How marketing qualified buying groups (MQBGs) drive real B2B marketing impact.

B2B buying isn’t a solo act.

Enterprise purchases — especially for complex solutions — involve an average of 11 decision-makers, each with their own priorities, pain points, and timelines. Yet most marketing and sales teams still rely on outdated lead- or account-level scoring models to drive the pipeline.

The result? Incomplete context. Misaligned handoffs. And sales cycles that stall before they even begin.

What’s missing isn’t more leads or higher account scores — it’s buying group visibility.

That’s where marketing qualified buying groups (MQBGs) come in. MQBGs give your teams a clearer picture of real purchase readiness by capturing who’s in the buying group, how engaged they are, and whether they’re aligned with a specific product or solution.

This blog explores how leading B2B teams are moving beyond the limits of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and Marketing Qualified Accounts (MQAs) — and how Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition enables marketing and sales to orchestrate, score, and activate buying groups across the full customer lifecycle.

• Buying groups are how enterprise decisions are made
• Why traditional lead and account models fall short
• MQBGs: A smarter, more precise success metric
• How Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition powers buying group orchestration
• Real-world impact: MQBGs in action
• Rethink how you measure success
• Questions? We have answers

B2B purchases rarely hinge on a single decision-maker. Today, buying decisions are made by committees of 6 to 10 people — and in enterprise deals, that number often climbs even higher. These groups span functions and roles: procurement, finance, IT, business users, legal, and executive stakeholders.

Each person brings their own needs, concerns, and decision criteria to the table. And their collective alignment — or lack thereof — determines whether a deal moves forward, stalls, or dies.

The problem? Most marketing and sales workflows still treat buyer activity as if it’s coming from a single lead or a monolithic account. That’s a huge gap.

To engage enterprise buyers effectively, you need visibility into the entire group involved in the purchase — not just the first person to download a whitepaper.

That’s why forward-looking teams are turning to a new approach: marketing qualified buying groups (MQBGs).

Rather than scoring leads or accounts in isolation, MQBGs measure the readiness of the full buying group tied to a specific product or solution. It's a more accurate, scalable way to reflect how buying happens.

For years, marketing teams have measured success through MQLs — individuals who meet certain criteria like job title, company size, or content engagement. Then came MQAs — a step up that considers engagement across an entire account.

But neither model reflects how enterprise buying happens.

MQLs are too narrow. A single engaged contact tells you little about who else is involved — or whether they have influence. MQAs, on the other hand, are too broad. Scoring an account high just because several people interact doesn’t tell you which buying group is forming or how close they are to making a decision.

Here’s what often happens in practice:

• Sales gets handed an “engaged account” with no context on product interest or buyer roles.
• Reps are forced to hunt for missing stakeholders, validate interest manually, or chase ghost leads.
• Meanwhile, the real decision-makers remain anonymous — or worse, disengaged.

It’s a mismatch between how marketing qualifies and how sales sells.

What’s needed is a model that captures the collective behavior of the right people, for the right product, in the right context.

That model is marketing qualified buying groups.

A marketing qualified buying group (MQBG) is more than a list of contacts. It’s a signal.

It tells you that the right combination of roles — decision-maker, influencer, technical evaluator, budget approver — has shown coordinated interest in a specific solution. It reflects both who is engaged and how engaged they are.

Unlike MQLs or MQAs, MQBGs track the completeness and collective behavior of the buying group:

• Completeness scores show whether all key roles are accounted for.
• Engagement scores measure the level and quality of activity across individuals and groups.

Combined, they help determine when a buying group is ready for sales.

This gives you a more actionable, accurate view of purchase readiness. You’re no longer scoring in silos — you’re mirroring how enterprise decisions are made.

Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition is purpose-built for orchestrating buying group engagement across the entire customer lifecycle. It doesn’t just track behaviors — it connects the dots between people, roles, products, and accounts to drive a qualified pipeline at scale.

Here’s how it works:

Identify and complete buying groups with unified data.

Most teams don’t know who’s missing from the buying group — let alone how to reach them.

Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition solves this by ingesting unified person and account data from Adobe Real-Time CDP B2B Edition and Marketo Engage. It uses GenAI to:

• Automatically assign contacts to buying group roles.
• Highlight gaps with completeness scoring.
• Trigger paid and owned campaigns to acquire missing members.

Score and qualify buying groups using real engagement.

Once group members engage, Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition calculates a dynamic score based on individual and collective behaviors.

When thresholds are met, it:

• Converts the group to an MQBG
• Sends sales alerts with AI-generated engagement summaries
• Prioritizes the opportunity across systems

This creates a shared definition of buying group readiness between marketing and sales.

Activate personalized, role-aware buying group journeys.

Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition supports multi-path journeys based on:

• Buying group role (e.g., CMO vs. IT lead)
• Product or solution interest
• GTM motion (e.g., acquisition, cross-sell, retention)

GenAI generates email content by role and stage. Activity from one member can trigger follow-ups to others. All engagement is synchronized across Marketo Engage and tracked within Customer Journey Analytics.

Here’s what customers are seeing:

• 15% increase in sales-qualified buying groups
• 2X increase in intent signals across accounts
• Faster sales cycles and higher win rates from shared visibility and prioritization

Adobe uses this same solution internally — and has seen meaningful lifts in conversion and engagement through MQBG orchestration.

Rethink how you measure success.

Marketing and sales alignment doesn’t happen with isolated lead scoring or vague account engagement. It happens when both teams share visibility into real buying group behavior.

That’s the promise of MQBGs — and the advantage of Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition.

But Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition doesn’t work alone. To realize this buying group-first strategy, enterprise teams should consider the full Adobe GTM orchestration stack:

• Adobe Real-Time CDP B2B Edition: Unifies data and builds rich person/account profiles
• Marketo Engage: Activates campaigns across email, chat, and webinars
• Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition: Orchestrates buying group journeys and qualifications
• Customer Journey Analytics B2B Edition: Tracks behavior, scores groups, and surfaces insight
• Adobe Experience Manager Assets: Supplies creative assets for role-aware personalization

Together, they deliver a unified, AI-powered GTM engine across every touchpoint, product, and lifecycle stage.

Ready to move beyond leads? It’s time to orchestrate buying groups.

Learn how Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition transforms your GTM motion.