What is Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and How to Implement It

Finding qualified leads that have a good chance of conversion has become a major challenge for marketers. Even with large marketing campaigns, only a few leads often turn out to be useful. However, instead of reaching out to everyone, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) flips the approach with personalised campaigns.

ABM is a B2B strategy that focuses on high-value accounts and uses precision marketing to build stronger relationships with leads to drive revenue. So, what is account-based marketing, and how can you use it to its full potential? This guide explains everything in detail.

The ABM funnel transforms the growth approach for modern organisations, moving from quantity to quality. Unlike traditional marketing, which broadcasts to everyone, the ABM funnel puts its focus on important accounts and builds a true personalised connection through the buyer journey. The journey looks like this:

Identifying comes first, where teams assess accounts for revenue growth opportunities.Next is Expanding, where teams list out the decision-makers and influencers within the account.

Engaging follows next, where teams need to deliver purposeful content and experiences that speak to every account's unique issues.

Then comes Conversion, where marketing and sales align to convert engagement into revenue.

Finally, in the Advocate phase, happy clients transition into brand advocates who bring referrals and long-term growth.

Now that you know what is ABM, follow these steps to build a strong ABM foundation and identify your high-value accounts:

1. Establishing Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)The starting point of ABM is having a clearly defined ICP. This means identifying the types of companies that are your best-fit customers. Assess them in terms of the industry they are in, size of the company, revenue potential, geography, and key pain points. A good ICP means you are positioning your marketing efforts to reach and target prospects who receive the greatest value from the services you provide.

2. Making Data and Analytics Work for YouThe best way to bring precision to your account selection is through insights, not instincts. Use CRM tools to collect first-party and third-party data along with predictive analytics to identify high-value accounts. When you target based on data, your team can focus on accounts that truly drive revenue.

3. Collaborating with SalesABM functions at its true potential if the marketing and sales teams are aligned. Develop and validate the account lists together to ensure alignment on priorities, success, and engagement plan activities. This will eliminate friction, sharpen focus, and set lead outreach to yield more conversions.

Once you have identified the high-value accounts, it is critical to analyse them and find more insights to ensure your outreach is personalised and relevant. Here’s how you can do that:

• Account Insights

  Going beyond the surface-level data is key here. Gather insights such as the company’s structure, goals, challenges, recent developments, and competitive landscape to assess how best to approach them. Gaining an understanding of what drives the company’s decisions and how your services can best align with their priorities will help you in tailoring messaging that resonates with their real-time needs.

• Intent Data

  Intent signals show when the accounts are actively exploring services like yours. Analyse their search behaviour, content engagement, and digital interactions. This will help in understanding their level of interest in your services. Transform your efforts from guesswork to precision with intent signals. This will help to engage with accounts at the right time, with the right messaging to improve the chances of conversion.

Now that you have a clear picture of what is account marketing and how to dive deep into your target accounts, let us explore how to engage with them.

• Personalised Content

  Being relevant is important. Creating unique emails, landing pages, ads, and resources like newsletters that focus on the particular needs of each account can make your message more persuasive. It helps to convince clients by aligning with their goals and priorities.

• Multi-Channel Outreach

  Reaching out to your target accounts only through a single channel isn’t enough. Meet them where they are most active, such as email, webinars, events, or social media platforms. This multi-channel engagement approach improves your visibility.

• Sales Enablement

  Your sales team should have account-specific insights to create a messaging framework and targeted assets that drive conversion. When sales and marketing share timely, relevant information, outreach becomes stronger and more effective.

ABM doesn’t stop at conversion; it continues beyond it. Build strong customer success programmes to ensure satisfaction and long-term retention. You can leverage case studies and testimonials to analyse measurable outcomes, and implement referral programmes that turn customer loyalty into influence.

When your customers start advocating for your services, they not only enhance your brand credibility but also bring in new opportunities for driving sustainable growth.

Here is how ABM drives your company’s growth:

• Higher ROI

  ABM, with intentional resource allocation and focused targeting, can typically yield greater returns for every dollar spent, compared to broad marketing campaigns. Each point of contact is premeditated to use marketing budgets wisely while maximising ROI. For example, Snowflake recently deployed ABM tactics to engage enterprise IT leaders with personalised campaigns. These campaigns resulted in a 54% increase in click-through rates (CTRs) compared to traditional demand generation tactics and a 2.3 times increase in meetings booked with high-value accounts.

