Account-Based Marketing / Account based marketing kpis how are they effective

Account Based Marketing KPIs: How are they effective?

Karthick Raajha
June 7, 2023
6 mins Read

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) KPIs provide valuable insights into the performance, ROI, and overall impact of account-based marketing initiatives.

They empower businesses to refine their strategies and deliver compelling experiences to their most valuable customers.

In this blog, we will explore the significance of ABM KPIs and how they can drive the success of account-based marketing campaigns.

What are the key elements of account-based marketing?

The key elements of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) include:

Targeted account selection
Personalized messaging and content
Multi-channel engagement
Sales and marketing alignment
Account-specific campaigns
Measurement and optimization

Let us speak about each of them in detail

1. Targeted account selection

One of the fundamental elements of ABM is the careful selection of target accounts instead of focusing on a broad audience.

ABM identifies and prioritizes key accounts that align with your ideal customer profile.

2. Personalized messaging and content

ABM emphasizes the importance of personalized communication. Once you have identified your target accounts, it’s crucial to craft messaging and content that resonate with each account’s decision-makers and influencers.

3. Multi-channel engagement

ABM recognizes the need for a multi-channel approach to engage with target accounts effectively.

It involves leveraging various communication channels such as email, social media, direct mail, events, and personalized content

4. Sales and marketing alignment

ABM requires close collaboration and alignment between sales and marketing teams.

Instead of operating in silos, both teams work together to define account-specific strategies, set goals, and execute targeted campaigns.

5. Account-specific campaigns

ABM focuses on delivering highly relevant and tailored campaigns to target accounts.

6. Measurement and optimization

ABM emphasizes the importance of measurement and continuous optimization.

These key elements collectively form the foundation of a successful ABM strategy. To know more about the components check out this post about account based marketing.

Account Based Marketing KPIs: Types and functions

ABM (Account-Based Marketing) is a strategic approach to marketing that focuses on targeting specific accounts or organizations, rather than casting a wide net to attract a broad audience.

When it comes to measuring the success of an organization’s ABM efforts, there are several key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be useful metrics:

Total available market
Account engagement
Deal size and revenue
Conversion rate
Customer retention and expansion
Pipeline velocity
Customer lifetime value
Churn rate
Return on investment

Let us understand each type of KPIs in more detail:

1. Total available market

The success of account-based marketing campaigns doesn’t lie in what kind of account information you generate. It lies in how well you leverage that information.

Account coverage is a metric that shows you the gap between the information you have on each target account and the impact you create with that information. If you have identified the key stakeholders and decision-makers, and have personalized content for each of them during their journey, there’s no reason for the content to not make an impact.

The next thing to look for is whether you are engaging all the stakeholders at the account. Most marketers also say that your contact list should keep growing, because that would indicate you are expanding your impact. While that’s true in general, do not spread yourself too thin and waste resources in trying to engage people who have no role in the buying decision.

The two key ratios to look for are:

Number of perfect-fit accounts you have begun engaging, as a percentage of total perfect-fit accounts you have been able to identify, and
Influencers and decision-makers you’re currently engaging, as a percentage of the total influencers and decision-makers at the target account

Tracking the total available market as an ABM KPI provides insights into the scalability and growth potential of your ABM program.

2. Account engagement

Your engagement rates are a very quick, high-level measurement to get a general sense of how things are going with your content.

The term is so broad it could be considered a group of ABM KPIs rather than one single metric. Engagement will cover the extent and quality of your target account’s interaction with your content, which includes your emails, ads, ebooks, website pages, webinars, podcasts, blogs, and other similar assets.

Here’s what you want to ultimately figure out:

How (and if) your target accounts are interacting with your content
What kind of content is pulling in more new accounts
Which piece of content is working and which isn’t
What kind of content do your existing customers like
Define what exact action you’ll call engagement

Remember, the better the engagement rate of a particular account, the closer they are to making a decision about the purchase. That means your account-based marketing campaign is working. Conversely, poor engagement could indicate either a lack of adequate personalization or poor content-account match.

Because there are multiple touchpoints in B2B sales, you will need to dive deeper to uncover all the places you need to make improvement.

This metric measures the level of engagement and interaction between your organization and the target accounts. It can include metrics such as:

Website visits
Content downloads
Email open rates
Social media interactions

Tracking account engagement helps you gauge the interest and involvement of your target accounts.

3. Deal size and revenue

If you want to find out what is ABM match rate, the average deal size is a great metric to study. That’s because your ABM deal size should be bigger than the average contract value or deals your regular marketing activities bring in. So if you have done the right homework for your ICP and all that, your ABM campaigns should result in bigger deals.

