ABM vs ABX: Are They Really That Different?

ABM vs ABX Explained

Account-based marketing (ABM) has been around since the early 2000s. Not too long on the cosmic scale, though some would argue a lifetime in marketing. It’s gone through a lot of reinvention and reiteration in that time. Account-based experience (ABX or ABE) is the latest evolution.

Or is it?

Depending on who you ask, ABX is the future in B2B marketing or a return to the roots of ABM. We think it’s a bit of both.

ABM and ABX both focus on key accounts. Both aim to personalise experiences. Both rely on cross-functional collaboration.

The distinction is one of scale:

• ABM is how you attract and win the right customers.
• ABX is ABM plus how you nurture, keep, and grow them.

ABM sits naturally within ABX as the targeted strategies that prove the value of an account-based approach. ABX doesn’t replace ABM. It extends it beyond sales and marketing.
That means you’re not late to the party if you’re struggling to get traction with ABM. It’s absolutely fine to start small with targeted account-based marketing tactics and grow into an ABX strategy over time.

“In many ways, ABX is the B2B version of customer journey orchestration and personalisation that B2C companies have been doing for years. B2B teams have recognised what B2C already knows: every team that touches a customer shapes their experience.” – Richard Austin, B2B Practice Lead, Tap CXM.

ABM: Win the Right Customers

At its core, account-based marketing is sales and marketing working together to reach high-value customers. It’s focused on acquisition: identifying your ideal customer profiles, mapping decision-makers, and building content and campaigns that speak to their needs.

It emerged in the early 2000s, at a time when B2B marketing was still heavily campaign-led and demand gen-driven. Naturally, it has evolved with the buying journey and customer expectations.

Recently, that’s meant ABM has become shorthand for “targeted demand gen” in some circles. But it was originally intended as something broader and more strategic. Something more like ABX.

Where ABM Stops Short and Why We Needed Something New

The challenge with ABM is that it focuses on winning accounts. Once the deal closes, ABM tends to fade into the background.

The real value-driving activities – renewal, expansion, advocacy, cross-selling – become the responsibility of other departments, while marketing restarts the process.

ABM rarely touches these areas because they sit outside the traditional remit of sales and marketing. This is where the ABM vs ABX shift happens. The bigger opportunity comes when your ABM tactics become a company-wide integrated strategy to deliver great experiences across all touchpoints.

ABX: Taking Care of the Customers That Matter

If ABM is about sales and marketing working together to win the right customers, ABX is about the whole company taking responsibility for keeping and growing the account.

It looks beyond landing the deal and focuses on the long term. Exceptional ABX looks like:

• Tailored content and interactions across the entire lifecycle, not just when an account is in the pipeline.
• Alignment between all customer-facing teams for consistent and connected experiences.
• Personalisation at the level of individuals and DMUs/buying groups (this is peak ABX).

Despite being ongoing and ever-evolving, ABX can be summarised by asking a simple question: “How good are we at being good to our most valuable customers?”

‘We’ doesn’t just refer to marketing and sales. ABX requires organisation-wide alignment.

• Are your account managers actively nurturing relationships?
• Does the implementation/installation prioritise speed or user confidence?
• Are support teams helping customers succeed, or just closing tickets?
• Do your consultants call to check in, or only when they want to upsell?

These questions might also mean a your metrics shift. You might measure account-based marketing strategies against metrics like pipeline revenue, total addressable market, customer acquisition cost, or account engagement score.

ABX uses broader, longer-term metrics like customer lifetime value, net promoter score, retention, and advocacy.

“Over time, ABM has been reduced to high-touch campaigns for a short list of accounts. It’s very sales-and-marketing-centric. The “M” in ABM has become limiting, which is one reason we’re seeing ABX talked about everywhere.” – Richard Austin, B2B Practice Lead, Tap CXM.

What ABX Actually Looks Like in Reality

In an ideal world, B2B customer experience would mean every interaction is personalised for everyone in every account. We know that’s not always practical. It’s too resource-intensive, even for sophisticated enterprise organisations.

That may change as we see more agentic AI in CXM. But for now, most teams will aim for a tiered approach.

• Prioritise ABX strategies for the highest-value accounts.
• Repurpose winning strategies into ABM tactics for the next tier of important accounts.
• Rely on demand gen and the ‘halo effect’ of high-value accounts to attract new opportunities.

Starting Small and Growing ABM into ABX

If you’ve stalled on ABM, you’re not alone. Most teams struggle to gain traction on an account-based marketing approach. The problem is that we want the perfect plan. The best tech. Successful tactics from the start.

Forget all that. In reality, ABM almost always starts as a few targeted tactics for a small group of priority accounts. They might land, or they might miss their mark. That’s perfectly fine, as it helps identify the tactics and experiences that will connect with those accounts.

In fact, the smart thing is to start small. Rather than debating “ABM vs ABX”, reframe your thinking so that ABM is an on-ramp to ABX.

You can’t design meaningful, measurable, end-to-end experiences until you know who your key accounts actually are. That’s step 1 of an account-based marketing plan. From there, you can start aligning teams, processes, content, measurement, and analysis around key account needs.

Once you’re confident with the fundamentals of ABM, you can start connecting experiences and growing into ABX.

Getting Started with ABX in 6 Steps

1. Build simple ABM plays with sales, starting with 1-5 key accounts (5-10 for larger organisations).
2. Identify the other teams influencing these accounts (customer success, support, implementation).
3. Create one or two shared rituals, like a monthly key account review.
4. Map the lifecycle and identify the points where experience breaks down.
5. Improve important touchpoints (onboarding, renewal, customer support, new feature roll-outs) or create new ones where there’s a gap.
6. Measure the impact by introducing metrics like NPS, usage depth, expansion readiness, and relationship strength.

These small steps compound fast. Before you know it, you’ll have shifted from ABM to ABX without ever formally launching an ABX program.

It’s Not “ABM vs ABX”

ABM is an approach to identifying, attracting, and winning the right customers. ABX is what happens when you extend that same mindset across the entire customer journey. It recognises that long-term value is created by everyone who interacts with your accounts, not just sales and marketing.

That means you don’t need to choose between ABM vs ABX. You start with ABM, learn what works, and let it grow naturally. And you don’t need to be perfect from day one. As long as you’re customer-centric, collaborative, and committed to delivering better experiences, your organisation will evolve an ABX strategy that drives value for customers and the company.