Unpacking 3 Non-Obvious Insights from our ABM Benchmark Audits 🌶️

“What have y’all found from your audits so far…..?”

A LOT.

For those just catching up, we’ve been auditing ABM programs at organizations ranging from $5 million to +$20 billion in ARR as we build out our Benchmarking Database.

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1. Tactical Playbooks are Mostly Consistent 📚

Everyone wants the secret sauce that their peers are using from a tactical standpoint.

The harsh truth… your ABM playbook probably looks the same as everyone else’s.

Here is what we’ve seen on just about every audit (give or take 1-2):

Events
Direct Mail
Ads (LinkedIn has worked well for everyone, yet mixed results from Display Ads)
Custom Landing Pages
Personalized Content
Email Cadences (both marketing-led, and sales-led)
Personalized Demos
Executive Engagement

So take a deep breathe. Your ABM playbook is perfectly fine, you’re not missing out.

Two things to consider, because the list above is a bit simplistic:

The depth of personalization across tactics varies - especially across Growth ABM Tiers and Enterprise ABM motions.
The frequency, type and designated budget for tactics can vary in each organizations campaign plan.

2. ABM Platforms: Love em’ or Hate em’ 💔

The most interesting insight thus far?

How polarizing the views are around ABM Platforms.

Here is an example from 2 different audits - both using the SAME platform, whose name we’ll leave anonymous.

In order to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison, these orgs both share the same ICP and have very close ACV and ARR.

Want to uncover who this ABM Platform is and more? Participate in an ABM Benchmark Audit and gain full access to our Benchmarking Database.

Click the link above to apply.

Organization #1:

Overall sentiment = Negative ❌

Their Reasoning:

Customer support is “awful”.
It duplicates the accounts… for example, if there is an account that has presence in two global regions, it will create 2 duplicate accounts in the CRM.
The scoring models aren’t a silver bullet, nor optimized well. There are a lot of existing customers that are flagged as “weak profiles”.
The tool is robust, but so overcomplicated that the Sales team isn’t empowered enough to use it. They don’t know where or how to find the actionable data they’re looking for.
For the amount of money they pay for this tool, it is NOT worth it.

Organization #2:

Overall sentiment = Positive ✅

Their Reasoning:

This platform is the foundational layer across their GTM teams.
It has increased cross-functional collaboration, streamlined analytics and decreased the SLA to launch new paid media campaigns.
It is very robust, and the implementation was smooth.
The one downside they mentioned, is that their Customer Success Manager changes frequently.

3. Confidence is EARNED, not Given 💪

It took each ABM practitioner around 12-18 months to get into a groove and feel that they have the reins of their program.

These 3 categories were consistently being worked:

Enablement = from the C-suite, to every BDR and cross-functional marketing partner, it took consistent enablement to align everyone on the same page.
Optimization = tweaks, learnings and failures brought clarity around what worked and what didn’t. They all were, and continue to live the “Fail Fast, Learn Faster” mantra.
Reporting / Attribution = from further scoping what resonated the best for each audience that receives each report, to building the actual infrastructure to capture ABM metrics.

If you are still new in your Account-Based GTM implementation journey, just know - you are NOT alone.

All of those feelings that you have are normal. Keep pushing through, and we are here for you in the ForgeX Slack group!