Account-based marketing (ABM): The definitive guide

What is Account-based Marketing (ABM)?

There are many definitions that exist for ABM. “The alignment of Sales and Marketing to create a strategic approach that treats an account or set of accounts as a single market,” is a succinct example that has two core principles most people will agree on; treating an account or set of accounts as a market in its own right and the alignment of Marketing and Sales.

This enables businesses to concentrate their resources on developing tailor-made programmes and marketing campaigns for individual or clusters of accounts, resulting in more relevant and impactful messaging. Here we introduce another principle that most would expect to see in their definition – much deeper personalisation and customisation of activities. Ultimately, the aim is to open doors to engage and foster stronger relationships with key decision makers, and drive revenue growth.

Today, almost all B2B marketing is account-based. Even brand activity can be account based and, by definition, brand-to-demand. Opinions, however, are split on what some see as true ABM: others who deem it clever demand generation with a target account list, and the rest who see it all as ABM.

If you think about audiences in B2B and split them into small and medium-sized (<500 employees), mid-market (<1,000 employees), and enterprise businesses (>1,000 employees), mid-market and enterprise accounts have significantly larger budgets and, as such, offer bigger opportunities if successful.

It’s also much easier to demonstrate the payoff of an investment in account selection, deep account research, and highly personalised outreach to small numbers of these accounts. This is what we’ll call ‘value-based ABM’ and is typically 1:1 or 1:Few.

By leveraging this information, we can create more granular plans, customised messaging, and content that resonates with the target audience, leading to more meaningful connections and deeper relationships. It’s this granularity of research and customisation that most see as ‘true’ ABM.

When going into smaller accounts (SMBs), individual opportunities tend to be much lower and don’t justify as heavy a lift. Technological improvements mean we can have volume-based programmes that are still account-centric and effectively tick the same boxes for ABM qualities.

This includes tech that can conduct account selection, data collection, and insight production at volume, as well as those that offer personalisation at scale with feedback loops for alternate nurture paths and closed-loop reporting. These tools and platforms help to drive programmes through an endless feedback loop and are what we’ll call ‘volume-based ABM’ – a typically 1:Many motion.

Volume-based ABM isn’t limited to targeting SMB organisations, however. It could and does get used as an approach for mid-market and enterprise accounts too. Typically, it’s used in the classic ‘smart demand generation’ sense to try and find leads, or as a foundation layer to look for ‘low hanging fruit’ accounts in the market that can be brought into more intense value-based programmes. This means it can, in effect, become an aid to account selection.

Prior to ABM, a significant portion of B2B sales teams had always been account based. But now Marketing is finally catching up. Having the whole organisation aligned is more effective and delivers holistic benefits across all activities. There are additional factors when considering large enterprise accounts such as longer sales cycles, more decision makers, and more complex processes. Value-based (remember value vs volume) ABM allows organisations to consider these nuances to enjoy larger returns from high-value account wins.

This results in improved customer relationships due to ABM’s personalised approach. It enables businesses to better understand their clients’ needs and challenges. And this deeper understanding can lead to stronger customer relationships, increased customer satisfaction, and long-term loyalty.

Here are some more benefits for you to consider:

Streamlined sales cycle and increased pipeline velocity

Increased rigour around account selection and segmentation creates the right balance of resources and activity, allowing you to target the best accounts
Getting the right balance between marketing outreach programmes and putting tools and account intelligence in the hands of the account teams. Marketing can be very good at opening doors for account teams. Once in, the sales teams can work their magic
With Sales and Marketing working better together, resources are focused and goals are aligned with an emphasis on ROI

Greatly improved customer experiences

Generate deeper account insights using first- and third-party data sources. A better understanding means a better approach and the ammunition to personalise
Create smarter personalisation reflecting the industry, the account, the role, or the named contact – including personality profiling to improve communication style and tone
Customise the mix of products and services sold in and the outreach tactics to sell them in. This could include an account-specific business case
Engaging content and creative work cuts through the clutter and encourages busy audiences to read and respond
Technology and data improve account intelligence, targeting, and personalisation, to create closed-loop reporting

How do we measure the effectiveness of ABM?