By tracking the average deal size and revenue generated from target accounts, you can measure the impact of your ABM campaigns on the bottom line.

4. Conversion rate (Win Rate)

What is ABM technique if not a strategy to increase your ticket size and improve your win rates? Keeping a close watch on how many customers actually sign on the dotted line is certainly a very effective way of measuring and even learning from a successful ABM strategy.

This is one metric that can tell you a number of things.Are your pieces of personalized content actually resonating with your audience? Are the clicks on your websites actually translating into sales? Are your sales and marketing teams truly aligned and translating MQLs (marketing qualified leads) into SQLs (sales qualified leads)? Are all the efforts actually paying off?

Your conversion rates also tell you about your overall efficacy. Are your win rates going up or stagnating? Which competitors do you routinely lose business to? What product categories or geographical segments have you never failed to win?

Tracking the conversion rate as an ABM KPI provides insights into the effectiveness of your account-specific strategies.

5. Customer retention and expansion

No collection of ABM metrics can be said to be complete without Customer Retention Rate. Yes, ABM conversion rates are the one metric you should always keep your eyes on. But don’t forget to retain existing customers.

We don’t need to remind you that acquiring a new customer is 5x more expensive than retaining an existing customer, do we? And because B2B sales take more time than B2C, you have a larger window within which to reinforce your relationship and keep the customer stay with you.

You engage differently with existing customers than you do with new accounts. For example, to customers who are already using your solutions, you can ask for their feedback. How happy are they with your solution? What is the overall adoption of your solution in their organization? Are there features they aren’t fully using?

And because they’re already using your solution, you have a tremendous lead. So don’t forget: you should always watch out for cross-selling and upselling opportunities to existing customers. After all, retention doesn’t mean you should stagnate; as the customer grows, make sure your sales opportunities grow too.

ABM is not just about acquiring new customers but also nurturing and growing existing accounts.

Some of the Customer retention and expansion metrics include:

Churn rate
Upsell/cross-sell revenue
Customer satisfaction scores

They can provide insights into the success of your ABM efforts in building long-term customer relationships.

6. Pipeline velocity

Shortening the sales cycle and accelerating sales is a key goal for ABM. Between the first touchpoint and the last, you should be able to drive your target account at a faster pace. In simpler words, you want to know how soon a target account converts into a paying customer.

Under ABM, you align your sales and marketing teams to increase the sales velocity. Forrester says companies with a strong alignment grow 19% faster. Marketing teams can keep a tab on how engagement is growing across different channels. Sales teams can keep track of the speed of conversion.

And in the entire process, you want to pay more attention to where there’s friction and what you’re doing to eliminate that friction.

Pipeline velocity refers to the speed at which leads move through the sales pipeline. In an ABM context, it measures how quickly target accounts progress from one stage to another in the buying process.

7. Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a crucial Key Performance Indicator (KPI) in Account-Based Marketing (ABM) that provides valuable insights into the long-term revenue potential of your customer relationships. CLV measures the total value a customer brings to your business throughout their entire engagement with your company.

In ABM, where the focus is on building strong, personalized relationships with target accounts, understanding the lifetime value of your customers becomes even more important. By measuring CLV, you can identify high-value accounts that generate substantial revenue over an extended period, enabling you to allocate your resources effectively

Tracking customer lifetime value as an ABM KPI helps measure the success of your account-specific strategies.

8. Churn rate

One crucial KPI in Account-Based Marketing is the churn rate, which measures the rate at which target accounts or customers discontinue their engagement or partnership with your company. Churn rate is a key metric for assessing the effectiveness of your ABM efforts because it directly reflects customer satisfaction, retention, and the overall success of your account-based strategies.

Measuring churn rate in ABM involves tracking the percentage of target accounts that have ceased their engagement within a specific period. This can include customers who have canceled subscriptions, terminated contracts, or no longer show active interest or involvement with your company. By analyzing the churn rate, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your ABM initiatives and identify areas for improvement.

Tracking churn rate as an ABM KPI allows you to identify patterns and trends among key accounts.

9. Return on investment (ROI)

Your earnings, expressed as a percentage of your investment, is your Return on Investment or ROI. This ABM formula seeks to gauge how well you’ve been deploying your funds, and that’s why it remains one of the most widely used and quoted metrics.

In many cases, it’s not as easy as it sounds. What costs do you attribute to purely marketing? What exactly is the return? How should you factor the period between the time you began investing and the time you began to see results?

Despite all these quantitative challenges, ROI gives you a pretty accurate picture of how your campaigns are doing.

