Traditional marketing casts a wide net and hopes the right prospects convert. Account-based marketing flips this model by identifying the companies most likely to become valuable customers and engaging the key decision-makers within those organizations.

Because ABM focuses on quality rather than quantity, it often produces higher deal values, stronger customer relationships, and shorter sales cycles.

In this complete guide, you’ll learn:

• What account-based marketing is and how it works

• The benefits of ABM for B2B companies

• The different types of ABM strategies

• How to build an effective account-based marketing strategy

• Metrics you should track to measure success

• Real examples of ABM campaigns

Note: Generate new high-value accounts, monitor target accounts, and build account lists based on buyer intent data using Leadfeeder. Sign up for Leadfeeder’s free 14-day free trial.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

Also known as ABM, account-based marketing is a strategy that targets specific companies with personalized campaigns, rather than targeting large groups.

It flips the traditional method of inbound marketing on its head. Traditional marketing focuses on attracting large numbers of leads. Account-based marketing focuses on engaging the companies most likely to convert.

Rather than working to attract a large number of prospects and then developing niche content to move ideal prospects through a funnel, account-based marketing strategies start at the bottom of the funnel.

This means you start with your target accounts, creating content and campaigns that reach specific people at those companies.

While strategies can vary based on company, ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), and target audience, in most cases, ABM:

Is most effective for enterprise-level customers due to the amount of effort and time involved.

Requires marketing teams (ABM team) and sales teams to work in sync.

Leverages marketing automation and other account-based marketing tools to streamline steps in the process, such as lead generation automation or email follow-ups.

Builds a personal relationship with decision-makers (which can be particularly crucial when conducting account-based marketing for B2B).

Think of traditional marketing as casting a wide fishing net, while ABM is more like using a spear to target a specific fish.

Both strategies can work together. Many companies use lead generation to identify potential prospects and then apply ABM tactics to the most promising accounts.

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Benefits of Account-Based Marketing

Many B2B companies adopt account-based marketing because it delivers stronger results than traditional demand generation.

In Foundry’s 2023 survey, 93% of respondents reported that their account-based marketing strategy was either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ successful.

Why are so many companies using account-based marketing for B2B?

Let's look at a few of the top account-based marketing benefits:

1. Higher ROI

Because ABM targets high-value accounts, marketing budgets are spent on prospects most likely to convert. This often leads to significantly higher ROI compared to broad marketing campaigns.

2. Stronger sales and marketing alignment

Account-based marketing requires close collaboration between sales and marketing teams. This alignment ensures both teams focus on the same target accounts and messaging.

3. Shorter sales cycles

When messaging is highly relevant to a company’s needs, prospects move through the buying process faster.

4. Higher deal values

Since ABM focuses on high-value accounts, companies often close larger deals with higher lifetime value.

5. Better customer relationships

Personalized engagement helps build trust with prospects and positions your brand as a strategic partner rather than just a vendor.

Types of Account-Based Marketing Strategies

Account-based marketing is about improving ROI from your pipeline. Like most business strategies, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to ABM. You can use a basic framework and tailor it to your organization.

A simple place to start is to understand the basic types of account-based marketing.

1. Strategic ABM: one-to-one

With strategic ABM, you take a one-to-one approach to super-high-value accounts. Your sales and marketing teams will design unique content to meet the needs of each account.

When implementing this ABM strategy, narrow your prospect list to between one and five accounts. By doing this, you can create highly personalized content. All marketing is based on specific customer pain points and needs.

Here’s an example: A SaaS company targets a health maintenance organization (HMO). The company creates customer-focused content, including white papers and case studies. ABM content shows the real-world benefits of their product for specific HMO use cases.

Keep in mind: A one-to-one strategy demands a high amount of attention and resources. Before you start, put together a team that combines levels and roles, including an experienced ABM manager.

2. ABM lite: one-to-few

A one-to-few approach enables your teams to find that sweet middle ground between inbound marketing and ABM. Also known as ABM lite, high-value prospects are segmented into groups.

Each group shares common traits and meets defined criteria. Similar marketing materials are used for all B2B prospects in the same cluster.

An ABM lite strategy helps you get more out of custom content and campaigns. For example, a few companies of the same size and vertical can each be engaged with the same workshop or webinar.

3. Programmatic ABM: one-to-many

A programmatic ABM strategy is also known as a one-to-many account-based marketing technique. Programmatic ABM requires a less intense understanding of high-value accounts.

All of your marketing and sales efforts come with some degree of flexibility. One-to-many tactics empower you to use the same marketing funnels for hundreds or even thousands of target accounts.

