What Is Allbound Marketing? Definition and Examples

Allbound marketing, as Understory Agency runs it, is inbound and outbound run as one program, so every ad, email, and post a buyer sees feeds the next one. Allbound is a kind of integrated go-to-market. Understory Agency sees it as a different job from integrated advertising, which runs one creative campaign across TV, print, and digital.

In an allbound program, one team runs paid media, outbound, LinkedIn content, creative, and RevOps for post-PMF B2B SaaS companies from Series A through enterprise. Every channel works the same list of buyers. Understory Agency runs paid media and GTM engineering for Northbeam as one program, and Northbeam reports $2.3M in LinkedIn-sourced pipeline.

Allbound is also the name of a software company (allbound.com) that sells partner relationship management tools. They have no connection to us. Other agencies and marketing publishers use the word too. This page is about the go-to-market model.

Why did allbound marketing catch on?

B2B buyers do most of their research before they talk to a seller. 6sense's 2024 Buyer Experience Report found that 69% of the purchase process happens before B2B buyers engage with sellers. McKinsey found that B2B customers now use 10 interaction channels on average during a buying journey, up from 5 in 2016.

So one buyer might see a LinkedIn ad in March, read a guide in April, and answer a cold email in June. When a different vendor runs each channel, nobody sees that path. The ad agency reports clicks. The outbound agency reports replies. Sales gets a lead with no history.

Allbound answers that with one team and one data layer. An ad click, an email reply, and a LinkedIn comment land on the same contact record, and each one can trigger the next touch. At Understory Agency, every ad impression, outbound reply, LinkedIn engagement, and meeting lands on the client's HubSpot or Salesforce contact record.

What is allbound often confused with?

Allbound gets mixed up with running inbound and outbound side by side. Running inbound and outbound at the same time, with separate teams and separate data, is multichannel. Allbound, as Understory Agency runs it, adds one contact record and the triggers, so a signal in one channel starts action in another. Here's how Understory Agency compares the 3 models:

Dimension	Inbound only	Outbound only	Allbound
Speed to first pipeline	Slow. Content and search take months to compound	Fast. Replies come within weeks	Outbound brings early pipeline while inbound compounds
Who it reaches	Buyers who are already searching	Accounts the team chooses to target	Both, and each channel informs the other
Where it stalls	It hits a ceiling once the searching audience is used up	It burns goodwill when messages ignore what the buyer has already seen	It needs one team and a clean shared data layer
Data	Web and form data	Sequencer data	One contact record across every channel

Account-based marketing (ABM) is the second mix-up. ABM works a hand-picked list of target accounts with tailored campaigns. Allbound covers the whole ideal customer profile (ICP), and an ABM program can run inside it for the top accounts.

What are the parts of an allbound program?

Allbound runs on 2 engines. Paid media creates the signals: ads on LinkedIn and Google put the message in front of the ICP and show who engaged. GTM engineering turns those signals into conversations.

GTM engineering is the data and automation work behind outbound. We build it in Clay and the wider stack, and it runs cold and signal-based outbound across email and LinkedIn. Our guide to GTM engineering covers the build in detail.

3 more pieces make the engines work together:

LinkedIn content. Ghostwritten posts from founders and executives. The posts that land can run as Thought Leader Ads, which warm the accounts outbound will contact. Our LinkedIn ads guide shows how.
Creative and landing pages. Ads and pages built for each segment, so the ad, the email, and the page tell the buyer the same thing.
RevOps. The CRM and reporting underneath, usually HubSpot or Salesforce, so sales and marketing read the same numbers.

What does an allbound sequence look like?

A typical sequence for one target account runs over 9 days:

Day 0: a LinkedIn ad reaches the buying committee.
Day 1: an SDR email with proof that fits the account.
Day 3: a display banner with a customer testimonial.
Day 4: a LinkedIn connection request.
Day 7: a short demo clip.
Day 9: a follow-up email.

Each step reacts to the last. If someone at the account clicks the Day 0 ad, the Day 1 email can pick up the problem the ad raised. If they visit the pricing page, the account can go straight to a sales rep. If nobody engages, the sequence keeps running and the paid side keeps the brand in front of them. At Understory Agency, one pod runs every step of a sequence like this, from the LinkedIn ad to the follow-up email, on one contact record.

How does a B2B company start with allbound?

