PHASE 4:
Data
How to measure account engagement that helps you scale
As we established earlier, your operational ability to scale depends on getting senior leadership to see the value in ABM. This means proving definitively that account-based tactics drive revenue.
Revenue metrics take a while to mature - ABM is not a quick strategy. So while you wait for your big target accounts to close, you need to focus on the performance data of your ABM itself. Luckily, learning from ABM is much easier than traditional demand generation as each account serves as a small group you can study right off the bat.
You need to return to your analytics often to check on campaigns and how they're working within specific accounts. This allows you to quickly answer several questions:
Are these actually the best accounts for us to target?
Are they engaging with the content we hypothesized would be of most relevance to them?
Does the actual buyer journey reflect the one we've laid out?
Is our team working well together to maximize results?
As this data trickles in, you can apply it across every phase of your ABM program, making incremental improvements that will ultimately be seen in your revenue metrics. These early results also serve as positive indicators to senior leadership that your ABM is working.
ABM is not about just getting quick results. It's a transformational program
Data you measure at the very early stages of ABM can be very telling of how that account is going to progress through the rest of the funnel. It helps establish a baseline and gives sales something to work with in their outreach. If you're getting zero engagement, you may need to rethink your account list or content strategy. If you are getting engagement through things like ad views and web traffic, dig further to find out what's working and do more of that.
Your middle funnel data should be the meaty chunk of your analytics. Sales inputs information into your CRM which helps add context to your engagement data, and feedback from sales gives crucial anecdotal clues to the health of your accounts. This information helps you improve your ABM strategy for similar accounts in the future.
This data takes the longest to emerge but it's the most crucial in scaling your ABM. Look at the opportunities in your pipeline and any new buyers to see whether your campaign really did achieve ROI, and (if yes) use it to secure larger budgets for future campaigns.
An aggregate total of how an account has engaged with content as a whole
The number of key people (identified in your account 360) who are in your database and opted in
The deal size of closed-won opportunities from target accounts
The average revenue generated each year
The number of days it takes for an account with an open opportunity to become a buyer.
The number of closed-won opportunities as a percentage of total number of opportunities closed
Simply speaking, if your ASP and win rate is higher for your target accounts than your non-ABM accounts, but your velocity is lower, you can definitively say that ABM is more effective than classic demand generation and therefore justify expansion.