The temptation we find, when trying to answer this question, is to start looking around for a set of KPIs to see what sticks. These are often very specific and tactical, and we may miss the mark on how we measure programmes without strategic thought.

Using the three Rs is one way of thinking about how you can structure your ABM programme and measure its effectiveness. These are broadly:

Reputation – are your accounts aware of you and would they consider your brand?
Relationships – do you know who the key decision makers are, have you engaged them, and can you build/deepen the relationship?
Revenue – whether you’re growing your pipeline and improving deal size and win rates

You can instantly see how these can help frame an approach and understand how to look at measuring effectiveness. Typically, though, we’ll take elements from each and work with clients on:

Setting the right Marketing and Sales KPIs

This is much more orientated to the actual day-to-day activities in an ABM programme. Doing so will allow you to understand the impact of the activity and optimise your approach (e.g., any outreach activities). These KPIs will represent the two teams and the roles they need to play across the whole ABM programme.

They could include:

Number of contacts discovered or target communities created
Outreach KPIs like impressions, click-throughs, landing page arrivals, content downloads, and conversions to a response
Engagement KPIs like social outreach, engagement through posts, or new connections starting a conversation
Meetings and opportunities found

Creating an ABM dashboard for your Marketing and Sales KPIs

It’s important that any KPIs tell a story of what’s happening in a programme. You need to see what the cumulative effects of your activity are, which parts of the journey are performing, and, more importantly, which ones aren’t.

To this end, we always create a dashboard that brings together the individual Marketing and Sales KPIs — grouping them into stages of a journey and, in some instances, setting them a weighted score for each stage based on its importance to the overall programme. In this way, we can step back from detailed metrics and look at the programme more holistically for overall performance.

How do you create an ABM strategy?

Every good strategy starts with a clear set of goals and objectives. If you don’t have them, you need to take a step back — it’s worth it! Once you know where you want to go, it’s much easier to work out how to get there. These are the typical objectives we come across when thinking about ABM programmes:

Sales objectives

Retain or protect a valuable account
Develop, cross-sell, or upsell an account
Move from a transactional to a strategic relationship
Need support for a key event (e.g., RFP)

Marketing objectives

Increase brand awareness and consideration among decision makers
Open a door to a new contact and elicit a response, or look to create demand across a range of contacts in the account
Support sales teams with any ad-hoc activities that require marketing skills

Leadership objectives

Drive consistencies and efficiencies for revenue and growth across key accounts

A typical journey to ABM strategy for most organisations

There are many ways to approach an ABM strategy. What we’ll outline here is based on our experience of working in the B2B market for the last 10 years. We’ve boiled our experiences into three key stages that we regularly see when talking to clients, all of which are driven by the objectives we saw in the previous section.

Execute some form of ABM or pilot an approach (from Sales and Marketing)

The aim is to execute tactically to deliver on an ABM promise. It could be personalisation or a single 1:1 programme into a strategic account. This is often driven by organisations that are nascent in their ABM and need to do something that quickly shows results – shaping their decision to invest further.

The outcome is often to meet an immediate sales objective, with Marketing acting as Sales’ support. While results achieved in a silo can be good, they aren’t often scalable or repeatable.

Create an end-to-end ABM engine (from Marketing)

The aim is to set up an engine or programme that’ll run through the entire ABM cycle (including account selection) to address a tier or cohort of accounts. This could be creating a series of 1:Few programmes to cater for industry-specific needs across a tier of key accounts. The implications of this approach have a much bigger effect on the allocation of resources, organisational ability to manage, and the technology landscape.

The outcome is a programme that can repeatably deliver results and scale to consistently address the needs of a whole tier or groups of accounts. It now meets a set of ABM-specific objectives as well.

Organisation design/change around ABM and beyond (from leadership)

The aim is to address key elements at an organisational level that can lead to greater success or act as potential barriers to a more consistent and efficient approach to growing revenue across key accounts.

Some possible gaps that appear in every organisation include:

Whether there’s alignment between marketing and sales departments
A lack of a single definition for ABM
Disagreements on what the component parts of ABM programmes should be
How to align delivery between global/regional groups and local teams of elements (e.g., messaging and content)

These roadblocks are commonplace in organisations around the world. But it’s not until they try to execute an ABM programme and bring in their end-to-end engine that they want to address them.