Along with the ROI, it’ll help if you ask three questions:

Is ABM making it easier for your reps to connect with the target accounts?
Are your channels nurturing your target accounts faster than before?
Are you seeing a rise in inbound demand?

If your answer to each of the above is a clear ‘Yes’, you can be sure you are achieving a good ROI.

Tracking ROI as an ABM KPI provides insights into the cost-effectiveness and profitability of your account-specific marketing activities. It helps you allocate resources efficiently and make data-driven decisions to optimize your ABM approach.

These KPIs facilitate informed decision-making, enable effective communication and alignment across departments. Additionally, they serve as powerful motivators and tools for recognizing achievements.

Importance of KPIs in measuring success of an ABM campaign

Performance Indicators (KPIs) play a crucial role in measuring the success of an organization.

Here are some reasons why KPIs are important:

Goal alignment
Performance measurement
Accountability and focus
Continuous improvement
Decision making
Communication and alignment
Benchmarking and industry comparison
Motivation and recognition

Let us understand the above points in bit more detail:

1. Goal alignment

KPIs help align the efforts of individuals and teams with the overall goals and objectives of the organization. By defining and tracking specific KPIs, you ensure that everyone is working towards the same outcomes and can easily measure progress.

2. Performance measurement

KPIs provide a quantitative way to measure performance and progress. They allow you to assess how well your organization is performing against its targets and benchmarks.

By tracking KPIs regularly, you can identify areas of improvement, track trends, and make data-driven decisions.

3. Accountability and focus

KPIs create a sense of accountability within the organization. When individuals and teams have specific metrics to track, they are more likely to focus their efforts on achieving those targets.

KPIs help prioritize activities and allocate resources effectively, ensuring that efforts are aligned with strategic objectives.

4. Continuous improvement

KPIs serve as a feedback mechanism that enables continuous improvement. By measuring and analyzing KPIs, you can identify areas of underperformance or bottlenecks.

5. Decision making

KPIs provide data-driven insights that support decision making at various levels of the organization. When faced with choices or trade-offs, KPIs help evaluate the potential impact on performance and make informed decisions.

6. Communication and alignment

KPIs facilitate effective communication within the organization. They provide a shared understanding of performance expectations and progress.

7. Benchmarking and industry comparison

KPIs allow you to compare your organization’s performance against industry benchmarks or competitors. This external perspective provides valuable insights into your relative position.

It helps identify areas for improvement or competitive advantage.

8. Motivation and recognition

KPIs can serve as motivational tools by setting clear targets and recognizing achievements. When employees see progress and success measured through KPIs, it can enhance motivation, engagement, and a sense of accomplishment.

Overall, KPIs are essential for monitoring, evaluating, and driving the success of an organization. They provide a structured approach to measuring performance, aligning efforts, making informed decisions, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

By selecting the right KPIs and regularly tracking and analyzing them, organizations can effectively measure their sucess rates.

Implementing effective measurement strategies for account-based marketing kpis

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach that focuses on targeting specific high-value accounts .

It tailors marketing efforts to engage and nurture those accounts individually. To effectively measure the success of ABM campaigns, it is essential to implement robust measurement strategies and track the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Here are some essential steps for implementing effective measurement strategies for ABM KPIs:

Define clear objectives
Select relevant ABM KPIs
Establish baselines and benchmarks
Utilize advanced analytics and attribution models
Integrate data from multiple sources
Regularly monitor and evaluate performance

Let us understand the above points in bit more detail:

1. Define clear objectives

Before diving into measuring the effectiveness of your ABM campaigns, it’s crucial to establish clear objectives, such as:

What do you aim to achieve with your ABM efforts?
Are you looking to increase revenue from specific target accounts,
Are you looking to improve customer retention
Are you looking to enhance cross-selling opportunities?

Defining clear objectives will help you identify the relevant KPIs to measure and align your measurement strategies accordingly.

2. Select relevant ABM KPIs

The key to effective measurement is selecting KPIs that align with your objectives. It should provide meaningful insights into the performance of your ABM campaigns.

Some common ABM KPIs include :

Pipeline acceleration
Deal velocity
Account engagement
Account expansion
Revenue generated from targeted accounts.

By tracking these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into the success and impact of your ABM initiatives.

3. Establish baselines and benchmarks

To measure the effectiveness of your ABM efforts, it is essential to establish baselines and benchmarks for your chosen KPIs.

Baselines provide a starting point for comparison, allowing you to track progress over time. Benchmarks, on the other hand, provide a reference point to assess your performance against industry standards or your own historical data.

These baselines and benchmarks serve as valuable indicators of success and help you identify areas for improvement.

