Episode 180: Lifecycle marketing in 2026: How to engage with buyers in AI era with Ashley Faus

About this episode

In this episode, Andrei and Vlad discuss the evolution of lifecycle marketing in 2026 with Ashley Faus, focusing on engaging buyers in the AI era.

It’s 2026, but still too many B2B companies treat marketing as a MQL factory in a linear funnel. Every interaction scored. Every behaviour is treated as a buying signal. Every nurture sequence designed to push someone toward a sales call they're not ready for. In this episode of Full-Funnel Live, Andrei and Vlad invited Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing at Atlassian, to fix that. Tune in to learn: ⁠- How lifecycle marketing got hijacked by MQL thinking and what it actually looks like in 2026 - The playground model: how to design buyer journeys that match how people actually research, explore, and decide, even if you’ve inherited the “MQL factory” model - How to run change management and sell the idea of “the playground" lifecycle model - What AI can and cannot do for lifecycle marketing and what has to be true about your data before AI will work - What a CMO can realistically build in year one when inheriting a broken linear funnel and 90 days to show the board something RESOURCES: On-Demand B2B Marketing Courses: https://fullfunnel.io/b2b-marketing-courses/ Full-Funnel Insider - A Marketing Newsletter For B2B Marketers: https://fullfunnel.io/marketing-newsletter/ Join our…

People in this episode

Host: Andrei Zinkevich

Guest: Ashley Faus

Topics covered

• lifecycle marketing
• B2B marketing
• AI in marketing
• buyer journeys
• MQL thinking
• change management

Keywords

• lifecycle marketing
• MQL factory
• buyer journeys
• AI marketing
• change management
• B2B companies
• marketing strategies

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Atlassian, Full-Funnel Live

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