ABM Case Study

Achieving efficiency and engagement where other marketing efforts fail to flourish

A software solutions company headquartered in the Southeast had over 1,100 customers around the world and an average of $600 million in yearly revenue— but they faced a major challenge.

While their product (point of sale, supply chain, and logistics software for enterprise-level clients) was stellar and leadership strong, they weren’t seeing the number of high-profile transactions that had previously driven their business to the top. And there was clear potential to be selling substantially more software.

Enter ABM.

While the acronym “ABM” is relatively new, many businesses have practiced the fundamentals of ABM long before it transformed into a marketing cornerstone for large businesses. The business model of this particular company is an example of a perfect fit for account-based marketing techniques.

Problems Faced

• Sluggish Campaign Conversions
• Unclear ROI
• Muddy Reporting Metrics

Solutions Delivered

• Multichannel ABM Campaign
• Live Conversion Tracker
• Custom Reporting Dashboard

Final Results

• SQOs Within Two Months
• More Efficient Marketing Spends
• Better Sales Team Engagement

First Task: Implement a Modernized ABM Approach

Upon examining the marketing infrastructure left behind by the company’s previous marketing provider, The ABM Agency noticed the presence of key ABM DNA, but the implementation choices would never hold up in the long term for a company this size. The previous marketing firm relied heavily on third-party data providers in conjunction with reverse-IP lookup in order to create and track ABM targets. While reverse-IP can be a viable tool for tracking conversion sources, it certainly has limitations—like being heavily network-dependent. This means conversion data can be lost altogether if a target account is browsing your content outside of their company’s network.

Next Step: Roll Out New Tracking Methodology

As of March 2020, the way target accounts interact with marketing content has changed fundamentally, leaving reverse-IP more hit-or-miss than ever before. This required a shift in tracking methods to relying on six different platforms for new intent data: search advertising, programmatic display, content syndication, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google Analytics.

With the new methodology in place, the software solutions company saw a 67% CTR increase and an additional 13% more page views from targeted accounts. This success granted them a wider breadth of information and higher rates of interaction—thus keeping their sales team better informed.

Data in Real Time: Goal-Oriented Custom Reporting

Not all scoring models are created equal—which is why this company needed a different scoring model, one to better fit their robust online presence, for a new ABM campaign. This meant creating a live dashboard that tracks onsite interactions, conversions, demo requests, and offsite campaign interaction, all in real-time. For a company that can make tens of millions from new client acquisition, this granular approach was mandatory for seeing effective growth on the scale they were hoping for.

What’s Next? A Deal on the Horizon

Once the new tracking technology was in place, the client had access to a wealth of information:

• Which ABM targets were currently in the awareness phase
• How many users each account consisted of
• The impressions, search durations, and content requests of each account—all organized in one place

With this information, it became easy to allocate marketing spends in high visibility areas, and it didn’t take long for the company to see results.

34 days = the amount of time for the retailer to move through the sales funnel, from awareness to sales qualified lead

The Importance of ABM: Information Every Step of the Way

The first sales qualified opportunity for the point of sale and supply chain software company was a jewelry design and retail company with over 40 boutiques around the world, creating a yearly revenue of $650 million. The jewelry company was chosen as an excellent target for an ABM campaign, and it was only a short time before they arrived on a platform ready to supply the targeted marketing content.

Their journey from ABM target to sales qualified lead was tracked every step of the way—providing sales members with 11 discrete data points regarding the company’s progression through the sales funnel:

Awareness →  Consideration → Validation → Evaluation

It Doesn’t End There: Continuing to Create New Client Opportunities

ABM campaigns should consist of high-activity sales funnels. For the logistics software company, an average of nine target accounts moves from the awareness phase into the consideration stage every single month. Each of these clients could potentially result in a sale that carries the fiscal quarter—at an initial investment per account that can be equivalent to less than one-thousandth of a single highway billboard.

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