4. Utilize advanced analytics and attribution models

Implementing advanced analytics and attribution models can provide deeper insights into the effectiveness of your ABM campaigns.

Advanced analytics techniques include:

Predictive modeling
Customer segmentation
Propensity scoring

These can help identify the most valuable accounts and prioritize resources accordingly.

Attribution models allow you to understand which marketing efforts are driving results and allocate credit accurately. By leveraging these tools, you can refine your strategies and optimize your ABM campaigns for maximum impact.

5. Integrate data from multiple sources

Effective measurement strategies for ABM KPIs require access to accurate and comprehensive data. Integrating data from multiple sources, such as

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems
Marketing automation platforms
Website analytics

They can provide a holistic view of your ABM efforts. By consolidating and analyzing data from various touchpoints, you can gain valuable insights into account engagement. They identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to optimize your ABM strategies.

6. Regularly monitor and evaluate performance

Measuring the effectiveness of ABM campaigns is an ongoing process. It’s crucial to monitor and evaluate performance regularly.

Set up regular reporting and analysis routines to track your chosen KPIs, identify trends, and uncover areas of improvement. This ensures you are on track to achieve your objectives.

KPIs can help you get maximum effectiveness. These measurement strategies enable you to refine your targeting, personalize your messaging, and drive meaningful results with your high-value accounts.

What are the other metrics to evaluate success of a marketing strategy?

In addition to these ABM-specific KPIs, there are other metrics commonly used to evaluate the success of marketing strategies in general.

These additional metrics provide valuable insights into various aspects of the marketing strategy, from financial performance to customer acquisition and retention. In this section, we will explore these key metrics and their significance in evaluating the effectiveness of a marketing strategy.

Some of these metrics include:

Return on investment(ROI)
Coversion rates
Customer acquisition cost(CAC)
Brand awareness and reach
Customer lifetime value(CLTV)
Meeting, contacts, demos
Refferal: Quantity and quality
Marketing influence
Stakeholder advocacy

Let us understand these metric in bit more detail:

1. Return on investment (ROI)

ROI measures the profitability of a marketing campaign by comparing the cost of the campaign to the revenue generated. It helps determine whether the marketing efforts are delivering a positive financial impact.

2. Conversion rates

Conversion rates track the percentage of leads or prospects that take a desired action.It indicates the effectiveness of your marketing strategy in driving desired outcomes.

3. Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Contrary to popular belief, acquisition costs don’t end when you find out the money spent on acquiring a customer. With ABM, conversion rates, engagement rates or sales velocity – all need an additional context. And that is: Are you attracting the right customers?

So the acquisition costs metric should not only tell you the cost of acquiring a new customer but also whether you’re winning the right ones. Little point in being proud of your low acquisition costs if the customers you won are low-value or improper fit.

CAC measures the cost of acquiring a new customer. It helps assess the efficiency of your marketing efforts .

It allows you to compare the cost of acquiring new customers across different channels or campaigns.

4. Brand awareness and reach

Brand awareness metrics include the following:

Website traffic
Social media followers
Brand mentions

These indicate the extent to which your target audience is aware of and engaged with your brand. These metrics help evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing strategy in increasing brand visibility and reach.

5. Customer lifetime value (CLTV):

CLTV measures the total revenue a customer is expected to generate over the course of their relationship with your company. It helps determine the long-term value of acquired customers

It can be used to assess the success of your marketing strategy in attracting high-value customers.

6. Meetings, contacts, demos

In ABM KPIs, engagement has many faces.

On the one hand, you measure how your target audience engages with your content. How much time did they spend on your webpages? Did they share your content with someone else? Were any of them visiting certain content multiple times?

On the other hand, you keep track of more active engagement. Are you getting the stakeholders into the webinar you planned? How did they respond to the events you are setting up for them?

But that’s not enough.

You want the stakeholders, decision-makers, and influencers to show a stronger commitment. So the additional set of metrics measure more. Could you get around to having them request a demo? How many meetings did you book? Did they engage with your sales teams?

All the above tell you whether your ABM strategies are getting results. But if you look at the finer aspects, they will tell you if your personalized content is delivering results. The relationship metrics tell you whether you’ve built bridges strong enough for your sales teams to cross over and simply win.

7. Referral: Quantity and quality

Just in case you forgot, the customers you won through referrals from other customers have a lower acquisition cost. What’s more, your profit margin is 25% higher and you will enjoy a 18% better customer loyalty with them (Source).

It’s okay to track the more widely known ABM KPIs like conversion rates and average deal size, but don’t forget referrals. If your solutions are really effective, your existing customers will refer you to other organizations you can sell to.

