Market adoption of account based marketing (ABM) strategies is over 80%. B2B organizations have bought into the idea of ABM, but we all know that widespread adoption isn’t the same thing as widespread success.
Something similar happened when CRM software came on the scene. The fact that you don’t need me to explain what “CRM” stands for tells you how ubiquitous this technology is—now. But it wasn’t always that way.
CRM is a way to better track and measure the relationships between your company and your customers, so you can make better decisions and take better actions. But CRM platforms require other tools to actually do what they’re built for. Buying a CRM solution isn’t an all-in-one magic bullet; you have to budget for complementary tech, services and dedicated roles to bring the tech to fruition.
Companies that didn’t budget for those other aspects believed that CRM platforms didn’t work. It took many cycles of change management to actually adopt it by the various stakeholders who use it today.
Right now, ABM is where CRM was 15 years ago.
Business leaders grasp the core principles and see the potential benefits. The real challenge emerges in the execution phase, where the lack of mature ABM skill sets, processes and infrastructure becomes apparent. Like we saw with CRM, companies are investing in the idea of ABM without making complementary investments in the tools and processes needed to make it successful.
Here are the three biggest reasons ABM programs fail.
Reason #1: ABM is not ad tech.
Many ABM platforms were initially marketed with a strong focus on improving paid media performance with their integrated programmatic ad tech functionality. This narrow focus has led to a common misconception that ABM platforms are simply a more sophisticated form of targeted advertising platforms.
In reality, ABM platforms are orchestration engines, not ad delivery tools. They’re designed to manage and coordinate complex, multi-channel marketing efforts tailored to specific accounts, giving marketing and sales stakeholders a single view of the evolving conversation taking place between their company, target accounts and individual prospect contacts.
But while leads are the central metric for B2B demand gen paid media, they are just one component of ABM. In fact, ABM is built on account intelligence that drives marketing and outbound sales motions. An individual may never “raise their hand on your website,” but they can still be in-market. It’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about the marketing funnel.
When organizations see these platforms merely as tools for programmatic advertising, it follows that they would judge their program on that single dimension.
Your ABM program will always look like it’s underperforming if you’re just using programmatic ad standards to gauge success. That is, just looking at lead attribution as your KPI will consistently yield skewed results.
This leads directly into another key issue with ABM adoption.
Reason #2: Fractured funnels.
Sales teams have been conditioned to focus on immediate leads—individuals who have shown a clear interest in your product or service by filling a form on your website.
Many sales functions haven’t evolved to support the current reality of digital self-service info-gathering by prospects. DQ’ing a lead because they don’t respond after two touches doesn’t cut it anymore.
At the same time, someone within a target account might be in-market without being an active “handraiser” on your website. This person should still be pursued as part of the broader account engagement strategy.
When organizations struggle to integrate their traditional demand generation efforts with ABM, the result is a broken funnel that evaluates leads and accounts separately. This fractured funnel puts MQAs in one box and MQLs in another. By focusing on MQLs, Sales is missing the bigger picture.
The reality is that both MQLs and MQAs carry weight. One isn’t better than the other; they can and should coexist in an ABM approach. To succeed with ABM, organizations must view their lead-based and account-based signals side by side. This dramatically expands the avenues through which they can pursue their target audience and the follow-up actions available to them.
Reason #3: Underbaked governance and inconsistent change management.
ABM isn’t just a marketing strategy; it’s a fundamental shift in how an organization approaches its sales and marketing efforts. For this shift to work, there needs to be strong governance and change management in place.
Change management in the context of ABM means more than just training teams on new tools or processes. It involves a sustained effort to shift organizational behavior, ensuring that the focus remains on long-term account engagement across the various buying team personas rather than short-term lead generation targeting a few titles.
In addition to establishing new processes, milestones and KPIs, you need to get clear on what the expected behavior is for marketing and sales teams—and who regulates that. This cultural shift requires buy-in from all levels of the organization, from senior leadership to individual contributors in sales and marketing and the broader leadership team.
That’s why successful ABM will always be driven by champions within the organization—leaders who not only understand the full capabilities of ABM tools but are also responsible for driving the transition to this new methodology.
These are the biggest gaps in governance and change management I see in organizations struggling to find ABM success:
- Hands-on champions. Champions can’t just be people who like the idea of ABM; they need to have the skill sets and the mandate to actually be in the trenches implementing change. And just like any other job function, they should be measured on their ability to enable the organization to adopt and adapt to ABM.
- Clear expectations. Clear definitions of expected outcomes at different stages of the ABM journey are crucial including highlighting how they’re different from the lead-centric goals that they may have currently. Without this, it becomes difficult to measure success, manage expectations or course-correct when things aren’t going as planned. However, many organizations dive into ABM without taking the time to establish these benchmarks, leading to confusion and misalignment between teams.
- A well-defined sales process. Defining a consistent, measurable sales process is critical. Successful governance requires measuring marketing activity and follow-up actions. It’s the same core concept as a traditional lead-based model; the difference with ABM is that follow-up actions are triggered by a wider range of signals and and are focused on a buying team, not just a single lead. Building the structure to help your team thrive in this environment sets them up for success. And it’s how you avoid the three most dreaded words on any sales team: “These leads suck.”
The Iron Horse insight.
At the end of the day, ABM is all about getting more swings of the bat to close business.
But success hinges on more than just understanding the concept. Organizations have to actually commit to the ongoing work of implementing, teaching, measuring and regulating this new way of doing things. This can be resource-intensive, but if you’re willing to go all-in, ABM can drive high impact for any organization.
