How and why awareness, confidence and trust drive GTM outcomes

Every go-to-market leader is chasing higher close rates, larger deals and faster velocity. What if those outcomes aren’t simply the result of better product-market fit or sharper pricing strategy — but the causal effects of three deeply human psychological states?

Welcome to the world of ACT:

• Awareness.
• Confidence.
• Trust.

I’ve spent 15 years working with ACT data in time-lagged causal models. My 2019 SXSW keynote was devoted to demonstrating how ACT causally drives deal velocity, conversion and expansion. The evidence was ACT modeling helps you understand the weight of these factors and their time-lagged effects — giving you predictive visibility and operational leverage.

Dig deeper: Your GTM spend isn’t just an expense — it’s an asset

Time-lagged causality: Why attribution fails and ACT succeeds

ACT doesn’t just tell you what matters — it tells you when.

• Awareness today may drive results six months from now.
• Trust lost in Q1 may kill renewals in Q4.
• Confidence built slowly over the years becomes a firewall against churn.

This time-lagged effect is why standard attribution tools underperform. They can’t explain why so many high-effort, high-cost campaigns yield zero impact — or why specific brand signals quietly produce exponential returns.

ACT vs. traditional pipeline logic

Traditional pipeline logic operates on correlation:

• “We sent five emails, so they must be interested.”
• “They attended a webinar, so they’re qualified.”

This isn’t evidence. It’s a ritual. 

Causal GTM reframes the question:

• What increased ACT in this segment — and how long before that translated to revenue?

Once you begin thinking this way, you stop managing activity and start managing impact.

In the age of AI search, confidence and trust determine visibility

Here’s where ACT becomes even more essential: AI is now your front door.

Whether it’s OpenAI, Perplexity or Copilot, buyers are turning to AI agents to surface, compare and evaluate vendors. These systems aren’t just pulling data. They rank, filter and recommend based on inferred quality clarity, and intent.

That means:

• High-confidence content gets indexed, validated and recommended.
• High-trust signals influence model weighting and user confidence in summaries.
• Low-ACT brands become invisible — regardless of actual capability.

In this AI-mediated discovery layer, your ACT posture is your new SEO.

If your message is inconsistent, your proof points are weak or your language signals manipulation or misalignment, AI will downgrade you — not out of malice, but because it is trained to protect users.

Dig deeper: AI tools are rewriting the B2B buying process in real time

ACT is not soft — it’s structural

We are entering a GTM world where intentionality is machine-readable. You can no longer afford to fake it until you make it. Because if AI doesn’t see your signals of confidence and trust — you don’t exist in the discovery layer.

ACT is not a sentiment model. It’s a causal, auditable, time-aware engine for GTM calibration, speed and scale. It doesn’t just explain the past. It lets you change the future, even as the future changes itself. modeling helps you understand the weight of these factors and their time-lagged effects — giving you predictive visibility and operational leverage.

Dig deeper: Your GTM spend isn’t just an expense — it’s an asset

Time-lagged causality: Why attribution fails and ACT succeeds

ACT doesn’t just tell you what matters — it tells you when.

• Awareness today may drive results six months from now.
• Trust lost in Q1 may kill renewals in Q4.
• Confidence built slowly over the years becomes a firewall against churn.

This time-lagged effect is why standard attribution tools underperform. They can’t explain why so many high-effort, high-cost campaigns yield zero impact — or why certain brand signals quietly produce exponential returns.

ACT vs. traditional pipeline logic

Traditional pipeline logic operates on correlation:

• “We sent 5 emails, so they must be interested.”
• “They attended a webinar, so they’re qualified.”

This isn’t evidence. It’s ritual. 

Causal GTM reframes the question:

• What increased ACT in this segment — and how long before that translated to revenue?

Once you begin thinking this way, you stop managing activity and start managing impact.

In the age of AI search, confidence and trust determine visibility

Here’s where ACT becomes even more essential: AI is now your front door.

Whether it’s OpenAI, Perplexity or Copilot, buyers are turning to AI agents to surface, compare and evaluate vendors. These systems aren’t just pulling data. They’re ranking, filtering and recommending based on inferred quality, clarity and intent.

That means:

• High-confidence content gets indexed, validated and recommended.
• High-trust signals influence model weighting and user confidence in summaries.
• Low-ACT brands become invisible — regardless of actual capability.

In this AI-mediated discovery layer, your ACT posture is your new SEO. If your message is inconsistent, your proof points are weak or your language signals manipulation or misalignment, AI will downgrade you — not out of malice, but because it is trained to protect users.

Dig deeper: AI tools are rewriting the B2B buying process in real time