You’ve probably unsubscribed from two or three B2B marketing newsletters this year. Good instinct. Most of what passes for insight in this space is an agency pitch deck with the pricing stripped out, or a take on a bid stream the writer has never sat and watched clear.
The B2B Stack is the other kind. One argument a week about B2B advertising, ABM, intent data and measurement, written by someone who builds the plumbing and runs the campaigns. Read it and you’ll spend your budget on the right accounts, and be able to defend that spend in the room where it gets cut.
Who this is for
B2B marketers and demand gen leads who are tired of being told the dashboard is green while pipeline isn’t.
ABM and paid media owners buying from 6sense, Demandbase, LinkedIn, The Trade Desk or StackAdapt, who want to know what’s under the hood before renewal.
RevOps and marketing ops stuck reconciling marketing’s pipeline number with sales’ pipeline number.
CMOs and founders who need to explain to a CFO why brand and programmatic spend is working, without hiding behind last-touch.
If you want a weekly digest of every funding round in martech, this isn’t it. If you want the mechanics under the marketing, you’re in the right place.
Why listen to me
In adtech since 2011. I built PowerLinks (the actual plumbing: DSP, SSP and exchange stack) and I’m now Co-Founder and CPO of FunnelFuel, a B2B-native programmatic business.
33rd fastest-growing private company in the UK in the Sunday Times 100 2026, which FunnelFuel grew from a standing start into an eight-figure revenue business.
$39.6m in managed-service B2B programmatic spend is what my free report draws on: three years of campaigns and a billion tracked page loads.
Join 1,600+ B2B marketers, including readers at Dentsu, HubSpot, 6sense, Informa and DirecTV.
I break down the platforms you’re actually buying from: The Trade Desk, LinkedIn, Google, Meta, OpenAI and ChatGPT, Perplexity, 6sense, Demandbase, RollWorks, StackAdapt, Bombora, ZoomInfo, G2, LiveRamp, Salesforce and HubSpot. No vendor has paid for a word of it.
I run a B2B programmatic company, so I’ve got a horse in this race. I’ll tell you when that’s relevant rather than pretending otherwise.
If you only read one
There Is No B2B Funnel. There’s a Ghost Committee of 22, and Most of Them Have Never Heard of You.
Free report: “5 Things $39.6M in B2B Programmatic Spend Taught Us.” Three years of managed spend and a billion tracked page loads, turned into five findings platforms won’t put in a pitch deck. Subscribe free to unlock it, plus every new issue of The B2B Stack.
There is no funnel. There’s a ghost committee of 22 people, and most of them have never heard of you. This is the piece that best explains what this newsletter believes, and it’s the one that turns the most readers into subscribers.
Start with what you need
“I need to prove marketing is working”
The Ultimate Account-Based (ABM) Measurement Glossary - Every Term You Need To Win the Pipeline Attribution Fight
There’s a meeting that repeats in almost every B2B organisation I’ve ever worked with. Marketing presents a pipeline influence number. Sales presents a completely different one. The CFO trusts neither, the CMO leaves with a smaller mandate than they walked in with, and the whole thing reconvenes next quarter to have the identical argument with fresher data.
The most-read thing I’ve written. Every term you need to win the pipeline attribution argument in a boardroom, defined properly rather than lifted from a vendor’s one-pager. Bookmark it.
Then read: - The Last-Touch Attribution Lie: why the channel that caught the click gets the credit for demand it didn’t create. - Your Media Vendors Are Marking Their Own Homework: why you should check raw logs, not the vendor’s dashboard. - Why Optimising for Clicks Finds the Wrong Buyers: chasing CTR trains your campaign to go and find more of the wrong buyer.
“I need to reach the right accounts, and the right people in them”
The Account Graph Is Not an Identity Graph
Most of the industry uses “account graph” and “identity graph” as if they’re the same asset wearing two names. They aren’t. One of them is a genuinely rare thing to build properly, and it isn’t the one that gets the coverage number printed on the sales deck.
Most B2B targeting confuses knowing a person with knowing an account. This is the difference, and why it decides who actually sees your ads.
Then read: - The CIO You’re Targeting Might Not Exist: job-title targeting versus how buying decisions really get made. - Your Firmographic Targeting Is Running On A 1937 Filing System: what SIC codes get wrong about who’s in market. - Segment vs Signal: how to run programmatic that reaches the whole buying committee.
“I need to get more out of intent data”
Intent Data Needs an Expiry Date: good signal goes stale, and someone has to decide when.
Why Most Teams Use Intent Data Wrong: more signal is only better if you change how you act on it.
The Xerox Strategy: why B2B’s best answer to the dark funnel is becoming a verb, not a vendor.
“I need to know which channels are worth it”
Programmatic Advertising Was Built for B2C: and most of it still isn’t built for B2B.
Connected TV for B2B: when it builds brand memory and when it backfires.
The DOOH Paradox: nearly half of B2B already buys billboards. Almost none buy them right.
The complete guides
These are the hubs. Each one pulls the best of the archive on one topic into a single page you can keep coming back to.
What Is B2B Intent Data? A Practitioner’s Guide (2026)
Last updated: 23 October 2026. I review this hub every quarter. The “What changed in 2026” and “What changes in 2027” sections are the parts that move.
ABM Platforms Compared: 6sense vs Demandbase vs RollWorks vs StackAdapt
The Complete 2026 Guide to B2B Programmatic Advertising: the whole stack laid out honestly, DSPs, identity, supply paths and where each one breaks.
Which of these is the live problem in your pipeline right now?
The committee your media can’t reach, the attribution argument you keep losing, or the intent data nobody acts on? Reply to any email or leave a comment below and tell me. The best questions become next week’s issue.
What you get when you subscribe
One argument a week, made properly. Not a digest of everything that happened in B2B adtech since Monday.
The free report, “5 Things $39.6M in B2B Programmatic Spend Taught Us”. Three years of managed spend, a billion tracked page loads, five things that don’t show up in a platform’s pitch deck.
Full access to the archive, including the guides and glossaries people bookmark rather than skim.
British English, no slop, and no hedging something to death to sound balanced. I have no brand guidelines to follow.
About me
I’m Mike Harty. I’ve worked in adtech since 2011. I built PowerLinks, and I’m now Co-Founder and CPO of FunnelFuel, where we run B2B programmatic for teams that need media to show up in pipeline, not just in a click report. I’m a second-time founder, and I wrote about what I’m doing differently here.
The B2B Stack is what I’d have wanted to read on the way. If something here sounds like your problem and you’d rather talk it through, FunnelFuel is where I spend the rest of the week.
Disagree with anything above? Good. Leave a comment. The issues that start an argument are usually the ones worth writing.