Doing so leads to more successful one-team workflows across Sales and Marketing, global/regional, and local teams. It gets them aligned behind the same approach, goals, strategies, etc. – enabling more consistent success across a broader set of accounts and potentially, more efficient revenue growth.

The main components of an ABM programme can be categorised into the key areas below.

ABM programme scope and strategy

Setting the right direction and purpose for the programme to ensure it delivers against the underlying business objectives.

Insight, strategy, and planning

This involves identifying and selecting target accounts, setting goals, and developing a comprehensive strategy to engage with these accounts. It often includes stakeholder alignment workshops and the creation of an ABM framework to ensure a unified approach across teams. All of this is built on a foundation of data and insights that are account-based in nature.

Creative, content, and production

Developing customised and personalised content, messaging, and creative assets that resonate with the target accounts is vital. This process requires a deep understanding of the audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points.

Omnichannel activation

Implementing a multichannel approach to reach target accounts through various touchpoints such as email, social media, paid advertising, direct mail, and events. This ensures consistent messaging and engagement across all channels and may include personalisation at an account or role level.

Influencer and sales engagement

Aligning sales and marketing teams to ensure seamless collaboration and communication. This includes providing sales teams with the necessary resources, tools, and insights to effectively engage with target accounts.

Data, measurement, and analytics

Establishing and setting up dashboards to track and measure the success of ABM programmes. This involves analysing data to optimise campaigns, demonstrate ROI, and inform future strategies.

MarTech consultancy and management

Technology plays a crucial role in driving the performance, scalability, personalisation, and measurement of ABM programmes. Selecting and managing the right marketing technology stack is essential for successful execution and tracking of most ABM initiatives.

By incorporating these components into an ABM programme, businesses can create a targeted and effective approach to engage with accounts, ultimately driving revenue growth and fostering long-term relationships.

What's in an ABM campaign and what are the most common ABM tactics?

ABM tactics are the specific methods and techniques used to engage and nurture accounts in a personalised and targeted manner. These tactics are designed to support the overall ABM strategy and help businesses achieve their goals.

But before we start exploring what they are, it’s worth addressing a key principle of how we should plan to use them: integration. This is especially important in value-based ABM programmes (1:1 and 1:Few) where the target audience will be too small for waterfall/performance marketing conversion benchmarks to work properly.

In the past, we’ve seen amazing research, strategy, messaging, and content channelled through a single tactic (typically display) only to get little to no traction. To increase your chances of success, we’d recommend orchestrating a range of outreach tactics to ensure you have an integrated set of communications surrounding the account and audience.

Some common ABM tactics include:

Personalised content

Create customised content tailored to the needs, preferences, and pain points of each target account. This may include blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, or webinars that address specific challenges faced by the account.

Targeted email campaigns

Develop personalised email campaigns that deliver relevant content and messaging to key decision makers within target accounts. Use marketing automation tools to segment your audience and send targeted emails based on their interests and behaviours.

Account-specific landing pages

Design landing pages that cater to the unique needs of each target account. Include personalised messaging, relevant content, and clear calls-to-action (CTAs) that encourage engagement.

Social media engagement

Use social media platforms to engage with key stakeholders within target accounts. Share personalised content, participate in relevant discussions, and monitor social media activity to identify opportunities for engagement. Alternatively reach out directly to new contacts to introduce yourself, connect, and start a conversation.

Paid advertising to create a halo of messages

Leverage targeted paid advertising campaigns on platforms like Google Ads, LinkedIn, or Facebook to reach specific decision makers within target accounts and a wider group of influencers and direct reports. Use account-based targeting options to ensure your ads are shown to the right audience.

Direct mail

Send personalised direct mail pieces such as printed brochures, gifts, or event invitations to key decision makers within target accounts. This tactile approach can help your brand stand out and create a memorable impression.

Events and webinars

Host events or webinars tailored to the interests and needs of your target accounts. Invite key stakeholders to attend and use these opportunities to showcase your expertise and build relationships.

Sales enablement

Equip your sales team with the necessary resources, tools, and insights to effectively engage with target accounts. Provide them with account-specific information, such as pain points, decision-making processes, and key stakeholders, to help them tailor their sales approach.

