This article first appeared on the Iron Horse blog.

Why ABM programs fail.

It’s been incredible to watch the growth and acceptance of account based marketing (ABM) over the last decade-plus. Almost every B2B organization is using 1:many or 1:few ABM to deliver more personalized experiences to their ICP. The most sophisticated organizations have finely tuned 1:1 ABM programs for their top target accounts. High-growth companies are seeing substantial improvements in Marketing and Sales alignment, revenue efficiency and customer satisfaction as a result of their ABM programs.

There’s no question business leaders grasp the core principles and see the potential benefits of ABM. But challenges are still emerging in the execution phase. When ABM doesn’t deliver on its promise, it’s usually because the organization has jumped in too fast, without making the investments in the skills, processes and infrastructure to make it successful. 

After working with dozens of ABM teams, we’ve found these are the three most consistent reasons programs miss the mark.

Reason #1: ABM is more than ad tech.

Many ABM platforms were initially marketed with a strong focus on improving paid media performance with their integrated programmatic ad tech functionality.  This narrow focus has led to a common misconception that ABM platforms are simply a more sophisticated form of targeted advertising platforms.

In reality, ABM platforms are orchestration engines. They’re designed to manage and coordinate complex, multi-channel marketing efforts across the buyer’s journey. By integrating data from ad platforms, marketing automation and your CRM, they provide marketing and sales stakeholders a single view of the evolving conversation taking place between their company, target accounts and individual prospect contacts.

One of the biggest problems with this narrow understanding of ABM is the downstream effects it has on the perception of program success. 

When organizations see these platforms merely as tools for programmatic advertising, it follows that they would judge their program on that single dimension. But while leads are the central metric for B2B paid media, they are only one component of ABM. Your ABM program will always look like it’s underperforming if your only KPI is lead attribution. 

Instead, companies must evolve how they think about marketing measurement to put more emphasis on outcomes like meetings and pipeline growth. 

This leads directly into another key issue with ABM adoption.

Reason #2: Fractured funnels.

Many sales functions haven’t evolved to support the current reality of digital self-service info-gathering by prospects.

An individual who has downloaded an ebook and engaged with other content on your site may look promising, but may not be ready or the right person to have a Sales conversation.

At the same time, someone within a target account might be in-market without being an active “handraiser” on your website, and multiple stakeholders from the same company engaging with high-value content or visiting the pricing page can be a strong indicator that their organization is in-market. Ignoring this activity in favor of MQLs is a mistake.

When organizations evaluate leads and accounts separately, the result is a broken funnel where important signals are missed and resources are wasted on chasing red herrings.

To succeed with ABM, organizations must view their lead-based and account-based signals in the same dashboard. By analyzing these activities together, Marketing and Sales can:

• Build a more accurate picture of who is in-market and prioritize outreach accordingly
• Gain clues about the buying team at MQAs, based on MQL activity
• Create a more coordinated outreach strategy

Reason #3: Underbaked governance and inconsistent change management.

ABM isn’t just a marketing strategy; it’s a fundamental shift in how an organization approaches its sales and marketing efforts. For this shift to work, there needs to be strong governance and change management in place.

Change management in the context of ABM means more than just training teams on new tools or processes. It involves a sustained effort to shift organizational behavior, ensuring that the focus remains on long-term account engagement across the various buying team personas rather than short-term lead generation targeting a few titles. 

In addition to establishing new processes, milestones and KPIs, you need to get clear on what the expected behavior is for marketing and sales teams—and who regulates that.

This cultural shift requires buy-in from all levels of the organization, from senior leadership to individual contributors in sales and marketing and the broader leadership team.

That’s why successful ABM will always be driven by champions within the organization—leaders who not only understand the full capabilities of ABM tools but are also responsible for driving the transition to this new methodology. 

These are the biggest gaps in governance and change management I see in organizations struggling to find ABM success:

• Hands-on champions. Champions can’t just be people who like the idea of ABM; they need to have the skill sets and the mandate to actually be in the trenches implementing change. And just like any other job function, they should be measured on their ability to enable the organization to adopt and adapt to ABM.
• Clear expectations. Clear definitions of expected outcomes at different stages of the ABM journey are crucial, including highlighting how they’re different from the lead-centric goals that they may have currently. Without this, it becomes difficult to measure success, manage expectations or course-correct when things aren’t going as planned. However, many organizations dive into ABM without taking the time to establish these benchmarks, leading to confusion and misalignment between teams.
• A well-defined sales process. Defining a consistent, measurable sales process is critical. Successful governance requires measuring marketing activity and follow-up actions. It’s the same core concept as a traditional lead-based model; the difference with ABM is that follow-up actions are triggered by a wider range of signals and are focused on a buying team, not just a single lead. Building the structure to help your team thrive in this environment sets them up for success. And it’s how you avoid the three most dreaded words on any sales team: “These leads suck.”

The Iron Horse insight.

At the end of the day, ABM is all about getting more swings of the bat to close business. 

But success hinges on more than just understanding the concept. Organizations have to actually commit to the ongoing work of implementing, teaching, measuring and regulating this new way of doing things. This can be resource-intensive, but if you’re willing to go all-in, ABM can drive high impact for any organization.