Account-based marketing (ABM) is an increasingly popular strategy among sales and marketing teams, and this popularity rings true in a recent report [download page] by Demand Gen Report. Deeper ABM measurements are what marketers most want to implement over the next year, and respondents indicate a variety of metrics in place to help carry this goal out.
Alongside the one-third (32%) of B2B marketing executives who said they are already engaging in separate measurement and attribution for ABM, a further 45% said they plan to in the next 12 months. Indeed, when asked which of a list of metrics they would like to use in the next 12-18 months, two-thirds (66%) wanted to use deeper ABM metrics.
Among current ABM practitioners, conversion of engaged account to opportunity is the most cited primary metric for measuring account-based marketing (60%). A majority (58%) also use influenced pipeline to measure ABM, with a majority (55%) also using individual campaign and channel metrics. Fewer use the overall number of engaged accounts (40%) as a primary metric, with marketing qualified accounts rounding out the list of primary metrics (26%).
That being said, respondents also indicated a number of challenges involved with carrying out ABM. Just as data issues have been shown to hold back campaign measurement more generally, messy CRM data was cited as a barrier to ABM by 37% of respondents. Other challenges include integrating data across platforms (35%), tying anonymous account engagement to known stakeholders (32%) and tying ABM initiatives to closed/won business and revenue (32%).
What’s more, previous research by Campaign Stars found that while confidence in ABM is high, marketers lose confidence when considering their ability to execute ABM programs at scale.
Besides deeper ABM metrics, marketers’ plans for metrics over the next 12-18 months also include ROI by channel (55%), closed-won deal analysis (52%), ROI by content influence (50%) and cost of customer acquisition.
Read more about measurement and attribution in the full report here.
About the Data: Results are based on a survey conducted in April-June 2020 among 192 B2B marketing executives, 83% of whom are based in the US.
