Companies claiming the strongest ROI from account-based marketing (ABM) tend to have their individual reps handle more accounts than the average company engaging in ABM, according to Demandbase’s latest report [download page] on ABM. Having established the top tools and priorities for a successful ABM campaign, the report takes a look at how companies are approaching their handling of accounts.
In the survey of more than 850 professionals, a distinction emerges between companies with the strongest ROI from ABM (those reporting ROI levels of 2x or higher) and companies overall when it comes to the number of target accounts held by each individual rep. Across all companies, the largest share (34%) reported 0-10 target accounts per rep, while among companies with the strongest ROI just 9% reported 0-10 accounts per rep.
It would appear that the sweet spot is individual reps having 11-50 target accounts. The largest share (36%) of companies with the strongest ROI reported this distribution of accounts, as did one-third of companies overall. The share with 51-100 accounts per rep was 14% for both company types, while those with the strongest ROI were far more likely than average to report giving their reps 101-500 accounts each (18% vs. 8%).
The picture is less clear-cut with regards to the number of target accounts held by an entire revenue team. Though the largest share (23%) of companies studied had 101-500 current target accounts associated with their team, the remaining companies were fairly evenly distributed between having 0-10 (16%), 11-50 (18%), 51-100 (14%), 501-1000 (11%), 1001-5000 (7%) and 5000+ (4%) accounts.
In terms of what marketers plan to do with their number of target accounts, there is again somewhat of a difference when comparing the overall sample with those companies boasting the strongest ROI from ABM. The largest share (57%) of these companies expect the amount of target accounts they have to stay the same, with a further 34% expecting an increase in target accounts and just 7% planning on decreasing the number.
On the other hand, a plurality (44%) of companies overall are planning on increasing the number of target accounts they have, while 36% expect the number to stay the same and 7% expect it to decrease. This suggests that companies with strong results from their ABM efforts are mostly comfortable with their volume of target accounts, while others see a need to increase them.
Read the full report here.
About the Data: The DemandBase findings are based on a survey of 857 respondents (75% of whom were marketers) across 12 industries and a variety of sizes.
