5 things to consider before starting your ABM journey

Launching an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy for your organization helps you reach new heights of marketing-influenced revenue and sales-marketing alignment. 

From fewer “this lead isn’t right for me” conversations to tighter control over your marketing spend, ABM helps you focus on the right prospects. It also improves your influence reports and can change how the business sees the marketing department, in a very good way.

But getting started isn’t easy. It can be difficult to know:

• What to measure.
• Which accounts to target .
• How much to spend on each campaign. 

It’s a shift for your sales team, too, so you need to lead the conversation with them on a new set of expectations. 

As you make the move from broad-based targeting to hyper-specific accounts, these five considerations can help you ensure your ABM journey gets off on the right foot.

1. The right target list is a conversation, not a deliverable

You think you know who your target audience is and that’s a great start. I bet you also think your sales team has a pre-made target account list — and they probably don’t. Or, if they do, it’s probably not as tight as you think it is. 

Most guidance you’ll get on ABM strategy is to start with the target account list. That is a great place to start, but it can also be a huge tripping point for marketers just starting the journey.

Don’t get stuck on the account list. At least not right now. Start instead with a tightly defined ideal customer profile. Push beyond something like, “CFOs at middle market companies in North America.” Ask these questions:

• What industries? 
• How many employees? 
• What revenue thresholds — bottom and top end? 

Next, build the list and here’s where things are critical to success, show that list to your stakeholders. Names and all. The best way to build your first batch of lists is to show which named accounts result from their target perimeters and then to let them pick it apart. Inevitably, you’ll learn what they don’t want, which will help you tighten your lists into a better spot. 

From there, you need to have a conversation about feasible budget. ABM ads can get expensive if you try to use them like you would Google Display. Smaller is better and more cost effective. But if your budget is too small, you won’t be able to generate enough impressions to make an impact. 

Use a calculator if you can find one. Most ABM providers will be able to help you triangulate account list size, time, CPM and number of impressions for a realistic budget — so ensure your list size matches those results.

Eventually, you’ll reach a point where your Sales team understands the power of knowing the specific, named accounts, but it’s OK to get there. You don’t have to be there now to start your journey. 

Dig deeper: Is your ABM strategy keeping up with the times?

2. Display ads aren’t lead magnets

Your journey to ABM means you will need to rethink which marketing channels are designed to do what. With ABM advertising, remember you are essentially doing hyper-specific brand awareness ads. 

Yes, you’ll get clicks and impressions. But in many cases, your target buyers will see the ads and then — without clicking — search for your company or type in your URL to visit your site directly. This is called a view-through conversion. Fortunately, this is expected behavior and most (good) ABM platforms will show you this data.

The role that ABM advertising plays in the overall buyer journey is simply awareness — of your brand, of a service they didn’t know you offered, of your geographies, your expertise, etc. You’re looking to measure how much brand awareness you generated among that target audience.

You can still do lead generation, but partner with a content syndication company to generate the right buyers from your target accounts where you don’t have mailable prospects. Don’t expect your display ads to do that work for you.

3. Plan for the long — really long — game  

One of the biggest mistakes newly minted ABM marketers make is trying to make an impact in a short period of time. Unlike content campaigns or traditional display, ABM ads are the cornerstone of an always-on strategy. You’re focusing on a target list of accounts that by and large will not change — until they take the action you want them to take (e.g., expand business or become a customer). 

There are other channels better suited to short-term gratification, but ABM advertising isn’t one of them. Program your target list to run indefinitely. Do change your messaging and CTAs on a quarterly basis, but you have to give these ads time to work. Often, at least three months is needed.

4. Bring the sales team along with you  

ABM strategy requires sales and marketing teams to work together. As you onboard to a new ABM platform — or build out the technology, processes and reporting needed to power your journey — ensure your sellers are in lockstep with you.

Many ABM platforms offer new metrics, like overall increase in brand awareness or increase in site visits and along with those new metrics comes new terminology. Take the time to explain to your sellers what these metrics mean and how they can use them to evaluate buyer readiness. If possible, grant them access to see the same metrics that you see so that they can interact with marketing impact in real time. 

Most importantly, not all of your sellers will be ready for this journey. Nominate a handful that are eager to learn new tools and test new processes. If you can work out the kinks with this friendly group of beta testers, your rollout to the broader organization will be smoother. 

Dig deeper: How to find your next, best customers with ABM

5. Move beyond clicks and impressions

An account-based marketing strategy isn’t looking at clicks and impressions, although they can be important indicators of campaign health (e.g., not enough spend leads to too few impressions, which leads to not enough coverage to make an impact in relationship). 

ABM is about measuring relationship. Rather than reporting on clicks and impressions, consider the following narratives, which will have more resonance with your sellers:

• Are these accounts visiting the website more frequently?
• Is there an increase in the number of pages they’re visiting?
• Are they beginning to fill out forms for webinars or marketing content (e.g., deanonymizing themselves)?
• Is there a spike in contact us requests?
• Are they reaching out to your sellers directly on other channels, like LinkedIn or email?
• Is there an overall lift in marketing influenced opportunities when ads are running?

ABM success can be difficult to measure with traditional tactics, but the results are clear — if you’re clear first about what you want to measure most. My recommendation is relationship metrics, with a goal of taking accounts that have minimal engagement with your brand and transforming them into regular website visitors. 

As you begin your ABM journey, remember that it’s a long haul. Set expectations with months and maybe years ahead in mind and know that the revenue will come, if you’re patient.

Dig deeper: Why account-based expansion is B2B’s next growth lever