ABM Metrics - Why & What to Track

As account-based marketing (ABM) continues to grow and become a powerful marketing strategy, the conventional question remains: How do I test and measure my results?Marketing

Digging into account-based marketing metrics to understand the results is all about asking the right questions. Metrics focus on quality over quantity. This means that looking at engagement levels above traffic volume and opportunities on leads is closely related to sales. Therefore, it summarizes the activity metrics and the results metrics together.

If you implement a new sales methodology without adopting new sales metrics, it will be much more difficult to track the progress of your marketing efforts. That is why companies, switching to an account-based framework, must update their KPIs, as these are the main indicators of success.

Therefore, account-based marketing metrics focus heavily on an individual lead's activity and look at the crucial accounts that would likely generate the most revenue for your organization.

How are Account-Based Marketing Metrics Different?The speed at which digital marketers have moved towards the ABM model when creating successful ABM campaigns is quite amazing. While many were thinking, "Will this hold?" Or "Is it just a fad that will go away in the future?"

But this is 2021, and ABM has become even more popular in the B2B world as marketers see value in targeting accounts and not just leads.

Recent research from SiriusDecisions states that 93% of marketers consider ABM extremely important to the overall success of their organization. With any marketing strategy, you will be asked if your campaign is working well or not. In fact, it takes time for the programs to run for any marketer who has created an ABM strategy. So what should you consider more when creating an ABM strategy?

Think quality, not quantityA team working on the ABM model understands the priority: influencing customers who are important as crucial accounts. So instead of focusing on creating new leads, ABM focuses on activating and engaging the right prospects (even if it's fewer in number).

Likewise, your ABM team should focus on increasing revenue from each account. This means what your team would value the most: ten random marketers downloading a whitepaper or having a meaningful conversation with a decision-maker.

It's about compromiseSiriusDecisions states that there has been a 24% increase in the average length of the B2B sales cycle since 2019. It means that the larger the transaction size, the longer the cycle. With such a long process, you need to measure what is happening during the progress phase.

So how do you do that?It is the commitment you should focus on. Track how well the right account is engaged with your brand. In this way, you will have a measurable way of showing the development of your business.

Participation in ABM generates huge benefits for most companies. Here is a list of the latest statistics from ABM showing that the companies that used the strategy achieved incredible results, such as:200% increase in ROI50% of sales teams were more productive and were able to optimize qualified leads.30% increase in revenue66% increased the number of leads generated83% saw amplified engagement from targeted leadsShorter sales cycles grew 27% and more

However, these benefits of implementing an ABM strategy are only the result of a successful ABM approach, as it is not an easy task for all organizations. The only way to ensure that your company's ABM efforts are successful is by meticulously monitoring the most important metrics.

The 4 crucial metrics to trackIf you keep reading, you will find the six crucial types of account-based marketing metrics.

CommitmentHow are your prospects interested and engaged?

The more attention they pay to your company, the more engaged they tend to be. Measure the time they spend with your brand or on your website. Monitor when they respond socially to your marketing programs or when they use your product and connect with your sales team.

As one of the account-based marketing metrics, the amount of engagement will be the closest and most essential. Therefore, your focus should be to measure how engaged contacts are with your content, including the type of content. The following areas will help you understand it in depth:

Email Metrics - Track your audience's activities with your email marketing campaigns. You will want to know the open and click rates and see the number of responses received from each email. Also, how the recipients of the email share their messages with others.Social metrics: You can check with your specific account contacts if they have liked, shared, or commented on your posts. Are they following your business page and your social accounts?Consumption Rates - Similarly, you can see how your specific account contacts are consuming your content online, specifically the information provided on your website and blogs. This shows multiple page views, average page time, and specific content being viewed and downloaded.Offline Activity Metrics - Beyond your digital information, keep track of the specific accounts that interact with you offline. Do they attend events you sponsor, communicate easily, and respond to direct mail?

Therefore, the main goal of these account-based marketing metrics is to know where your contacts are on their shopping journey. In fact, through these metrics, you can discover what information (content) your website lacks to support communications in your research.

ConscienceDo your prospects know your business name and offerings? Web traffic is an ethical reflection of keeping prospects up-to-date, specifically the traffic coming from their target accounts. You should also track whether your contacts are opening your emails, attending your events and making contact through calls, or using any other means that you provided.

Target account scopeCan you reach specific target accounts the right way? Where are you lacking in your efforts?

These account-based metrics help you track success by channel. For example, in a webinar campaign, you would measure your success by analyzing attendance at the event. So, also keep track of the percentage of target accounts that have been successfully enrolled in each program. And finally, follow your approach. What is the percentage of all successful programs that come from key accounts? This will help you understand how many target accounts are reaching you through your ABM campaigns, ABM strategies, and other marketing capabilities.

InfluenceThe influence of your marketing strategy on a target account will be measured primarily by your interactions with each account. However, some of the account-based marketing metrics mentioned above will help to verify the leverage metrics of your ABM strategy. But the big question is whether or not your efforts are working. To understand this, you need to evaluate some parameters like:The conversion rate of the contacts in your specific accounts.Conversion of your specific accounts in the marketing funnelFrequency and volume of meetings or calls with each accountWho you have the discussions with influencers on the account or final decision-makers

Finally, the results of your meetings

These parameters will disclose what efforts are working and where you need to change your focus or the information you provide in order for your business to be successful.

Types of Account-Based Sales MetricsMarketing and sales often measure success differently. Account-based metrics can help bring them closer together by aligning your focus on a specific list of target accounts.

With an account-based sales development (ABSD) strategy, there are two types of metrics. This would help you understand if your sales team is performing well on an account-based sales plan or not.

Activity-based sales metricsYou need to check and understand whether your sales team is doing various marketing activities in the right way or not. This will be specific to each account you will be targeting and includes activities such as task completion, emails, contacts per day, account coverage, meaningful conversations, and appointments.

Results-based sales metricsIt is typically considered in after-sales account-based marketing metrics. Now is the time to track the result of the activities mentioned above. Also, include the rate of accounts accepted from the pipeline created and the revenue generated.

In short, the goal is to measure the monetary value of each transaction and track its performance and successes over time in business. This information is also useful for identifying new accounts to target.

To know how to read in the next!

ValueMeasuring value is more important than total sales volume as it is part of ABM's metrics. The goal is to understand the value of each account to your bottom line - how they stack up against other accounts and to see the performance of each sales rep. In this context, account-based marketing metrics should reveal the following:

What is your average point of sale value?What is the average sales volume for the account?What is the expansion value of each account?What is the total sales volume?How much income did they generate?What is the value of each deal?

Having a clear answer to these issues reveals the most tangible insights into your results. By looking at specific accounts, you can gauge where you are growing, where opportunities exist and show underperforming accounts. Therefore, it will do its job accordingly.

Digital Marketer ( B2B industry ) expertise in Event Marketing, Webinar Marketing, Lead Generation, Demand Generation for SaaS companies, and growth strategies.