A B2B company starting allbound should fix the plumbing first and then pilot one segment. These are the 6 steps we follow:

Audit what's running. List every channel, vendor, and tool, and what each one reports.
Connect the stack. Ad platforms, the sequencer, and the website all feed one CRM, so each person has one record.
Agree on one ICP and one lifecycle model. Sales and marketing use the same definitions for a lead, an MQL, and an SQL. Our ICP scoring rubric and MQL to SQL guide help here.
Set the handoff rules. Decide which signals trigger outbound and how fast sales follows up on a hot account.
Run a 30-day pilot on one segment. Run paid and outbound against the same accounts and watch replies, meetings, and pipeline.
Review weekly, then widen. Hold one weekly review across channels and move budget toward what creates pipeline.

Who is allbound marketing for?

Allbound fits B2B companies past product-market fit that already run more than one channel. The signs are a long sales cycle with several buyers, separate vendors for paid and outbound, and a team that can't say which channel moved a deal.

It's the wrong move before product-market fit. If the message isn't proven, more channels just spread an unproven message faster. It's also more than a company needs when one simple channel and a short sales cycle already work.

How does Understory Agency run allbound?

Understory Agency puts one pod on every account: a GTM engineer as lead, a GTM operations manager, and a paid-media strategist. The pod works from one ICP, one message, and one data layer. Clients pick from 5 services: Paid Media, GTM Engineering, LinkedIn Content, Creative & Landing Pages, and RevOps. Understory Agency is an Enterprise Clay Partner, one of the first 5 certified Clay Experts, and a Certified HubSpot Solutions Partner. Understory Agency has worked with 150+ B2B companies from Series A through enterprise, and has been building toward Allbound since early 2023.

Here's how that played out on 3 accounts.

Northbeam (paid media and GTM engineering). The work started with an audit. Understory Agency found that 74% of the previous 30 days of Northbeam's LinkedIn budget had gone to the LinkedIn Audience Network. We cut Google spend 44% on purpose, and cost per opportunity fell 35%. Outbound has sent more than 85,000 emails at a 1.2% bounce rate. Zach Sherrod, Head of Growth & Partnerships at Northbeam, sums it up: "Our CAC has remained flat while our pipeline has doubled over the last year." (Northbeam case study)

Expensify (GTM engineering). Understory Agency added an outbound engine to Expensify's product-led growth. The program has sent 125,000 emails, reached 54,000 net-new contacts and produced 180 to 190 positive replies. Mitch Ward at Expensify says that "whether inbound or purely outbound, we've seen revenue that we would not have gotten otherwise." (Expensify case study)

Doppel (paid search and paid social). Understory Agency's paid program for Doppel shows $3,652,185 in Google-influenced pipeline from January to July 2026. (Doppel case study)

If you're weighing allbound for your team, book a call and we'll map which channels to connect first.

FAQ

What is allbound marketing?

Allbound marketing, as Understory Agency runs it, is inbound and outbound run as one program, so every ad, email, and post a buyer sees feeds the next one.

Is allbound marketing worth it for a B2B SaaS company, or just a buzzword?

Allbound marketing is worth it for a B2B SaaS company, in Understory Agency's experience, when paid and outbound run with separate vendors and nobody can say which channel moved a deal. Understory Agency runs paid media and GTM engineering for Northbeam as one program, and Northbeam reports $2.3M in LinkedIn-sourced pipeline, with CAC flat while pipeline doubled over the last year. Allbound is a buzzword when one channel and a short sales cycle already work, or before product-market fit.

How long does allbound marketing take to show results?

With Understory Agency, cold email launches in 3 to 4 weeks, and paid media usually moves faster. Outbound gives feedback within weeks, so judge it early on replies and meetings. Inbound and search compound more slowly. Judge the whole program on pipeline and closed deals.

What tools does an allbound program need?

An allbound program needs a CRM, an enrichment layer, and sequencers for email and LinkedIn. Understory Agency typically builds on HubSpot or Salesforce, Clay, a sequencer such as Instantly, and HeyReach for LinkedIn. Clay needs RevOps support during onboarding, because every tool has to write to the same contact record.

How does Understory Agency price allbound work?

Understory Agency prices allbound work as custom flat retainers for each service, never a percentage of spend. Each price and scope is built for the client.

Can a company run allbound in-house?

A B2B company can run allbound in-house when one team owns paid media, outbound, and the CRM, with one pipeline report. Most of the work is the plumbing in steps 1 to 4 above. If no one owns all 3, that's the gap an outside team like Understory Agency fills.