift vs. control rather than attribution modeling.
• Focus on progression of stage engagement and sales-reported qualitative progression.
• Reporting and follow-up accountability are key—track if sales really follows up after live events, and enforce it.

Final Takeaways

• ABM ≠ Demand Gen. It’s sales-driven, tight, and personalized—focusing only on accounts you’ve carefully handpicked with sales.
• In-person and real-world tactics matter more than ever. As digital channels saturate and fatigue accelerates, true relationship-building happens offline.
• Technology is table stakes but not a solution. Platforms like Snowflake and HiTouch enable, but creativity, sales partnership, and focus drive results.
• Start small, measure lift, and align deeply with sales. Resources matter less than discipline and rigor.

Suggested Action Steps

• Audit your “ABM”: Is it really ABM, or just targeted demand gen?
• Cap account loads for reps or marketers—quality > coverage.
• Organize a creative, focused physical event for a handful of top accounts—led by sales, not marketing.
• Experiment with personalized, offline touches and measure the lift vs. baseline.
• Align goals, reporting, and expectations with sales and finance—ABM KPIs aren’t traditional demand-gen metrics.

Connect with the Speakers

• Dave Gerhardt: Host, Exit Five (exitfive.com)
• Kasey Hoham: Head of ABM, Snowflake
• Drew: Director of Growth & Data Science, Ramp
• Brian: CMO, High Touch

End of summary.