Content marketing today requires more than visibility — it demands relevance. Buyers expect personalized experiences that speak to their unique roles, challenges, and industries.

We spoke with Meg O’Leary, CMO at Tenable, a leader in cybersecurity specializing in exposure management, about how her team structures content strategies that create high-impact engagement for a diverse set of buyers.

  1.  Map content across the buyer journey

Meg says the marketing team starts with a simple framework for a content journey map that works across Tenable’s different products, buyer personas for each product, and different industries. “The journey map forces us to clarify the key messages or messages we need to communicate to different personas at each stage and allows us to identify what content we need to support each stage, whether a webinar, case study, explainer video, etc,” she adds. 

The content journey map is built cross-functionally and supports demand gen campaigns, website personalization, and sales plays. “We use it to drive deeper engagement and get customers and prospects to take the next step in an intuitive journey continually,” says Meg. 

  1. Consider in-person and digital interactions during the buyer’s journey. 

While the content journey map is built primarily for digital interactions, Meg says it also takes into account physical interactions that Tenable relies on to generate and capture demand, including Tenable’s booth presence and speaking sessions at big industry events, field and regional marketing events, executive briefing centers, customer advisory board meetings, and more. Following in-person touchpoints, the content journey map is leveraged to inform nurture and retargeting activity, as well as SDR and seller outreach. 

  1. Personalize content at every stage to drive results

Meg’s team personalizes content by persona and industry, using tools like Trendemon for dynamic website experiences and Folloze for building personalized content hubs for key accounts. SDRs and sellers utilize AI to tailor messaging and establish digital sales rooms. “We meet buyers where they are,” she says. “We don’t overdo personalization — we just aim to be relevant based on their signals.”

When Tenable piloted a deeper level of personalization, incorporating account and individual-level personalization tokens in things like digital ads and landing pages, they found that prospects were turned off and engagement rates dropped.

Everything fell into place when Tenable right-sized the level of personalization. “When we tailor content to the buyer’s intent, we often see 2–3x increases in click-through rates,” says Meg. “In some cases, personalized offers get double-digit engagement. That level of performance just doesn’t happen with generic content.”

  1. Keep pace with changing buyer behavior

“We’re seeing significant shifts in how B2B buyers conduct research: They’re increasingly using AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT rather than traditional search engines,” says Meg. “When they do use search engines, they increasingly rely on the output of the AI search result rather than clicking on a traditional search result. Consequently, we’re making “AEO” (answer engine optimization) a component of our content strategy, gating strategy, and customer journey maps. And we’re researching the types of questions (or prompts) that buyers enter into AI tools so that we can develop content to train these large language models and better show up in them.” 

  1. Gather customer feedback to keep content fresh

Meg’s team integrates feedback from customer advisory boards, online communities, win-loss interviews, and social listening. “Sometimes the ideas we love internally don’t land. We’ve learned to test, listen, and when needed, adapt and shift direction,” Meg says.

Meg’s approach reminds us that personalization isn’t just a tactic — it’s a mindset. By aligning content with real buyer behavior and continuously listening to customers, teams can deliver more relevant, impactful experiences at every stage of the journey. As tools like AI evolve, so too does the opportunity to scale personalization without losing authenticity.