Answer the objection that stalled the deal
Sync stalled and closed-lost contacts from your CRM to Taboola, add their buying groups, and put the content that answers their objection under the stories they read.
Without ContactLevel
Deals go quiet over budget, security or a CFO who wasn't convinced. Another check-in email changes none of that.
With ContactLevel
ContactLevel keeps a CRM-synced list of stalled deals on Taboola. They see a pricing breakdown or security overview as a native article, and leave the list when the deal reopens.
How It Works
Define ghosted in your CRM
Pick stalled stages and closed-lost reasons in HubSpot or Salesforce, then add the rest of each account's buying group to reach 1,000 records.
Sync and suppress
ContactLevel syncs the list to Taboola and keeps it current. Suppress open opportunities and customers in your other campaigns.
Run content by loss reason
Promote the piece that answers the top objection, and alert sales when the ContactLevel pixel shows a stalled contact visiting.
Why It Works
Why stalled deals go quiet
The demo went well. Then the champion stopped answering. Sales sent the "just checking in" email four times. Nothing.
Something specific usually killed the momentum. The price came in above budget. Security asked questions nobody answered. The CFO wasn't convinced. Another project jumped the queue. The champion can't fix any of that alone, so they go quiet instead of saying no.
A fifth follow-up email doesn't answer the objection. Content does: a pricing breakdown, a security overview, a story from a customer their size. The hard part is getting the stalled buyer, and the colleagues who stalled them, to read it without another email in their inbox.
Taboola places that content under the news stories they already read. It looks like something to read. It doesn't look like a rep chasing them. More on the channel in Taboola Ads for B2B.
How it works with ContactLevel
- Define "ghosted" in your CRM. Pick the records: open deals with no activity for 30 days, plus closed-lost deals with reasons like budget, timing or no decision. ContactLevel's HubSpot or Salesforce sync builds the audience from those records.
- Add the rest of the buying group. Ghosted lists are small, and Taboola customer lists need at least 1,000 records. Use Contact Search to add the other stakeholders at each stalled account. This helps twice. You reach the minimum, and you reach the person who blocked the deal, who is often not the person sales talked to. Still short? Fold in closed-lost deals from the past 12 months.
- Connect Realize and let the CRM drive it. Connect your Taboola account once. ContactLevel enriches each contact with the personal identifiers Taboola matches on and syncs the list. When a deal reopens or closes won, the CRM sync takes the contact out of the audience. Nobody cleans it up by hand.
- Suppress open opportunities everywhere else. Sync a second list of open pipeline and suppress it on your prospecting and warmup campaigns. Active buyers shouldn't get "what is this category" content in the middle of an evaluation. Suppress customers on all of them too.
- Match the content to the loss reason. Pull the top loss reasons from your CRM and write one piece for each:
- Budget: a cost breakdown or payback explainer
- Security or IT: your security overview and how data is handled
- No decision: a customer story with the timeline and who signed off
- Timing: a short guide on what to get ready before buying Separate campaigns per reason only make sense if each list clears 1,000 records. Most teams run one list and rotate the pieces.
- Bid for a small list. Fixed Bid keeps cost per click predictable. Taboola's guidance is a daily budget of at least 5x your CPA goal and a monthly budget of at least 150x. Leave Maximize Conversions for bigger audiences.
- Tell sales who came back. The ContactLevel pixel ties each visit to a named contact. When someone from a stalled deal reads the pricing piece, the rep has a real reason to call.
When to use this play
Run it when:
→ You lose more deals to "no decision" than to competitors → Your CRM has loss reasons filled in, or you can fill them for the last two quarters → Ghosted contacts plus their buying groups add up to 1,000 records
Skip it when:
→ Your deals stall because they were bad fits. Recovering a bad fit wastes the spend. → Your CRM stages are a mess. The audience will be wrong from day one. → You don't have an answer to your top objection yet. Write that first.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from website retargeting?
Taboola's "My Audiences" retargets people who visited your site through the Taboola pixel. Plenty of ghosted buyers haven't been on your site in weeks, and their colleagues never were. A CRM list reaches all of them, whether they visited or not.
Should sales stop following up?
Mostly, yes. Four more check-ins won't change the outcome. Pause the chase for a few weeks and let the content do the work. Call when the pixel shows a visit.
What if the ghosted list is under 1,000 records?
Add the buying group at each stalled account, then add closed-lost from the past year. If that still doesn't clear the minimum, start with the LinkedIn version of this play.
How long should a contact stay in the audience?
Set it as a rule in your CRM. A common setup is 60 to 90 days in recovery, then the contact moves to long-term nurture. The sync follows whatever the CRM says.
What creative should I avoid?
"Still interested?" ads. "We miss you" ads. Discount offers aimed at people who never said price was the problem. All three read like a sales email with an image attached.
→ Related: Meta Ghosted Lead Recovery, LinkedIn Ghosted Lead Recovery, Taboola ABM Buyer Group Targeting