Tracking Success: 7 Key Account-Based Marketing Metrics You Should Care About

Here's the thing: Marketing is more than just identifying your target accounts and sending in your sales pitch. It is also vital that you know whether your account-based marketing campaigns are working.

 

After all, you cannot fix what you cannot measure.

 

How would you know when your ABM campaign is successful? Of course, you need to determine your account-based marketing metrics and find out how to measure them.

 

That said, let's first understand what ABM is and discover seven key metrics that you can use to measure success.

Defining Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing is a marketing tactic wherein you focus your resources on targeting an account.

 

Say you develop POS software for e-commerce business. Your target accounts can be different online stores that serve a specific niche. Hence, you need to determine whether an e-commerce store can be a potential client. And if it is, how can you convince them to hire your services?

 

This also explains why ABM requires coordination between your sales and marketing teams. In addition, the following metrics can help you determine whether your account-based marketing efforts are working:

1. Website Traffic from Targeted Accounts

This metric is extremely vital since it's found at the very top of the funnel. To measure web traffic by account, develop a list of IP addresses for these target accounts with reverse IP lookup tools.

 

IP-verified site visits also help you know how your target accounts engage with your content. If you see a spike in web traffic from these IP addresses that you're targeting, it means that the awareness is growing.

 

Your ABM strategy's health lies in the number of site visits that you get from these target accounts.

2. Target Account Reach

It's also worth noting that some target accounts are more valuable than others. That's because of their relevancy and position as a decision-maker for their organization.

 

Target account reach helps you know where your ABM efforts are getting the most significant returns. You can do this by measuring the percentage of engaged key decision-makers.

 

You can also take things even further with this metric by determining which content generates the best results.

 

You and your team should know which targeted accounts are considered decision-makers vs. influencers. That way, you would know how to best approach this account.

3. Account Engagement

Tracking engagement lets you know how interested prospects are in your company or brand. The more time they spend engaging with you, the more loyal they become.

 

So, measure the amount of time they spend with your business. How often do they consume your content, and for how long? Do they also interact with your social media posts? Do they inquire with your sales team?

 

Doing so can help you have an insight into what content resonates with your target account. That way, you can personalize the content that you produce. It is also integral in identifying how they can best use your products and services.

4. Pipeline Velocity

Since ABM has a more targeted approach for marketing and selling, some deals are being closed a lot quicker and more efficiently.

 

However, you won't know much about this until you track the pipeline velocity. Pipeline velocity lets you know how long it will take for an average to move through stages and close.

 

If the pipeline velocity isn't higher for ABM deals, you should reevaluate your campaigns. That way, you'd know why the velocity hasn't increased and what you can do to fix it.

5. Return on Investment

Another useful ABM metric that you need to track is the return on investment.

 

If you have previous data on your marketing and sales efforts, you probably have several benchmarks already. When launching a new campaign, come up with a rough estimate of how much you need to spend on average before closing deals.

 

If your campaign costs more than usual and has lower ROI, you might want to reconsider your strategy or target accounts before proceeding.

6. Sales Cycle Length

If you're targeting more significant accounts, then you'll have longer sales cycles. Nonetheless, you should track it.

 

Adopting an ABM approach is much more personalized, targeted, and effective.

 

Although a somewhat natural process, tracking the length of your sales cycle will help optimize the deal closing process. To calculate the average sales cycle, look at the total period of every sale completion and divide it with the total number of deals.

7. Retention Rate

Repeat customers are also more valuable than first-time customers since they cost far less to sell to.

 

If the numbers aren't improving over time, let's say that your retention rate is low and the churn rate is high, then it could be a sign.

 

Fortunately, calculating your retention rate is relatively simple:

 

Retention Rate = ([# of accounts at the end of a period] - [# of accounts acquired over time] / [# of accounts at the start of a period]) * 100

For example, you had 1,000 accounts at the beginning of Q1. You acquired 300 new accounts amounting to 1,200 total accounts by the end of Q1. Your retention rate would then be 90%.

You'll be wasting your marketing efforts if you do not know whether it is successful or not. Hence, it is crucial to identify which of these ABM metrics you need to measure. That way, you would know whether your efforts are worth it.