Why 70% of ABM Experimentation Programs Fail — And How to Get It Right

Why You Shouldn't Rely on A/B Testing in B2B Marketing

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Account-Based Marketing (ABM): The Targeted Approach to High-Value Customer Engagement

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a cornerstone strategy for B2B marketers looking to create highly targeted, impactful engagements with high-value accounts. Unlike traditional marketing that casts a wide net, ABM focuses efforts on specific accounts and tailors campaigns to meet their unique needs, making it particularly effective for companies aiming to land large, strategic customers.

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Why Experimentation is Key in ABM?

ABM often targets a smaller, more refined audience than traditional marketing approaches, making it crucial to get every interaction right. But because of ABM’s focus, the stakes are high: each campaign or tactic must align closely with target accounts’ preferences and needs. This is where experimentation comes in, allowing you to test and refine approaches to ensure you're maximising engagement and ROI.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) experimentation can be the most important way to drive stronger revenue growth when implemented within a structured framework. The core idea is to use data-driven experiments to refine strategies for targeting high-value accounts and delivering personalised marketing efforts.

Companies overwhelmingly test A versus B, when the highest value is for multiple variants. 

While experimentation is a powerful way to discover what your customers truly WANT, it requires more than just comparing two options. 

The reason why most ABM experiments fall short.

How to get it right - the ABM Experimentation Framework:

1. Understand the Problem: Instead of focusing solely on industries, bucket your target accounts by the challenges they are facing. 

Tools like 6sense (https://6sense.com/)  can help by providing deep insights into customer intent and behaviour, allowing you to focus on the real problems your accounts are trying to solve.

Before conducting any experiments, it's crucial to define clear objectives that align with revenue growth. These goals could be related to account engagement, lead conversion, pipeline acceleration, or deal closure rates. 

Some KPIs to monitor include:

Account engagement rate (emails opened, meetings booked)

Average deal size

Sales cycle length

Account progression through the funnel (from engagement to conversion).

2. Set Clear Hypotheses: ABM is a team sport. Collaborate with the entire revenue team and gather hypotheses from everyone—SDRs, AEs, Customer Success and marketers. 

6sense + HubSpot (https://app.hubspot.com/)   can streamline this collaboration by offering a centralised platform where hypotheses (campaigns) and insights can be visualised and tracked.

The foundation of any successful experimentation framework is a hypothesis. Use data to guide the development of your hypotheses. For instance, if accounts in a specific industry have a higher engagement rate, you might hypothesize that industry-specific content will increase conversion.

 Hypotheses should be testable and tied to clear outcomes.

3. Plan Resources Thoughtfully: ABM is a marathon, not a sprint. Ensure the team is aligned on upcoming workloads and how they’ll impact each member’s goals. 

Use any project management tool (Asana https://asana.com/   or Jira Service Management https://www.atlassian.com/  for example) to automate communication and task management, keeping everyone informed and on track. 

4. Encourage Autonomy: Experimentation requires agility and open communication. Build a culture of experimentation where team members feel empowered to make decisions. 

5. Make Data Meaningful: Having data is easy, but interpreting it is harder. Gather actionable insights from campaigns and conversions. Leveraging your CRM and MAP, build and share dashboards with data that everyone has access to. Clean and visible Data is a crucial part of the Growth strategy. 

6. Regular syncs with stakeholders— SDRs, AEs, Product, and Customer Success—are critical to staying aligned. Listen to their insights and make data-driven decisions TOGETHER.  

Key benefits of experimentation in ABM include:

1. Identifying High-Impact Tactics: Experimentation reveals which channels, messages, and offers resonate best with target accounts.

2. Optimising Resource Allocation: Testing helps allocate budget and resources to approaches that deliver the highest return.

3. Increasing Agility: With ongoing experimentation, teams can respond to changing buyer behaviours and adjust tactics to stay relevant.

Read more about how to build your first ABM program here.

Conclusion

ABM experimentation is about constantly refining your approach to targeting high-value accounts through data-driven tests. By following these key principles, you can drive stronger revenue growth by better understanding what resonates with your accounts, improving personalisation, and optimising your marketing and sales alignment. 

Ready to take your ABM experimentation to the next level? Test, learn, and optimise to win the customers who matter most.

If you'd like to start your B2B MarTech enhancement and accelerate your ABM practice, please book a 30-minute discovery call or DM on LinkedIn.

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