The short version
ABM is not one LinkedIn campaign aimed at a company list, and it is not a list handed to SDRs. It is a coordinated program where marketing, sales and leadership work the same accounts across several channels.
The account list decides the outcome. Build it from your ICP first, then rank it by live buying signals.
Give each account the effort its value justifies: 1:1 for a handful, 1:few for clusters, 1:many for the rest.
Several people from your company should reach several people at the target account, following a planned message sequence instead of random touches.
Measure at the account level: who at the account has seen what, who has replied, and what they should hear next.
ABM is the wrong call when deal sizes are small, your ICP is undefined, or sales can't give target accounts real time.
Most founders who tell us "we tried ABM and it didn't work" describe the same program. Someone uploaded 500 companies into LinkedIn Campaign Manager and ran two ads for six weeks. The same list went to an SDR, who sent a generic three-step sequence. Nothing came of it, so ABM got filed under "doesn't work for us."
That wasn't ABM. It was targeted advertising and cold outreach running next to each other, each on its own.
This guide covers what account-based marketing services should actually include, where most programs break, how a working program runs week to week, and how to tell whether ABM is right for your business at all.
What account-based marketing actually is (and what it isn't)
ABM flips the usual order of B2B marketing. Normally you generate interest broadly and qualify whoever responds. With ABM, you decide which companies you want to win first, then point marketing, sales and leadership at those companies together.
Three things separate a real ABM program from targeted lead generation with a new label.
It's multi-channel. The same account sees you in its LinkedIn feed, gets a relevant email, hears from a person on your team, finds useful content when it visits your site, and maybe receives something in the post. One channel on its own is a campaign, not a program.
It involves multiple people on both sides. Your marketing team, your salespeople and your leadership all play a part. On the other side, you reach several members of the account's buying group, not one contact.
It's sequenced. Every touch has a job, and the order is planned. The account hears a point of view before it hears a pitch, and proof before an ask.
If any of the three is missing, you're running a campaign against a list. That can still be useful, but it won't produce the results ABM is known for, and it shouldn't be judged as ABM.
Why ABM fits how B2B deals actually get bought
B2B purchases aren't made by one person. Gartner's research found that the typical buying group for a complex B2B solution includes six to 10 decision makers, each bringing four or five pieces of information gathered on their own that the group then has to reconcile. The same research found buyers spend only 17% of their total purchase time meeting with potential suppliers, and when several suppliers are in the running, any one sales rep may get just 5% or 6%.
Put those two numbers together and the problem is obvious. Most of the decision happens in conversations you're not part of, among people you've never spoken to. If your only connection to the account is one champion, your deal depends on how well that person can sell you internally. ABM exists to make sure the other people in the room already know who you are.
The champion, the economic buyer, the finance reviewer and the skeptical user all need different reasons to say yes.
The three ABM tiers: 1:1, 1:few and 1:many
Not every account deserves the same effort, and pretending otherwise is how ABM budgets get spread so thin they do nothing. Tiering is how you match effort to value.
Tier | Accounts in tier | Effort per account | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
1:1 (strategic) | A handful to a few dozen | High: a named owner and a written account plan | Custom research, tailored content, executive outreach, physical touches |
1:few (clusters) | Dozens to a few hundred, grouped by industry or problem | Medium: one plan per cluster | Industry-specific messaging, cluster ads, coordinated outreach |
1:many (programmatic) | Hundreds or more | Low: mostly automated | Account-list ads, signal-triggered outreach, nurture content |
In Demand Gen Report's 2025 ABM Benchmark Survey, 1:few was the most common model at 37% of respondents, with 26% running strategic 1:1 programs and 22% running programmatic 1:many. Most companies we work with should start with a 1:few program and a small 1:1 tier on top. That gives you enough accounts to learn from and few enough to do properly.
Tiers aren't fixed. An account in your 1:many tier that starts showing buying signals should move up, and a 1:1 account that has gone quiet for a quarter should move down. Nearly 45% of practitioners in the same survey review their account lists weekly or monthly to make changes.