So how many referrals did you get last month? Last quarter? Last year? What was the quality of those referrals? Were they relevant and high-value?

Answers to questions like this will tell you the kind of confidence your existing customers have in your solutions. Equally important, it will tell you whether your ABM campaigns are geared towards engaging existing customers to the level where they’d be happy to pass on referrals.

8. Marketing influence

So what was the role your marketing team played in the most recent conversion? What portion of the successful conversion can be attributed to the sales team? Even more difficult, how can you quantify all that in order to get an objective view?

None of these questions may have any quick or easy answers but they’re important nevertheless. Because, if sales and marketing alignment is not the crux of ABM, we don’t know what is. ABM technique or strategy seeks to ensure you optimize each of the several touchpoints in the buyer’s journey. Because when your marketing team hands over an account to your sales teams, the transition is seamless and efficient.

Again, you use different strategies for acquiring new customers, upselling and cross-selling to existing customers, or re-engaging leads that may have gone cold. Even the way accounts in each category behave is unique. Some jump the flow to directly begin engaging with your sales teams, while others take more than the regular time to even agree to meeting invites.

You want to ensure you give each team the right credit. Giving credit is not only for salary hikes or performance bonuses; it’s about knowing what stuff worked at what stage. Because the better you understand which piece of content, which email or which ad was instrumental in creating a positive impact or shortening the regular cycle.

9. Stakeholder advocacy

Stakeholder advocacy, also known as customer advocacy, refers to the number of executives at your target account whom you have been able to convert to advocates of your solution.

These advocates are people who will display a clear preference towards your organization. They will champion your services and go the extra mile for you.

When your stakeholders strongly support your services and solutions, it hugely improves your brand value. In internal meetings, they will explain the merits of what you’re offering and recommend using your service. In some sense, these stakeholders are a small part of your extended team.

Remember that the choice of KPIs may vary depending on your organization’s specific goals, industry, and target audience. It’s important to align your KPIs with your overall business objectives.

It is important to regularly analyze and adjust your marketing strategy based on the insights gained from these metrics.

What is an account based marketing stratergy template?

Implementing an effective account-based marketing strategy requires careful planning and execution. To streamline the process, many organizations find it beneficial to utilize account-based marketing strategy templates.

Here are some Account based marketing strategy templates:

Defining target accounts and segmentation
Setting goals and objectives
Crafting personalized messaging and content
Selecting channels and tactics
Tracking and measuring success

Let us explain these in detail:

1. Defining target accounts and segmentation

A crucial step in any ABM strategy is defining target accounts. ABM strategy templates often include sections for identifying ideal customer profiles (ICPs) and creating account segmentation.

2. Setting goals and objectives

ABM strategy templates assist in setting clear goals and objectives for each target account. These templates prompt marketers to define specific metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with their overall business objectives.

3. Crafting personalized messaging and content

Personalization is a cornerstone of successful ABM strategy templates. It guide marketers in creating personalized messaging and content. These templates often include sections for crafting tailored value propositions, messaging frameworks, and content plans.

4. Selecting channels and tactics

ABM strategy templates also provide guidance on selecting the most effective channels and tactics for engaging target accounts.

5. Tracking and measuring success

The ability to measure the effectiveness of ABM initiatives is crucial for continuous improvement. ABM strategy templates often include sections for tracking and measuring the success of account-specific campaigns.

By utilizing ABM strategy templates, marketers can effectively plan, execute, and measure the success of their account-based marketing initiatives, ultimately driving stronger relationships, increased conversions, and higher revenue from key accounts.

Rounding It Up All Together

The effectiveness of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) relies heavily on the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). By focusing on specific metrics, organizations can gain valuable insights into their ABM efforts and drive positive outcomes. Key KPIs such as account engagement, pipeline velocity, deal size and revenue, and customer retention and expansion provide a comprehensive view of ABM effectiveness.

The importance of KPIs in measuring the success of an organization cannot be overstated. They align goals, measure performance, and hold teams accountable, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

While ABM KPIs play a significant role in evaluating the success of a marketing strategy, other metrics should also be considered. By leveraging these KPIs and metrics, organizations can assess the impact of their marketing strategies and drive sustainable growth.

Do you need to measure all these ABM metrics? Maybe yes, maybe no. It all depends on your industry, your priority, your ABM readiness, your processes and stuff.

We offer a very wide range of account-based marketing services to our clients. Not generating the kind of results your competitors do? Or perhaps not sure where to begin? We’d love to help you! Drop us a line and we’ll get back to you!

Account based marketing KPI : Related reads

Ready to Spark Your Marketing Genius?

Subscribe to our weekly
newsletter now!

COMPARE

Customer Testimonials