Account Based Marketing Overview

Last update: May 24, 2024

The following sections provide a brief overview of ABM, the components of the Marketo Measure ABM feature, and how to add it to your Salesforce page layout. To read more about ABM, review Adobe’s ABM blog.

For detailed instructions for setting up ABM within your Salesforce instance, go to Setting up ABM page layout in Salesforce.

What is ABM

Account based marketing, ABM, is a marketing strategy in which you target and sell to companies and accounts as a whole, not just as individuals. Marketo Measure helps Marketing and Sales teams execute successful ABM strategies with its lead-to-account mapping functionality and Predictive Engagement Score.

For our Account Based Marketing model to begin to populate in your CRM, Marketo Measure needs the following criteria to be met:

  • Your CRM needs at least 25 Accounts that have at least one Closed Won Opportunity on them, to better gauge the commonalities of a “successful” Account/Opportunity to your business.
  • The other side of the coin, your CRM needs at least 25 Accounts without any Closed Won Opportunities (all opps must either be in an “Open” stage category, or in a “Closed Lost” category) - this helps us gauge what makes a lower grade Account in your organization.
NOTE
The above “bad” accounts must be open for at least 12 months without accumulating a Closed Won opp; that is the basic guideline for whether an Opp has gone stale for the model’s purposes.

Lead-to-Account Mapping

Lead-to-account mapping is a crucial part of an effective ABM approach. With lead-to-account mapping, prospects, or leads, are grouped into the same company account as they engage with your brand. This allows you to target and sell to individuals from the same company in a consistent manner. There is no additional Salesforce configuration needed to begin benefitting from this feature. The Marketo Measure Lead to Account Mapping different matching methods:

  • Lead Website to Account Website
  • Lead Email Domain to Account Website Domain
  • Lead Company Name to Account Name
  • Lead Company to Account Website Domain
  • Lead Website to Account Contacts’ Email Domain
  • Lead Email Domain to Account Contacts’ Email Domain
  • Lead Website to Account Leads’ Email Domain
  • Lead Email Domain to Account Leads’ Email Domain

The Accounts’ Leads/Contacts are validated by their email/website domains and matched to the lead email/website’s domain or subdomain. The Account with the most matches is used.

NOTE
Each Lead tries to get matched to an Account in the preferential order of methods above. Once a match is made, the AccountId is immediately set on the Lead and won’t be matched using another method.

Predictive Engagement Score

The Marketo Measure Predictive Engagement Score, or PES, is a dynamic value that illustrates how engaged a particular account is with your marketing efforts. This score is helpful for segmenting accounts to target. It is a valuable tool for identifying accounts to target more effectively and efficiently.

There are many components that go into the algorithm that calculates the PES. Recency and age have a large influence on score changes, along with last touchpoint activity or page views. Adding new contacts to an account also impacts PES. Below is a list of some PES inputs:

  • Total number of page views from the account
  • Average number of page views
  • Average number of persons in the account
  • Age of last page view
  • Average age of page views
  • Number of persons in the account
  • Specific important pages and if there has been a visit in the past 30/60/90 days
  • If the account has a closed lost/won deal
  • How likely to be closed lost/won
NOTE
You may notice a grade of “N/A” or “-” (the dash symbol) in your Predictive Engagement Score for some Accounts.

A grade of “N/A” simply means that there is not sufficient data on that account for the model to generate a true grade - with more data, a grade is given eventually.
A grade of “-” (the dash symbol) means that this account has yet to be processed by the ABM process, due to time constraints, occasionally missed processes, and so forth. If you believe that an Account should have a grade, based on other similar accounts or timeframes, reach out and let Marketo Measure know.