picture of the abm playbook

Here's What You Can Expect from Your First ABM Campaign

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) can be hard to execute. When done well, ABM turns into a highly targeted marketing strategy, that directly ties you to accounts searching for your product and cuts through the noise of broad strategy connecting you with key decision-makers at best-fit accounts.

Before you launch your first ABM campaign, it’s important to prepare yourself so you know what to expect along the way. Let us show you what you need to do! 

Measuring the success of your ABM campaign

When you’re ready to kick off, establish ABM funnel conversion benchmarks. These metrics essentially measure the success of your campaign. Set your benchmarks against the industry you operate in. Remember, these benchmarks may vary throughout each stage of your campaign. 

With ABM, you’re positioning yourself to get in front of your target market via in-market accounts. The accounts house key contacts from decision-makers to prospects. Here, it’s critical to ensure you’re adopting an omnichannel campaign and identify the right channels in order to send the right message to your target audience. 

You’ll also want to allocate the right budget. Consider how much money you’re willing to spend on your ABM campaign and how to invest in each channel. And finally, consider your budget. 

Which campaign metrics should I measure? 

Although there are an array of benchmarks to track, there is a handful that is absolutely essential. These metrics offer week-over-week insight into how to solve problems before they arise. You’ll want to analyze these metrics by channel. 

Propensity's campaign overview that has in-market accounts, new accounts and contacts.
  • Track CTAs individually to determine each CTA’s clicks and conversions
  • Track traffic sources and website visits
  • Measure channel impressions and clicks
  • Pay attention to which CTAs are attracting your qualified B2B leads 
  • Assess your average cost per lead (CPL)
  • Notice the amount of marketing spend it takes to attract each marketing-qualified lead (MQL)

When you do this week over week, you can more accurately pinpoint what’s working and what isn’t. It also makes it much easier to track your CPL and how many MQLs you’re getting per campaign. Propensity can help businesses track and analyze all of these metrics, so you have a much clearer picture of how to shape future marketing spend. Find out more about that here.

Ready to create a predictable revenue stream? Run an ABM funnel analysis.

We recommend you perform an ABM funnel analysis of each channel across your omnichannel campaign. Successful ABM campaigns can help you generate a predictable revenue stream of qualified B2B leads. To accomplish this, target your in-market accounts and contacts with an omnichannel strategy to get your messaging in front of the right audience across multiple touchpoints.

In addition to the pipeline you will be able to build, you will also be able to assess the market’s receptiveness to your value proposition, if your messaging prompts action from your target market, if your positioning is differentiated, and if you’re truly selling to the right people. When you’re able to answer these questions, you’ll have a clearer understanding of the actions you’ll need to take to maximize pipeline. 

Align sales and marketing teams for higher impact

To be most effective in your ABM campaign, you’ll need collaboration between sales and marketing. When your marketing and sales teams align, it makes magic. How to be effective in this is by aligning your sales and marketing teams around an agreed-upon list of accounts and contacts before outreach even begins. Then, once you’re off to the races, marketing will take charge of warming up accounts across channels such as social, emails and programmatic ads to fill pipeline with qualified, high-intent accounts. Then, once marketing passes the baton to sales, accounts will be warmed up to your solution, so sales can craft personalized messaging that drives engagement by up to 5X and heightens your chance of a conversion.

Conclusion

Once you’ve established your ABM funnel conversion benchmarks, you can start to plan and execute your ABM campaign. By following these tips, you can ensure that your first ABM campaign is successful. 

Remember, you want to be able to answer these questions at the end of your first ABM campaign: 

  • Is the market receptive to our value proposition?
  • Does our messaging prompt action from our target market?
  • Is our product and positioning differentiated?
  • Does our CTA drive action and create conversion?
  • Are we selling to the right people?

With the right strategy and execution, you’ll be able to generate pipeline — and relationships — with the right accounts. Are you ready to build a successful ABM campaign? Test it out with our free trial.