Account-based retargeting

Use retargeting campaigns to re-engage target accounts that have previously interacted with your brand. Show personalised ads based on their browsing history and interests to maintain top-of-mind awareness.

By implementing a combination of these ABM tactics, businesses can create a targeted and effective approach to engaging high-value accounts, driving growth and creating strong relationships for future engagement.

To prioritise your target accounts, you need to:

Never assume: Regularly ratify your ideal customer profile (ICP) to ensure it’s clear and that all accounts match back to it. Once done, conduct a readiness assessment across the chosen accounts to make sure they’re right for the respective programme.
Analyse your existing customer base: Review your current customers to identify common characteristics such as industry, company size, or revenue potential. This analysis can help you understand the types of accounts that have been successful in the past and inform your target account selection. This could also become part of your ICP.
Identify high-value accounts: Based on your goals and customer analysis, create a list of high-value accounts that align with your business objectives. Consider factors such as revenue potential, strategic fit, and likelihood of conversion when selecting target accounts.
Collaborate with sales teams: Work closely with your sales team to gather their insights on potential target accounts. They often have valuable information about prospects and can provide input on which accounts are most likely to convert. Support this process with a readiness assessment for them to complete.
Prioritise and segment accounts: Once you have a list of potential target accounts, prioritise them based on factors such as revenue potential, strategic fit, and likelihood of conversion. You can also segment accounts into groups based on shared characteristics, such as industry or company size to further refine your targeting strategy.
Continuously refine your account list: Regularly review and update your target account list to ensure it remains aligned with your business goals and market conditions. As you gather more data and insights from your ABM campaigns, use this information to refine your account selection process.

This is arguably THE most important factor for the success of an ABM programme. There are countless examples of great ABM work failing because either Sales or Marketing have left the table.

To make sure that doesn't happen in your organisation:

Establish common goals and objectives

Start by defining shared goals and objectives for both sales and marketing teams. This alignment ensures both teams work towards the same targets such as increasing revenue, improving customer retention, or expanding into new markets. Also, make sure you have leadership buy-in from both departments.

Develop a clear communication plan

Create a communication plan that outlines how sales and marketing teams will collaborate, share information, and provide updates on progress. Set regular meetings, reporting structures, and communication channels to ensure seamless coordination.

Define roles and responsibilities

Clearly outline the roles and responsibilities of each team member in the ABM process. This clarity helps avoid confusion, duplication of efforts, and ensures that everyone understands their part in the overall strategy.

Collaborate on account selection

Involve both sales and marketing teams in the process of selecting target accounts for ABM campaigns. Sales often has valuable insights into potential target accounts, while Marketing can provide data-driven analysis to support the selection process.

Share insights and data

Encourage both teams to share insights, data, and research on target accounts. This collaboration helps create a comprehensive understanding of each account’s needs, challenges, and decision-making processes, enabling more effective targeting and messaging

Create joint content and messaging strategies

Work together to develop personalised content and messaging tailored to the specific needs of each target account. Sales can provide insights into account pain points and preferences, while Marketing can create compelling content that addresses these needs.

Align on metrics and KPIs

Establish shared metrics and KPIs to measure the success of your ABM campaigns. This alignment ensures that both teams are focused on the same performance indicators and can track progress towards common goals.

Provide sales enablement resources

Equip sales teams with the necessary resources, tools, and insights to effectively engage with target accounts. Marketing can support Sales by providing account-specific information, content, and collateral to help them tailor their sales approach.

Review and iterate

Regularly review the ABM strategy and collaboration between sales and marketing teams. Identify areas for improvement, adjust as needed, and continue refining your approach based on insights gained from ongoing campaigns.

The wealth of data available to us today and the ever-expanding digital footprint we create opens enormous opportunities for new insights.

Intent data

Intent data in ABM provides insights into the online behaviour of potential customers, indicating their interests and readiness to buy. By analysing intent data from third-party sources, you can identify accounts that are actively researching or engaging with topics related to your products or services. Prioritise these accounts as they’re more likely to be in-market and receptive to your marketing efforts.

