The Death of the Job Title: Why Tagging Is the Future of ABM Contact Targeting

For years, titles were the bedrock of persona-driven marketing.
Marketing Managers. VPs of Sales. Directors of IT. The assumption? If you target the right titles, you’ll find the right buyers.

But here's the problem: titles lie.

They’re inconsistent, lack context, and fail to reveal the real-world roles people actually play in buying decisions. And as modern B2B deals get more complex—with 6 to 10 stakeholders spanning departments—you can’t afford to aim with a blurry scope.

Enter: Contact Tagging.
By leveraging technographics, responsibilities, and real-time account signals, tagging has emerged as the superpower that’s helping ABM and revenue teams unlock full buying centers, personalize at scale, and drive dramatically better pipeline performance.

1. Titles Are a Dead End. Tagging Opens the Door to the Full Buying Center.

Let’s be blunt: relying on titles is a limiting strategy.

Two people with identical roles could have wildly different titles—or no standard title at all. You’ll miss key influencers like “Marketing Operations Strategist” or “Digital Transformation Lead” if you’re only filtering for “Director of Marketing.”

Tagging flips the paradigm.
Instead of asking what’s on their business card, it asks what do they actually do?

With LeadGenius tagging, for example, you can filter contacts based on:

• Responsibilities: Budget owner, procurement lead, end-user, technical evaluator.
• Initiatives: Tagged based on involvement in recent product launches, digital rollouts, or reorgs.
• Technologies: Users of Salesforce, Snowflake, HubSpot, or niche tools within your ecosystem.

The result?
Instead of surfacing 2–3 “maybe relevant” titles, you uncover a web of 12–15 role-relevant contacts across sales, marketing, operations, and finance—each playing a part in how your solution is evaluated.

2. Context Is King: Tagging Fuels True Personalization

Generic titles provide no insight into how to talk to a prospect.

“VP of Sales” tells you nothing about whether they manage outbound reps, own pipeline targets, or oversee tech stack evaluation.

But when that same contact is tagged as:

• "Outbound Tech Owner"
• "Evaluating Sales Engagement Tools"
• "Active Outreach.io User"

…your marketing changes from “Dear Sales Leader” to “Here’s how we help teams using Outreach scale their best reps faster.”

This is the difference between a cold email and a killer opener.

Tags unlock:

• Behavioral Targeting: Attended a recent webinar? Engaged with a competitor’s case study? Spoke at an industry event?
• Intent + Context: Recently joined the company? Inherited a broken workflow? Mid-migration to cloud CRM?

When every touchpoint is backed by context, you stop guessing and start resonating.

3. Modern Buying Committees Are Complex. Tags Map the Maze.

Buying groups today span functions. Marketing, RevOps, Finance, IT, Legal. If you’re only targeting decision-makers with big titles, you’re missing the blockers, champions, and influencers who make or break a deal behind the scenes.

Tags help map the full constellation of stakeholders.
With tagging, you can:

• Visualize hierarchical and cross-functional relationships inside accounts
• Spot patterns (e.g., when a mid-level product manager is the real project driver)
• Trigger outreach to the right persona based on signal and stage

For example:
When a company adds a new Sales Enablement Manager and also installs Highspot? That’s a signal.
When a company opens a new office and begins hiring SDRs? That’s a signal.
When their content lead posts about migrating from WordPress to Webflow? You guessed it: signal.

Tagging transforms these data points into strategy.

What This Means for ABM Teams

ABM is about focus. Focus on the right accounts, right people, and right timing.

Here’s why tagging outperforms titles on every front:

From Static Lists to Living Signals

Titles give you a static list. Tags give you a living, breathing map of who matters inside an account—and why.

In today’s noisy B2B environment, where inboxes are flooded and GTM motions are increasingly automated, tagging offers a path to meaningful differentiation. It’s how you deliver relevance, context, and value—before your competitors even know who to contact.

Next Steps for Revenue and Ops Leaders

If your ABM program still relies on job titles, it’s time to evolve.

Start with a tagging layer:

• Enrich your CRM with context-rich tags based on tech installs, signals, and responsibilities.
• Use those tags to build smarter segments and drive intent-triggered campaigns.
• Align Sales, Marketing, and RevOps on a common tagging taxonomy.

At LeadGenius, we help companies like Microsoft, Podium, and Indeed reimagine contact discovery—not by volume, but by precision. With real-time enrichment, technographics, and signal-based tagging, we help teams shift from title-chasing to stakeholder strategy.

Ditch the titles. Embrace the tags.
Your pipeline—and your sales team—will thank you.