Your team must be adept at tailoring experiences to each prospect. However, they aren’t expected to do everything on their own.

Sales and marketing automation tools, such as Facebook Ads, can help you to personalize content, while business intelligence applications like your CRM can integrate data to enable greater capabilities.

For instance, a Facebook advertisement campaign could be customized based on company data such as industry, niche, size, needs, or location.

Summary of ABM Strategies

How to Build an Account-Based Marketing Strategy

With an understanding of what ABM is and how it can help your company grow, the next step in our account-based marketing guide is to look at how to actually implement this process with a six-step strategy.

Step 1: Build data by identifying companies you want to target

Before you begin developing a strategy, your first step should be to identify your target companies.

Start by using a visitor identifying tool to see who is visiting your website; this indicates a level of interest in your solution.

You can also look at tools you already use for marketing, such as your email list and CRM, to identify potential prospects, or use Leadfeeder to actively search for companies in your target market.

Focus specifically on high-value companies; these are ideal for the ABM approach.

For example, CloudTalk, a company that provides brands with smart call center software, recently began implementing account-based marketing.

Using Leadfeeder, CloudTalk identified and targeted 1,000 new prospects each month who visited their site but didn't sign up for a trial. Cloud Talk sent out personalized ABM campaigns to the top 20 most active browsers on their site. As a result, they were able to sign up 20 additional companies per month for their free trial.

Remember, these are enterprise clients, not one-off purchases from an e-commerce customer. These sign-ups could be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month.

Step 2: Tier the data

Now that you have a list of prospects, it is time to start tiering them. Use LinkedIn and the company website to locate contact points.

LinkedIn's Sales Navigator can be extremely useful here, but you don't need a fancy tool if you are willing to put in a bit of work.

The CEO might not be a great target, as they are likely busy, but the marketing manager or HR executive assistant might be perfect.

Gather the names, email addresses, and questions they have asked in online communities or on LinkedIn and collate all this information in a spreadsheet.

Step 3: Rank your prospects for different account based marketing campaigns

Once you have a list of prospects, it is time to rank them.

Which prospects have visited your site several times?

Which have asked questions in forums indicating they are looking for a solution similar to what you offer?

Within each company, which contact feels the most attainable?

For example, did a Senior VP share one of your blog posts on social media or ask a question you could answer in a LinkedIn Group?

These are hot leads that should be the focus of your first efforts.

The ICT company Triuvare considers customers who download their ICT Tendering Guide to be hot—they know people who download this guide are very close to buying, and it is their job to convince them that Triuvare is the best option.

Step 4: Create content for prospects

Once you know who your prospects are, it is time to woo them.

This is the true heart of ABM: creating personalized content. This content may be in the form of blog posts, emails, ads, white papers, and so forth.

The main purpose is to address the struggles a specific company faces or the block that is preventing them from converting.

For example, ROI Amplified found that their detailed content, which they thought would drive interest by showing off their technical expertise, was attracting traffic from universities, likely students learning about marketing, who would not be interested in buying their product.

Step 5: Connect content and message to persona and account

Now that you have created awesome content and an ABM content marketing strategy, it is time to get it into the right hands.

Start by creating tier and persona-specific campaigns, then personalize your approach for each marketing channel and tier.

You've created this content for a specific audience, right? So, it makes sense to personalize the outreach, too.

Personalization, after all, is the heart of ABM. This could include:

• personalized email campaigns

• targeted LinkedIn ads

• customized landing pages

• industry-specific whitepapers

The strategy you use to deliver the content might include LinkedIn advertising, email marketing, direct mail, or carefully targeted PPC ads; it just depends on where your audience is.

LMCS, for example, used account-based marketing and visitor information from

Leadfeeder to gather lists of relevant leads.

Then, their salespeople visited the lead's website to determine if the lead was a potential customer.

They gathered contact information from promising leads, then delivered content through targeted email campaigns.

The results?

They contacted 75 companies, booked 14 appointments, and sent 12 offers. That’s an ABM success.

In fact, the latest Momentum ITSMA ABM benchmark report found that 81% of B2B marketers achieve higher ROI from account-basedaccount based marketing strategies compared to other marketing techniques.

Step 6: Measure engagement and optimize

Track engagement data to identify which campaigns are working and refine your strategy over time. Monitor key metrics, including website visits, content downloads, email opens, meeting bookings, and account-level engagement. These insights help you identify what’s resonating with your target accounts and where prospects are dropping off.

7 Account-Based Marketing Metrics You Need to Track

There are loads of data to analyze during your ABM implementation. Which metrics help you filter out the noise and keep the pulse on your account-based marketing?