Install-based data

Install-based data refers to information about the technology and software solutions currently used by a company. This data can help you identify accounts that are using competitor products or complementary solutions, making them potential targets for your ABM campaign. Prioritise accounts based on their technology stack and the potential for your product or service to add value or replace existing solutions.

First-party data

First-party data includes information collected directly from your website visitors, email subscribers, and existing customers. This could also come from internal systems like CRM, CDP, or those handling sales analysis and predictions. Analyse this data to identify patterns and trends in engagement, content consumption, and conversion rates. Prioritise accounts that show high levels of engagement or have previously expressed interest in your offerings.

Digital and media analytics

Digital analytics data such as social media engagement and paid media performance can provide valuable insights into account behaviour and preferences. Use this data to identify accounts that are actively engaging with your brand or have shown interest in similar products or services. Prioritise these accounts based on their online behaviour and likelihood to convert.

Combine and segment data

Integrate the insights gathered from intent, install-based, first-party, and digital analytics data to create a comprehensive view of each account. Segment accounts based on shared characteristics such as industry, company size, or technology stack to further refine your targeting strategy.

Score and prioritise accounts

Assign a score to each account based on the data insights and their alignment with your business goals. Prioritise accounts with higher scores as they’re more likely to be receptive to your marketing efforts and have a higher potential for conversion.

Continuously refine your priority list

Regularly review and update your priority list of accounts based on new data and insights. As you gather more information from your ABM campaigns, use this knowledge to refine your account selection and prioritisation process.

Choosing the right ABM platform is crucial for the success of your ABM strategy. In our opinion, you need to prioritise clarity over the use case for your ABM programme. What are you trying to achieve? What outcomes do you want from an experience or management point of view? Then translate these into tech requirements.

Here are some factors to consider when selecting an ABM platform:

Integration capabilities: Ensure the platform can integrate seamlessly with your existing marketing and sales technology stack such as CRM, marketing automation, and analytics tools. This integration is essential for data sharing, campaign execution, and performance measurement.
Targeting and segmentation features: Look for a platform that offers robust targeting and segmentation capabilities that allow you to create customised account lists based on various criteria such as industry, company size, revenue potential, and more.
Personalisation and content customisation: Your platform should enable you to create personalised messaging and content tailored to the specific needs of each target account. This personalisation is crucial for engaging high-value accounts effectively.
Multichannel engagement: Choose a platform that supports multi-channel engagement, allowing you to reach your target accounts through various touchpoints such as email, social media, paid advertising, direct mail, and events.
Analytics and reporting: Your ABM platform should provide comprehensive analytics and reporting features to help you track the performance of your campaigns, measure ROI, and optimise your strategy based on data-driven insights.
Sales enablement and collaboration: Look for a platform that facilitates collaboration between sales and marketing teams by providing shared insights, resources, and tools to engage target accounts effectively.
Scalability: Ensure your platform can scale with your business as it grows and evolves. The platform should be able to handle an increasing number of target accounts and support more advanced ABM strategies as needed.
Ease of use and support: Choose a platform that’s user-friendly and offers excellent customer support to help you navigate any challenges that may arise during implementation or ongoing use.
Pricing and budget considerations: Evaluate the pricing structure of your ABM platform and ensure it aligns with your budget. Consider factors such as subscription fees, setup costs, and any additional charges for advanced features or integrations.
Vendor reputation and reviews: Research the reputation of the ABM platform vendor and read customer reviews to gain insights into the platform’s performance, reliability, and customer satisfaction.

Creating great ABM content is essentially the same process as anywhere else. But there are some nuances to look out for:

Continuously refine your priority list

Research target accounts

Conduct in-depth research on your target accounts to understand their needs, challenges, decision-making processes, and key stakeholders. This information will help you tailor your content to address their specific pain points and preferences.

Identify key personas

Within each target account, identify the key decision makers and influencers who play a crucial role in the buying process. Create detailed buyer personas for each of these individuals, considering their job roles, responsibilities, goals, and challenges.

For example, role-specific insights for the Warehouse and Logistics industry may look like:

Align with Sales

Collaborate with your sales team to gather insights on target accounts and their needs. Sales teams often have valuable information about prospects that can help inform your content strategy.