Step one is the list, and it's where most ABM programs break
// the rule
The account list matters more than any channel, creative or tool you put behind it.
A brilliant program aimed at the wrong companies produces nothing.
The first test is simple. Does every account on the list match your ideal customer profile? Most programs fail this test before they launch. In the Demand Gen Report survey, only a third of ABM practitioners said sales and marketing were aligned on their ICP with strong coverage of their target accounts, and 18% said they were still trying to define their ICP at all. These are companies already running ABM, and most of them are aiming it at a target that isn't settled.
The second test is where the list came from. The most common way teams build ABM lists is letting sales pick the accounts, used by 70% of respondents, ahead of firmographic criteria at 66%. Sales input is valuable, but a list built mainly from sales instinct tends to become a wish list: famous logos, accounts a rep once had a good call with, companies that look impressive in a board update. None of that means they're likely to buy.
A list that holds up is built in this order:
Start from your best closed-won customers. Not all of them, just the ones with healthy margins, short sales cycles and strong retention. That group is your real ICP.
Write down what they have in common. Industry, size, business model, the problem they hired you to solve, what triggered the purchase, and who signed off.
Write exclusion rules too. Which companies look like a fit on paper but never close, churn early, or cost too much to serve? Remove them.
Build the list from those rules, then let sales review it. Sales should add context and flag accounts with existing relationships, not supply the list.
If you can't do step one because your best customers don't share a clear pattern, that's a positioning problem to fix before ABM.
Signals: fit tells you who, signals tell you when
An ICP match tells you an account could buy from you. It doesn't tell you whether they're likely to buy this quarter. That's what signals are for, and building your list around them is the second thing most programs get wrong.
Signal | What it suggests | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
Hiring for roles your service supports | They're investing in the problem you solve | Job boards, LinkedIn jobs |
New leader in the buying role | Priorities and vendors are likely to be reviewed | LinkedIn, press releases |
Funding round or acquisition | New budget and new growth targets | Press, funding databases |
Expansion into a new market or region | New problems your service may solve | Press, company announcements |
Change in tech stack | A project is underway that touches your area | Technographic data providers |
Repeat visits to your site from the account | Active research, possibly comparing vendors | Website visitor identification tools |
Activity on competitor or review sites | They're evaluating options in your category | Intent data providers |
58% of ABM practitioners now use behavioral or intent signals to build their account lists, yet 32% still name identifying which accounts are in-market as one of their biggest challenges. Signals are only useful when they change what you do with an account.
The rule we use is straightforward. An account with ICP fit and a live signal gets an active play this month. An account with fit but no signal sits in the nurture tier, where marketing keeps you familiar until something changes. An account showing signals but no ICP fit gets ignored, however tempting the activity looks.
How a working ABM program runs: channels, people and touches
Once the list and tiers are set, the program itself is a coordinated effort across your company. These are the four parts that matter most.
Marketing makes the account familiar with you
Before anyone reaches out, the account should already have seen your name. Run LinkedIn ads targeted to the account list and to the specific roles in each buying group. Lead with a point of view on a problem they have, not your service. Retargeting to people from target accounts who visit your site keeps you present while they research. The goal is that by the time a person on your team gets in touch, the reaction is "I've seen these people," not "who is this?"
Sales reaches out personally, not from a template
Outreach to target accounts should read like it was written for that account, because it was. Reference the signal that put them on your list, a specific problem their industry is facing, or something their company has said publicly. A generic five-step sequence sent to an ABM list throws away everything the list was built to do.
Several people from your side reach several people on theirs
This is the part most founders skip, and it's the part that changes outcomes. If the buying group has six to 10 people, one rep emailing one contact covers a fraction of the decision.
Split the outreach. The founder or CEO writes to their CEO. A senior practitioner on your team speaks to their head of operations about the operational problem. Your account lead works the champion. Two or three people from your company, each reaching a different person at the account, each with a message that fits that person's role. Coordinate it so it feels like attention, not a swarm, and log every touch in the CRM so everyone can see what the account has already heard.
