Building 17 Nurture Paths (And Why One Wasn't Enough)

The Situation

The client sold data infrastructure to data engineering teams. Technical product, technical buyers, long evaluation cycles. Standard B2B playbook.

The marketing setup was familiar: leads came in, they got added to a nurture sequence, the same emails went out on the same schedule to everyone. One track. One set of content. Maybe a branch for "opened email" vs. "didn't open email." The sophistication ended there.

Lead velocity was the problem. From first touch to qualified opportunity averaged 47 days. Sales complained that leads went cold. Marketing complained that sales didn't follow up fast enough. The blame game was well-rehearsed.

Analysis revealed that both teams were partially right—and both were missing the actual issue. The nurture approach treated every lead identically across every channel. A senior data engineer evaluating tools for a funded project saw the same ads, received the same emails, and was served the same content as a junior developer who downloaded a whitepaper out of curiosity.

The team wasn't slow. They were undifferentiated—and single-channel when they needed to be everywhere their prospects were, with the right content for each situation.

The Insight

"Lead nurturing" assumes leads are seeds that need water and sunlight on a predictable schedule. But leads aren't seeds. They're people in different situations with different needs at different moments—and they need different types of content through different channels.

A technical evaluator doesn't want case studies about business outcomes. They want documentation, benchmarks, and how-to guides. A business buyer building a case doesn't want technical deep-dives. They want ROI calculators, customer success stories, and executive summaries. And neither of them wants to receive this content only through email—they need to see it in the ads they scroll past, the retargeting that follows them, and the landing pages they hit.

Mapping the actual paths people took before becoming opportunities revealed distinct patterns—each calling for different content types, not just different messages:

Pattern 1: The Technical Evaluator

Multiple docs visits, GitHub activity, maybe a support question. Zero pricing page views. They're solving a technical problem and haven't thought about buying anything yet.

Content that works: How-to documentation, integration guides, benchmark comparisons. Retargeting ads featuring technical content, not sales messages.

Pattern 2: The Assigned Researcher

Pricing page visit, competitor comparison content, security documentation download. Little technical engagement. Someone got told "find us some options for X" and they're checking boxes on a vendor list.

Content that works: Comparison matrices, feature checklists, security attestations. Ads promoting "vs. competitor" content and procurement-ready materials.

Pattern 3: The Champion Building a Case

High engagement across everything—technical content, business case content, pricing. Repeat visits over weeks. They've decided they want the product and are assembling the internal pitch.

Content that works: ROI calculators, internal pitch decks, case studies with quantified outcomes. Retargeting with business value messaging, not technical features.

Pattern 4: The Existing User Expanding

Already a customer. New use case API calls, or new team members activating. Expansion opportunity, not new logo pursuit.

Content that works: Advanced use case guides, "what's new" feature releases, customer advisory invitations. No acquisition ads—these are expansion conversations.

Pattern 5: The Tire Kicker

Downloaded a whitepaper or attended a webinar weeks ago, then vanished. Single touchpoint, no follow-up engagement. Curiosity without intent—needs reactivation before nurturing makes sense.

Content that works: Low-commitment content (short videos, industry reports). Broad retargeting to stay visible without being pushy.

Pattern 6: The Manager Doing Due Diligence

Technical manager title, steady engagement with architecture docs and integration guides. Comparing options methodically. Not in a rush, but building a shortlist for a real project.

Content that works: Architecture decision guides, total cost of ownership calculators, implementation timelines. Steady-cadence retargeting with proof points.

Pattern 7: The Executive Sponsor

VP or C-level, jumped straight to pricing and security documentation. Fast engagement velocity. Someone already sold them internally—they're validating the decision, not making it.

Content that works: Executive summaries, peer case studies (same title/industry), security and compliance packages. Fast-track to sales conversation.

Pattern 8: The Returning Evaluator

Was active 6+ months ago, went dark, now back. Something changed—new project, new budget cycle, or the alternative they chose didn't work out. High intent, but context has shifted.

Content that works: "What's new since you left" updates, competitive switch stories, fresh case studies. Re-engagement ads acknowledging the return.

Pattern 9: The Team Lead Scaling

Technical manager with fast engagement across performance benchmarks, team collaboration features, and enterprise pricing. Their team outgrew the current solution. Timeline is real.

Content that works: Scale calculators, team deployment guides, enterprise feature comparisons. High-velocity retargeting with urgency messaging.

Pattern 10: The Compliance Checker

Business buyer focused almost exclusively on security, SOC 2, GDPR, and vendor questionnaires. Zero product engagement. They're not evaluating features—they're checking boxes for procurement.

Content that works: Pre-filled security questionnaires, compliance attestation packages, audit documentation. No product content—just procurement support.

Pattern 11: The Stalled Champion

Was highly engaged, clearly wanted to buy, then went quiet. Internal blockers: budget freeze, reorg, competing priority. Still interested but stuck. Needs air cover, not more product content.

Content that works: "Keep the conversation warm" content—industry trends, thought leadership, customer community invites. Light-touch retargeting to maintain presence without pressure.

Pattern 12: The Power User Looking for More

Existing customer hitting advanced documentation, API limits content, and enterprise feature pages. They've hit the ceiling of their current tier. Expansion conversation waiting to happen.