1. Account engagement: Track each company's engagement with your marketing content. This metric reflects the relevance of your account marketing.

2. Account progression rate: Monitors how quickly prospects move through your pipeline towards purchasing. It shines a spotlight on potential bottlenecks or ineffective tactics.

3. Sales cycle length: How long does it take on average for your team to close an account? Like the progression rate metric, cycle length monitors the efficiency of your current pipeline. It also establishes a baseline for making improvements.

4. Account churn rate: The proportion of target accounts that exit your ABM funnel. Compare this rate against industry benchmarks for a quick view of performance. You can also monitor churn to evaluate changes in strategy.

5. Customer lifetime value (CLV): How much a customer spends during the lifetime of its relationship with your company. It’s a strong indicator of whether your team is targeting the right accounts or not.

6. Customer acquisition cost (CAC): Monitors how much you spend to acquire a target account. Weigh this number against customer lifetime value to determine your ROI.

7. Conversion and win rates: Track the success of your marketing and sales efforts. Audit stages in the buyer’s journey with low conversion rates.

Account-Based Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Campaigns

Gartner reports that ABM increases overall account engagement by 28%. Sounds great, but what does that look like in the real world?

Let’s take a look at a few account-based marketing examples.

1. SaaS

B2B intent data platform, Leadfeeder, used an ABM strategy to grow its business. It started by identifying companies that matched their ICP.

Leadfeeder then used its own tool to track website visitors and identify potential high-value accounts. Built-in filters ensured they focused on companies that met specific criteria. Alerts, notifications, and automation kept the team updated with account activity.

Using ABM tactics, Leadfeeder targeted interested companies that were fit for their services. Thanks to a tailored strategy, the company now boasts over 60,000 client accounts.

2. B2B marketing

The firm xGrowth helps tech companies curate ABM strategies to reach high-value targets. They use Leadfeeder to collect account-specific engagement data for every opportunity. Data gathered helps measure intent signals and overall campaign success.

As a B2B marketing agency, xGrowth helps tech companies tailor marketing campaigns to their target accounts.

Implement Account-Based Marketing with Leadfeeder

Account-based marketing might be most effective for enterprise clients, but the goal remains to build personal relationships with key stakeholders and the people who make decisions.

Data should give you a better understanding of the people you are selling to, or it’s not doing the right job. With Leadfeeder, you can identify the companies that are visiting your website and enrich your profile or them with data from our truly compliant databases located on EU servers. Connect the dots with over 50 versatile filters, automatic lead scoring, and more than 180 contacts for key decision-makers.

By building strong, authentic relationships with prospects, you will have the solid foundation needed to nurture them into loyal, long-term customers.

Note: Generate new key accounts, monitor target accounts, and build lead lists based on buyer intent data using Leadfeeder. Sign up for Leadfeeder’s free 14-day free trial.

Account-Based Marketing FAQs

1. How is account-based marketing different from lead generation?

Lead generation and account-based marketing (ABM) both help fill your sales pipeline, but they use different approaches. Lead generation focuses on attracting a broad range of potential customers and guiding them into your funnel through tactics such as content marketing, ads, and email campaigns.

ABM, on the other hand, targets specific high-value companies that match your ideal customer profile (ICP). Instead of casting a wide net, it uses personalized campaigns to engage key decision-makers within those accounts.

These strategies work best together: lead generation helps identify promising prospects, while ABM focuses your efforts on converting the most valuable accounts.

2. What are the three types of account-based marketing?

The three main types of account-based marketing are strategic ABM, ABM lite, and programmatic ABM. The differences between these ABM types are the number of people targeted. Strategic ABM is also known as one-to-one account-based marketing as it creates unique content for individual high-value accounts. ABM lite targets high-value segments. Finally, programmatic ABM uses automation to target hundreds or even thousands of accounts using the same marketing funnel.

3. Are there disadvantages to account-based marketing?

The main drawback of using account-based marketing is the amount of resources you need to successfully implement it. Account-based marketing strategies require significant strategizing and data gathering to identify the prospects you should be targeting. This is followed by the creation, implementation, and testing of marketing content. However, if you have the right tools and a strong strategy between sales and marketing teams, there is no reason account-based marketing should be beyond you.

4. Do you need to use a specific account-based marketing software?

No, you don’t necessarily need specialized software to run an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy, but the right tools can make the process much easier. The key is choosing software that supports your goals rather than simply following the latest trend.

Look for tools that help you identify and prioritize target accounts, enable collaboration between marketing and sales teams, and collect engagement data to track campaign performance.