Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach that focuses marketing efforts on targeted accounts rather than individual contacts or leads. With ABM, organizations align sales and marketing to go after high-value accounts.
Since ABM targets full accounts, not just individual buyers, it requires customized engagement based on the account needs. This makes measuring performance more complicated than broad lead generation programs.
There are several key metrics used to measure ABM success:
Account engagement
A core ABM metric is account engagement. This refers to the level of interaction targeted accounts have with your brand and content. Metrics to track include:
- Account visits to your website
- Number of contacts engaged per account
- Content views, downloads, and shares by the account
- Event or webinar attendance by account contacts
Higher engagement indicates your content and outreach resonates with the accounts you want to convert. Tracking engagement over time can reveal changes in interest levels.
Sales pipeline influence
A major goal of ABM is to increase pipeline opportunities within target accounts. Metrics to monitor include:
- Net new target accounts added to pipeline
- Target account opportunities influenced by marketing programs
- Win rates for target account deals
These metrics indicate how ABM activities translate to sales pipeline progress. Comparing them before and after ABM implementation highlights the business impact.
Marketing-sourced pipeline revenue
Along with tracking pipeline influence, examine the revenue being driven by ABM. This reveals the monetary value of moving target accounts through the funnel. Measurements include:
- Pipeline revenue from target accounts
- Closed/won revenue from target accounts
- Marketing influenced closed/won revenue from target accounts
Benchmarking revenue metrics provides hard ROI numbers to evaluate ABM program success.
Account list expansion
A key advantage of ABM is expanding relationships across target accounts. Metrics such as:
- Net new target account added
- Percentage of target accounts engaged
- Number of engaged contacts per account
Demonstrate your ability to penetrate accounts and build connections. More contacts and buying centers engaged improves account coverage.
Account retention and retention revenue
ABM also aims to retain and grow existing high-value accounts. Important metrics are:
- Target account retention rate
- Retention revenue from target accounts
- Expanded revenue from retained target accounts
These metrics indicate how ABM impacts keeping accounts and increasing their spending. Compare them before and after ABM adoption.
Buyer sentiment tracking
ABM helps nurture accounts through education and relationship-building. Buyer sentiment tracking provides insight into how accounts view your brand. Methods include:
- Buyer surveys within target accounts
- Net Promoter Scores from account contacts
- Win/loss analysis on target accounts
Positive sentiment metrics demonstrate ABM’s influence on establishing your brand as a trusted partner.
Cost per target account metrics
Calculating CPT, or cost per target account, evaluates ABM program efficiency. This divides total program costs by the number of target accounts engaged. Declining CPT over time indicates greater productivity reaching accounts.
A related metric is cost per engaged contact (CPC). Lower CPC highlights increased efficiency expanding reach within accounts.
Predictive metrics
Predictive analytics provide insight into future pipeline and revenue from target accounts. Models can score accounts based on attributes like:
- Firmographic data
- Technographic profiles
- Intent signals
- Engagement activity
Top scoring accounts have greater predicted value. Comparing actual sales outcomes to predictive scores helps refine ABM targeting.
Multi-touch attribution
Multi-touch attribution tracks each marketing touchpoint that influences a deal. Analyzing the mix of channels and content that convert target accounts gives insight into the most effective ABM elements. Refining these boosts impact.
Strategic ABM metrics
In addition to program metrics, ABM success depends on progress towards strategic goals. This includes metrics like:
- Increased account share of wallet
- Key account renewals and expansion
- More strategic conversations with C-level contacts
- Tighter sales and marketing alignment
While harder to quantify, these measures indicate ABM’s impact at a broader level.
Setting goals and benchmarks
To interpret ABM analytics, it’s essential to establish goals and benchmarks. Goals might include targets for metrics like:
- 50 new target accounts added per quarter
- 10% lift in influenced target account pipeline
- 15% increase in target account retention rate
Benchmarks provide comparison points to evaluate progress. You can use past performance before ABM as a baseline. Industry averages also provide context on metric targets.
Ongoing refinement of goals as you gather data focuses ABM activities on the highest value outcomes.
Best practices for measuring ABM
Some best practices help maximize the value of ABM analytics:
- Clarify metrics methodology – Document how each metric is calculated for consistent tracking.
- Build executive alignment – Get leadership input on key metrics to focus on.
- Automate reporting – Use analytics tools to automatically generate insights.
- Focus on trends – Evaluate metric direction and patterns, not just point-in-time data.
- Share insights broadly – Circulate reports to sales leaders and account teams.
- Review regularly – Analyze reports each quarter to identify optimization opportunities.
ABM reporting tools
Dedicated ABM platforms provide reporting tools to track key account metrics. These systems integrate with marketing automation, CRM, and other data sources to connect insights across channels. Examples of ABM reporting tools include:
Triblio
Triblio offers an account-based reporting dashboard highlighting metrics like engaged accounts, contacts, and opportunities. Customizable views align to specific goals.
Demandbase
Demandbase captures account data across web, ad, and marketing channels. Real-time dashboards reveal trends and benchmarks to optimize campaigns.
Madison Logic
Madison Logic Activate ABM provides engagement analytics for targeted accounts and contacts. Marketers can drill down into account activities.
LeanData
LeanData aggregrates CRM, marketing automation, and other data. Custom reporting illuminates ABM influence on pipeline and revenue.
6sense
6sense analyzes intent, engagement, and other signals to predict account sales readiness. Marketers can focus outreach on sales-ready accounts.
Metadata.io
Metadata.io offers an account-based advertising dashboard to manage and optimize ad campaigns. Marketers can view impression delivery and engagement analytics.
DemandMatrix
DemandMatrix provides firmographic analytics on targeted accounts, including firmographic category, technographics, and buying signals. This fine tunes ideal customer profile (ICP) targeting.
Integrating analytics and insights
To enable data-driven decisions, ABM metrics must connect to actions. Analytics should directly inform account-based strategies and planning. For example, insights could reveal:
- Top performing content assets to develop more of
- Key contacts driving engagement within accounts
- Accounts disengaging that require reactivation outreach
- New target segments demonstrating potential value
Sharing findings across sales and marketing ensures both teams refine approach based on the data.
Conclusion
ABM delivers powerful opportunities to maximize revenue from key accounts. But you can only improve what you can measure. ABM analytics provides the visibility to continually refine and demonstrate performance.
By connecting cross-channel data points into KPI dashboards, marketers gain insight to optimize efforts. Measurement discipline also builds the business case to justify further ABM investments.
Approaching ABM reporting as an ongoing process, not a one-off project, allows metrics to guide strategy in achieving account growth and retention goals.