Physical touches still work when they're relevant
Sending something to the account's office is one of the oldest ABM plays, and it still cuts through because almost nobody's inbox competes with a parcel on a desk. The key is relevance. A book that speaks to a problem they're facing, with a handwritten note from your founder, beats branded merchandise every time. With hybrid work, confirm that the person is actually in the office before you send anything.
Email is still the backbone. 92% of ABM practitioners use it to reach their account lists, and in-person events such as 1:1 meetings at trade shows are the next most-used channel at 72%. The point isn't to use every channel. It's to make the channels you use work together on the same accounts, at the same time.
Messaging and message flow: what each account hears, in what order
Random touches across six channels are just noise. Each tier needs a planned sequence that moves the account from "who are you?" to "let's talk," with the right message for each person in the buying group.
Here's an example flow for a 1:few cluster. The timing is illustrative and should flex with signals.
Stage | Timing | What the account hears | Channel | Who sends it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Recognition | Weeks 1 to 2 | A point of view on a problem specific to their industry | LinkedIn ads, content | Marketing |
Relevance | Weeks 2 to 4 | A personal note tied to the signal that triggered the play | Email, LinkedIn message | Account lead or founder |
Proof | Weeks 3 to 6 | How a similar company solved the same problem, with numbers | Ads, email, case study | Marketing and account lead |
Breadth | Weeks 4 to 6 | Role-specific messages to finance, operations and leadership | Email, LinkedIn | Peers from your team |
Physical touch | Weeks 5 to 7 | Something useful and relevant, with a personal note | Direct mail | Founder or account lead |
Ask | Weeks 6 to 8 | A specific, low-risk next step such as an audit or benchmark | Email, call | Account lead or founder |
Two rules keep the flow working. First, every message should build on the last one, so a person who has seen the ads should get an email that picks up where the ads left off. Second, the message should change by role. The champion needs to know how this solves their problem, finance needs the business case, and leadership needs to know why now.
If your core messaging isn't settled yet, fix that first. Our guide to building a messaging framework covers how to pull it from customer interviews and test it before you scale spend.
Measurement: who saw what, and what to say next
ABM measurement fails when it's run like lead-gen reporting, where you count form fills and click rates and call it done. ABM works at the account level, so it has to be measured there.
For every account in an active play, your team should be able to answer five questions at any point:
Which people at this account have we reached?
What has each of them seen: which ads, pages, emails and content?
Who has responded, and how?
What was the last touch, and who sent it?
What's the next message, and who sends it?
That last question is where measurement earns its keep. Knowing that the account's head of finance spent time on your pricing page last week should change what your team says this week. Without that visibility, every touch is a guess.
For reporting to the business, focus on outcomes:
Target accounts with two or more people responding
Meetings held with target accounts
Pipeline created from target accounts
Win rate and average deal size on target accounts compared with the rest of your pipeline
Sales cycle length on target accounts
Proving ROI is the most-cited ABM challenge, named by 47% of practitioners. Comparing target accounts against non-target accounts on win rate, deal size and cycle length is the clearest way to show the program is working. The tracking behind it starts with consistent UTM parameters on every ad and outreach link.
The ABM tech stack: what you actually need at $1M to $20M
ABM vendors would like you to believe the program starts with a platform. It doesn't. Among ABM practitioners, 62% rely on their CRM and 52% on a marketing automation platform, while only 22% have a dedicated ABM platform integrated into their stack.
For most firms between $1M and $20M in revenue, this is enough to run a strong first program:
CRM with account records, buying-group contacts and a logged history of every touch
LinkedIn Campaign Manager with company list targeting and role targeting
A contact data provider to find the right people inside each account
Website visitor identification to see which target accounts are researching you
A shared account plan for every 1:1 account
Dedicated platforms such as 6sense, Demandbase and RollWorks add intent data, account-level ad buying and orchestration. They start to justify their cost when your list runs to several hundred accounts and your team can no longer track signals by hand. Buy one after you've proved the motion works, not to find out whether it does.
What ABM services cost
The cost of an ABM program depends less on the agency's fee than on the decisions behind it. These are the five drivers:
Number of accounts and tier mix. A program with 20 accounts at 1:1 costs more per account, and often more in total, than one with 300 at 1:many.