• Sales-Marketing Alignment

  ABM closes one of the largest gaps in organisations – between marketing and sales. Rather than operating independently, ABM creates one comprehensive objective, common messaging around target accounts, shared metrics, and cohesive execution. Adobe, for example, created an ABM framework for sales and marketing together. This led to more engagement with key accounts, improved conversion rates and made handovers smoother between teams.

• Shorter Sales Cycles

  An ABM approach shortens sales cycles by giving prospects personalised content that is specific to their needs. This reduces the friction between marketing and the sales decision process. For example, Clearwave shortened its sales cycle by 20% using intent-based personalisation. This also helped close deals faster.

• Better Customer Experience

  With thoughtful interactions with accounts, ABM also enhances customer experience. DocuSign, for instance, uses ABM to customise its outreach by industry, which has led to improved engagement and built trust among key clients.

Sales teams are crucial to carrying out effective ABM, transforming engagement into revenue. These strategies can further lead to success:

• Multi-Threading:

  Connect with multiple stakeholders within target accounts to build consensus and minimise the risk of dependency on one contact.

• Account Planning:

  Create a strategic, account-focused plan with goals, pain points, decision-makers, and messaging to adapt to their needs.

• Personalised Outreach:

  Gather insight from marketing, intent data, and account research to build relevant and compelling conversations.

• Real-Time Collaboration:

  Share feedback and engagement data with marketing to optimise the campaign and gain alignment through the buyer journey.

When a sales team has the right tools, messaging framework, and content, they can have timely and high impact conversations. This turns an ABM initiative from a marketing programme to a collaboration focused on revenue generation.

Here are the steps to implement ABM effectively:

1. Define ICP & Select Accounts: Identify high-value targets.

2. Gather Insights & Intent Data: Understand account needs and signals.

3. Create Personalised Content & Campaigns: Tailor messaging for target accounts.

4. Engage Across Channels: Use email, LinkedIn, ads, and events.

5. Align Sales & Marketing: Coordinate outreach and feedback loops.

6. Track & Optimise: Measure engagement, pipeline, and revenue impact.

7. Start Small & Scale: Pilot with a few accounts, then expand based on results.

ABM can be implemented in multiple ways, each suited to different goals, resources, and account volumes. Choosing the right model ensures maximum impact and efficient use of marketing and sales resources.

1. Strategic ABM (1:1)

   This is the most personalised option, targeting each high-value account one at a time. Every engagement and interaction, from content to campaigns, can be strategically customised for the specific challenges, objectives, and key stakeholders in the account. This typically involves working closely with marketing and sales teams.

2. ABM Lite (1:few)

   Focuses on targeting groups of accounts, known as clusters, with similar characteristics, such as industry, size, or pain points. The goal here is to let teams reach out to multiple high-potential accounts without burning all available resources. Campaigns are somewhat personalised to keep a good balance between efficiency and relevance.

3. Programmatic ABM (1:many)

   Builds upon technology and data (in addition to automation), which allows you to run campaigns at scale for a large network of accounts. Though less personalised, it uses intent signals for targeted, personalised campaigns.

Now that you know what is abm marketing, learn more about how ABM has made a huge impact on the success of major companies.

• Dialpad

  Dialpad, a customer intelligence and engagement platform, used ABM to expand into the enterprise market. By designing over 50 sets of persona-based ads and tailoring content to specific pain points, the company saw a tenfold increase in target account visits and tripled its closed-won revenues. The result was not just faster conversions — deals closed 52% quicker, proving how persona-level personalisation in ABM drives real efficiency.

• Gong

  Revenue intelligence company Gong revolutionised its ABM approach through community-driven engagement. Instead of purely transactional outreach, Gong built micro-communities among buying committees and invited existing customers as peer advisors. Their teams used platforms like Reddit and LinkedIn to foster authentic relationships and align with executives across target accounts. This community-centric strategy not only strengthened brand trust but also supported successful market expansion across Europe.

• HubSpot

  HubSpot used ABM Lite to target mid-market accounts with semi-personalised campaigns. By grouping similar accounts and delivering relevant messaging across multiple channels, they achieved a 12% increase in closing rates. This approach highlights how ABM, even at scale, can optimise engagement and accelerate the pipeline for accounts that fall outside the enterprise segment.

ABM isn’t just a marketing tactic; it’s a growth engine. By focusing on high-value accounts, leveraging insights, and executing with precision, organisations can accelerate pipeline, shorten sales cycles, and build lasting customer relationships that lead to sustainable growth.