Develop personalised messaging

Based on your research and insights, create customised messaging that speaks directly to the needs and challenges of each target account. Ensure that your value proposition is tailored to resonate with key decision makers and stakeholders.

Choose the right content formats

Select the most appropriate content formats for your target accounts by considering their content consumption habits and preferences. This may include blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, webinars, videos, or interactive tools.

Personalise content delivery

Use personalisation techniques to deliver content in a way that feels tailored to each account. This may involve customising email subject lines, creating account-specific landing pages, or using dynamic content elements on your website.

Measure and optimise

Continuously track the performance of your ABM content using established KPIs and objectives. Analyse the data to identify areas for improvement and optimise your content strategy accordingly.

Iterate and refine

As you gather more data and insights from your ABM campaigns, use this information to refine your content creation process. Continuously update your research, messaging, and content formats to ensure they remain relevant and effective.

ABM future trends

Account-Based Marketing (ABM), some potential developments and areas of focus include:

Increased use of AI and machine learning

As technology advances, AI and machine learning will play a more significant role in ABM strategies. These technologies can help automate processes, analyse large volumes of data, and provide insights for better targeting, personalisation, and campaign optimisation.

Hyper-personalisation

Personalisation will continue to be a critical aspect of ABM, with an increasing focus on hyper-personalisation. This involves creating highly tailored content and messaging that addresses the specific needs, preferences, and pain points of individual decision makers within target accounts.

Integration of sales and marketing technology

The alignment of sales and marketing teams will be further enhanced by the integration of technology platforms such as CRM, marketing automation, and ABM tools. This integration will enable better data sharing, collaboration, and campaign execution.

Omnichannel engagement

ABM strategies will increasingly focus on engaging target accounts across multiple channels and touchpoints including email, social media, paid advertising, direct mail, and events. This omnichannel approach ensures a consistent and cohesive experience for target accounts throughout their buying journey.

Focus on customer experience

As ABM matures, there’ll be a greater emphasis on delivering exceptional customer experiences throughout the entire customer lifecycle. This includes not only pre-sale engagement but also post-sale support, customer success, and advocacy programmes.

Predictive analytics

The use of predictive analytics in ABM will become more prevalent as organisations seek to identify high-value accounts and anticipate their needs more accurately. This data-driven approach will enable better targeting, messaging, and resource allocation.

Account-based everything (ABE)

The concept of ABE extends the principles of ABM beyond marketing to encompass all customer-facing functions within an organisation. This holistic approach ensures a consistent, customer-centric focus across sales, marketing, customer success, and support teams.

Continuous measurement and optimisation

As ABM strategies evolve, there’ll be an increased emphasis on measuring performance, analysing data, and optimising campaigns in real-time. This data-driven approach will enable organisations to refine their ABM strategies and maximise ROI.

These trends represent potential areas of growth and development in the world of ABM. By staying informed and adapting to these changes, organisations can continue to drive success with their ABM strategies.

Challenges:	Needs:
Inventory inaccuracy Redundant processes Seasonality in demand Poor warehouse layout Labour costs Picking optimisation	Automated systems offering real-time information about stock levels and composition Barcode technology streamlining the warehousing process Optimal warehouse space Lowering costs of labour

Account-based marketing (ABM): The definitive guide

What is Account-based Marketing (ABM)?

What are the benefits of ABM?

Streamlined sales cycle and increased pipeline velocity

Greatly improved customer experiences

How do we measure the effectiveness of ABM?

Creating an account scorecard

Setting the right Marketing and Sales KPIs

Creating an ABM dashboard for your Marketing and Sales KPIs

How do you create an ABM strategy?

A typical journey to ABM strategy for most organisations

Execute some form of ABM or pilot an approach (from Sales and Marketing)

Create an end-to-end ABM engine (from Marketing)

Organisation design/change around ABM and beyond (from leadership)

What are the main components of ABM?

What's in an ABM campaign and what are the most common ABM tactics?

How to prioritise target accounts

What are the best practices in aligning Sales and Marketing to support ABM?

How to leverage first- and third-party data to support ABM and account selection

How to choose the right ABM platform

How do I create ABM content?

ABM future trends