Media spend. LinkedIn is the main paid channel for most B2B ABM, and its costs are higher than most ad platforms.
Data and tools. Contact data, visitor identification and, later, an ABM platform.
Content and personalization. Account research, tailored assets and cluster-specific messaging.
Physical touches and events. Direct mail, gifts and in-person meetings.
There's also an internal cost most founders forget: sales time. ABM asks your salespeople and your leadership to work named accounts with care. If that time isn't available, no budget will make up for it.
At mrktrs, ABM runs on the same structure as the rest of our work: a setup phase covering the list, signals, tiers and messaging, followed by month-to-month program management. Media and tools are billed separately so you can see where every dollar goes.
How long ABM takes to produce pipeline
ABM is not a channel you switch on for next month's numbers. The honest timeline follows your sales cycle.
In the first weeks, you should see target accounts responding to outreach and the first meetings booked from your highest-signal accounts. Pipeline from the program usually builds over the first full sales cycle, and closed revenue arrives after one to two cycles. If your typical deal takes six months to close, judge the program on closed revenue no sooner than that. Judge it earlier on whether the right people at the right accounts are responding.
When ABM is the wrong call
ABM is powerful in the right conditions and expensive in the wrong ones. We'd tell you not to run it, or not yet, if any of these apply:
Your deal sizes are small. If a customer is worth a few thousand dollars a year, the effort per account won't pay back.
Your ICP isn't defined. ABM magnifies targeting. If the target is wrong, it magnifies the mistake. Fix positioning first.
Your market is large and transactional. When thousands of buyers purchase quickly with little consensus needed, broad demand generation is the better tool.
Sales can't commit time. ABM without personal outreach is just account-list advertising.
You need leads this month. ABM builds pipeline over a sales cycle, not in weeks.
Your product sells itself through self-serve signups. Product-led motions usually get more from usage signals than from named-account plays.
How mrktrs runs ABM inside Leads Generator
ABM at mrktrs sits inside Leads Generator and draws on the work done in Marketing Foundation. That order matters, because the list is only as good as the ICP behind it.
ICP and exclusions from your best closed-won customers, validated with sales.
The account list, built from the ICP and ranked by live buying signals.
Tiers and account plans, with 1:1 plans for the accounts that justify them and cluster plans for the rest.
Plays and message flow, with marketing, sales and leadership each assigned their part, and a planned sequence by role.
Account-level reporting, reviewed with your sales team so every target account has a clear next message.
If you want to know whether ABM fits your business, or why a previous attempt didn't work, start with a Growth Diagnostic.
See the Leads Generator package
Frequently asked questions
What does an account-based marketing service include?
A complete ABM service should cover account list building from your ICP, signal tracking, tiering, messaging for each tier and role, paid media to target accounts, support for personal outreach, and account-level reporting. Check whether an agency executes the program or only hands over a strategy document, because ABM fails most often in execution.
How many accounts should a company start ABM with?
Fewer than most teams expect. In Demand Gen Report's 2025 survey, 30% of ABM programs focused on 1 to 25 accounts and another 21% on 26 to 50. A first program with one or two 1:few clusters and a small 1:1 tier is enough to learn what works before scaling.
Is account-based marketing worth it for a small B2B company?
Deal size and sales cycle matter more than company size. The largest group of respondents in the Demand Gen Report survey were companies with under $25 million in annual revenue, at 37%. If your average deal is large enough to justify personal effort and several people are involved in each purchase, ABM can work at almost any company size.
How is account-based marketing different from demand generation?
Demand generation builds familiarity across your whole market so buyers think of you when they're ready. ABM concentrates effort on named accounts you have chosen to win. They work best together. 40% of practitioners have integrated their demand generation and ABM processes.
Does a company need an ABM platform to run account-based marketing?
Not to start. A well-kept CRM, LinkedIn account targeting, a contact data source and website visitor identification can run a strong first program. A platform becomes worth its cost once the account list grows past what a team can track by hand.