Why Do Account-Based Marketing & Use Funnels?
Account-based marketing (ABM) funnels are a strategic approach for B2B marketers to target specific high-value accounts, rather than a broad audience. By personalizing marketing efforts, ABM drives higher ROI, shortens sales cycles, and creates a closer alignment between marketing and sales teams. ABM funnels prioritize efficiency and focus resources where they matter most to achieve business objectives. This account-based marketing funnel guide will speak to the importance and tracking of ABM funnels.
Who Account-Based Marketing Funnels Valuable For
Demand Generation Teams
Focus your efforts more effectively by focusing them on high-value accounts while continuing alignment with your sales team.
VPs of Marketing
Improve your ROI by being able to efficiently focus resources in known areas of opportunity.
Chief Marketing Officers
Increase your ability to align business goals with your marketing strategies while also being able to clearly measure results.
Account Executives
Gain deeper account insights into your target accounts to help tailor your messaging to better meet the needs of each account.
AVPs or VPs of Sales
Continue collaboration efforts with marketing by having increased insight into relevant and up-to-date marketing insights.
Chief Revenue Officers
Fine-tune your sales teams to focus on accounts with the highest potential, leading to higher conversion rates and shorter sales cycles.
Importance of an ABM Funnel
An Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Funnel is used to determine how effective Marketing and Sales efforts are at generating engagement within an organization’s target accounts. This funnel tracks the engagement across the accounts as a whole and not at the lead or contact level.
Oftentimes, a purchase does not have one sole decision-maker or contributor during the customer journey. True ABM Funnels should consider both marketing and sales efforts, as ABM is not a marketing-only strategy and requires alignment between marketing and sales teams to be successful. Therefore, the funnel report also tracks conversion rates at each stage of the ABM funnel.
What Is Needed For Account-Based Marketing Funnels
Data You Need
- Account scoring model defined and built
- Time frame (based on touchpoint)
Data Sources Required
- Web Analytics Platform
- Intent Data (optional)
- Account-Based Marketing Ad Platform (if used in ABM efforts)
- # of target accounts, # of engaged accounts
- # of marking qualified accounts
- # of opportunities opened within accounts, # of closed opportunities within accounts
- Marketing Automation Platform (Marketo, Hubspot, Eloqua, Pardot, etc.)
- CRM (Salesforce, SAP, etc.)
Key Characteristics for Setting up a Successful ABM Funnel
Several companies are running Demand and ABM Funnels side-by-side to track performance, which we consider the correct approach. Many of our customers ask us what the main differences between the funnels are. So, here are two main differences:
- You have a list of defined target accounts (TAM, ICP)
- Track and score engagement at the account level, not the lead level (Account Scoring)
Here are a few tips on how to ensure your ABM Funnel is firing on all cylinders:
1. Use a Proven Framework
We’re big fans of the work the team over at TOPO is putting together. In their framework, they walk through what they call “Account Based Everything” from target accounts, strategy, data, planning, content, channels… to metrics and technology. Check out their framework here.
2. Get Your Total Addressable Market (TAM) Analysis Right
We address this in detail in one of our latest guides, but by developing insights and data into your TAM pays dividends down the road. Think of things like: data dedupe, cleanse, and unify (at the contact and account level), firmographic data, and account scoring. Check out the guide here.
3. Define Your Marketing Qualified Account (MQA)
At CaliberMind, an MQA is defined as a combination of fit, intent, and engagement scores. At the account level, not the lead level. At the engagement level, it’s an aggregate of the activity across the contacts on the account. We’ve outlined the characteristics in detail in our “Account Scoring Guide”.
Here’s an example of an ABM Funnel we use at CaliberMind:
