Account-Based Marketing: A Targeted Approach for B2B Marketing

For years, email marketing has relied on volume. 

You build the biggest possible database of legitimate contacts, and send regular email broadcasts with the aim that a percentage of those contacts will convert. 

But for B2B in particular, this model has its limits. 

When you’re selling high-value products or services, the sales cycle is often long – decisions have to pass through multiple stakeholders, and trust takes time to build. 

Broadcast email – even with a segmented audience – has to be broad enough to appeal to a variety of different customers. That means trust takes longer to build, and specific hesitations may go unanswered.

Account-based marketing (ABM) flips the script.

What is account-based marketing?

Account-Based Marketing is a focused growth strategy with email at its heart.

Instead of targeting broad audiences, companies using an ABM strategy identify the specific companies they want to work with – typically a small number of high value accounts – and builds marketing around them. 

To use a fishing analogy – instead of casting a wide net to catch a lot of small fish, ABM is like using a harpoon to land a whale.

What are the benefits of account-based marketing?

The first thing ABM does is eliminate waste – you don’t spend a lot of time and energy marketing to prospects with little chance of converting. Instead, you focus your available resources on high-value prospects with a demonstrable need for your product or service.

The second thing ABM does is change the dynamic by uniting your sales and marketing teams. Instead of having separate strategies and processes, ABM unifies them around a shared objective. 

• Automated email nurtures and maintains momentum to conversion and beyond
• Messaging strategy is shaped by real sales insight
• Automated email reduces cold calling & ‘warms’ the target
• Specific events trigger in-person activity by sales – calls, meetings, further information

Email is the backbone of ABM

With marketing so often focused on paid media and LinkedIn, it’s easy to overlook email marketing – but in an ABM strategy, it plays a critical role.

Email works better than any other channel for ABM because it’s:

• Controlled – you own the channel, so you’re not at the mercy of bidding and algorithms
• Direct – it reaches specific individuals, with advanced abilities to segment your audience
• Scalable – it’s easy to expand your ABM strategy as your confidence grows, without incurring extra cost 

How ABM changes email marketing

In a traditional model, email is one-to-many. Messaging is fairly broad, designed around personas not individuals, and timing is usually dictated by campaign calendars.

In ABM, email becomes one-to-few, or even one-to-one. Content is built with a specific individual, business – or small group of very similar targets – in mind, reflecting their industry, pain points and where they are in the buying journey.

Email timing aligns with real buying signals – activity from sales conversations, website behaviour, or key circumstances specific to the target or their market. Instead of pushing for an immediate conversion, ABM emails are designed to open conversations. That might mean:

• Inviting discussion 
• Sharing insightful perspective on known industry challenges
• Offering something useful to support internal decision-making
• Use cases from similar organisations

The result is email that feels less like marketing, and more like a conversation.In’s algorithm the kind of content it demands. 

Who ABM is for

ABM isn’t for every business. Whether B2C or B2B, if your typical sales cycle is short or transactional, if sales depends on volume not value – for example commodity products – or if your customer tends to buy on impulse, ABM isn’t right for you. It’s most effective where:

• Individual deals carry significant value 
• Sales cycles are long and considered 
• Multiple stakeholders influence decisions 
• Trust and credibility matter more than speed 
• Sales teams are willing and able to collaborate, with capacity to follow up
• You have access to reliable data about the target

What ABM is not

ABM often gets confused with email personalisation and automation – but they’re not the same. In an ABM strategy, you’re not just adding the recipient’s name to the subject line, or even creating automated flows for mass sending. 

You’re crafting unique messages for individual recipients you’ve researched in order to understand their needs, and building a sales journey that addresses those needs while moving seamlessly between online and offline touchpoints.

Alignment with sales is critical for success.

ABM KPIs: How success is measured

ABM changes how performance is judged, because it’s not just based on volume. With conventional email marketing, you’ll look at opens, clicks, and cost per lead.

In an ABM strategy, you’re looking for depth, not volume – evidence that target accounts are engaging and progressing through the pipeline. Key metrics include:

Target account engagement

Analytics will show whether the target account/s are opening and clicking email campaigns. You’ll want to track which web pages they visit, whether they downloaded any content or attended events and webinars.

Account coverage

ABM strategy is often applied to target accounts with multiple decision-makers, so you’ll track how many target individuals within those accounts are interacting with your content, expressed as a percentage of relevant contacts. A high percentage indicates that your strategy is aligned with customer needs.

Pipeline velocity

How quickly are targets moving from one stage of the buying journey from the next? If it’s taking a long time or several emails/touchpoints to move them along, your strategy may need to be adjusted to address hesitations more effectively.

Conversion rate

Calculating the number of target accounts that converted as a percentage of the total accounts targeted.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

ABM isn’t just about attracting new leads, it’s about nurturing and retaining the business you already have, including upselling and cross-selling. Calculating the CLV for accounts that were part of your ABM targeting helps you understand the long-term value of these relationships, and informs future ABM strategy.

Account-based ROI

To justify investing in ABM, you need to know if the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) associated with producing and distributing ABM content, plus the cost of sales team follow-ups, is justified.

In a long sales cycle, revenue-based results can take time to show up. But metrics like account engagement, account coverage and pipeline velocity can be measured much earlier. Sales teams are often the first to notice when ABM is working – they’ll report warmer conversations, more confident and insightful questions from the target, and better receptiveness to next steps.  

Relevance is king

ABM isn’t about sending more emails, more frequency, or more automation. It’s about relevance – making sure every send earns attention.
If you’re exploring how ABM could fit into your growth strategy – or questioning whether your current email approach is doing enough to support sales – we’d love to talk it through.