Content that works: Upgrade path calculators, advanced feature tutorials, customer success check-ins. No ads—direct outreach from CSM.

Pattern 13: The Dormant Account

Existing customer with declining usage and zero engagement. At risk of churn. Needs success intervention, not marketing—but marketing needs to flag it.

Content that works: Re-engagement campaigns with new feature highlights, success team intervention, health check invitations. Risk mitigation, not selling.

Pattern 14: The New Hire at Existing Customer

New contact at a customer account, hitting getting-started docs and onboarding content. Not an expansion signal—they're just ramping up. Treat as enablement, not sales.

Content that works: Onboarding sequences, getting-started guides, training resources. Suppress from acquisition campaigns entirely.

Pattern 15: The Competitive Shopper

Fast engagement, but focused on comparison pages and "vs competitor" content. Actively evaluating alternatives. Needs differentiation messaging and proof points, not generic nurture.

Content that works: Competitive battle cards (customer-facing versions), switch case studies, migration guides. Aggressive retargeting with differentiation messaging.

Pattern 16: The Budget Holder Warming Up

Business buyer with steady engagement over weeks: ROI calculator, case studies, procurement guides. Building the business case slowly. Will buy—but on their timeline, not yours.

Content that works: ROI calculators, CFO-ready business cases, procurement timelines. Steady retargeting with business value content, matched to their pace.

Pattern 17: The Internal Advocate

Technical manager sharing content internally (forwarding emails, multiple people from same domain engaging). They're selling for you. Arm them with ammunition, not sales pressure.

Content that works: Internal presentation templates, shareable one-pagers, team trial invitations. Multi-stakeholder retargeting across the account.

Each pattern called for radically different content types delivered through different channels at different speeds. One email nurture track couldn't do any of this.

The System

Layer 1: Archetype Definition

The engagement defined 17 distinct lifecycle archetypes based on three dimensions:

Dimension 1: Persona

• Technical Individual Contributor (data engineers, ML engineers)
• Technical Manager (engineering leads, architects)
• Business Buyer (VP Eng, CTO, technical executives)
• Champion (anyone who's shown intent to advocate internally)
• Existing Customer (current users in different modes)

Dimension 2: Intent Stage

• Problem Aware (knows they have a problem, exploring options)
• Solution Aware (knows the category, evaluating vendors)
• Product Aware (knows the client specifically, deep in evaluation)
• Decision Stage (ready to buy, needs final push or procurement support)

Dimension 3: Engagement Velocity

• Fast (multiple high-value actions in short window)
• Steady (consistent engagement over time)
• Stalled (was engaged, went quiet)
• New (first engagement, disposition unknown)

Layer 2: Classification Logic

Each archetype required entry criteria—a combination of explicit attributes and behavioral signals. Example for Champion - Building Case:

ENTRY CRITERIA (ALL must be true):
  - Contact has 5+ engagement events in past 30 days
  - AND engagement spans 3+ content categories:
      - Technical content (docs, architecture guides)
      - Business case content (ROI calculators, case studies)
      - Evaluation content (pricing, comparison guides)
  - AND at least one high-intent action:
      - Demo request OR pricing page visit 2+ times
  - AND not yet an open opportunity in Salesforce

EXIT CRITERIA (ANY triggers exit):
  - Opportunity created → exit to sales process
  - OR no engagement for 21+ days → exit to "Champion - Stalled"

Layer 3: Multi-Channel Orchestration

This wasn't an email nurture program. Each archetype received coordinated content across multiple channels—email, paid ads, retargeting, and on-site experiences—with content matched to their specific situation:

The key insight: a Technical Evaluator should never see an ad promoting ROI calculators. A Champion building a business case should never see retargeting for how-to documentation. Channel and content had to match the archetype—not just the message cadence.

How the ads actually worked: Every archetype had a corresponding HubSpot segment that synced directly to Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, and AdRoll. No third-party intent data providers. No buying audience segments from data brokers. First-party behavioral data—collected from the client's own properties—powered the targeting. When someone's behavior moved them from "Technical Evaluator" to "Champion Building a Case," their ad experience changed within hours, not days.

Layer 4: Velocity Optimization

Faster Classification: Evaluation happened in real-time on every event, not nightly batches. High-intent archetypes triggered sales alerts within minutes.

Parallel Processing: If someone entered as "Technical Evaluator" but then hit decision-stage signals, they immediately moved—no "finish the current sequence first."

First-Party Audience Sync: HubSpot segments synced directly to Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, and AdRoll for account-level targeting. When multiple contacts from the same account hit high-intent thresholds, coordinated ad campaigns activated automatically—no third-party intent data required.

LinkedIn Contact Extraction: To build complete contact profiles for account-level targeting, the team used PhantomBuster to extract LinkedIn profile data without triggering LinkedIn's bot detection. This was critical—LinkedIn's aggressive session monitoring would lock out accounts attempting direct scraping. PhantomBuster's rotating sessions and rate limiting kept extractions running smoothly, feeding enriched contact data into HubSpot for segmentation.

The Takeaway

Lifecycle marketing isn't about email drip sequences. It's about orchestrating the right content through the right channels based on pattern recognition. The 17 archetypes sound complex, but the underlying principle is simple: different people in different situations need different content types delivered through different channels at different speeds.