Why Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy Got Stuck Before It Got Started (and How to Fix It)

Why ABM Is on Everyone’s Radar (And Why That’s a Good Thing)

Account-based marketing (ABM) is having a moment. Although exact numbers vary, there’s a clear upward trend in B2B organisations attempting to launch account-based marketing strategies:

• 70% of marketers reported “using ABM” in 2021, up from 15% in 2020. (HubSpot)
• By 2023, another survey found 96% of B2B marketers had documented ABM strategies and 98% said they’re central to achieving objectives. (Foundry).
• Uptake is slower in APAC is a growing market, where 38% of B2B marketers had an established ABM approach in 2024; another 37% were starting on the journey, while 16% were assessing the value, and 9% weren’t interested. (xGrowth).

So why do you feel like your account-based marketing strategy is going nowhere fast, while everyone else is off to the races? In our conversations with B2B clients, it’s clear that many are keen to launch ABM strategies, but are spinning their wheels trying to create the perfect plan. Others have taken the first steps, but either slowed or stalled for reasons we’ll explore shortly.

The truth is, you don’t need a flawless system to start seeing value. You don’t need expensive tech to target new accounts. And you don’t need a 50-page strategy to start testing account-based marketing strategies. You mainly need a clear vision and internal alignment. ABM leaders get those fundamentals in place and mature over time.

What ABM Actually Is (It’s Not as Intimidating as You Think)

ABM is a way of thinking about marketing and sales efforts through the lens of accounts, not individuals. It means:

• Putting your best-fit customers (“accounts”) at the centre of your strategy, then building everything else around them.
• Strategically engaging businesses you want to win, not just any and all leads that land in your funnel.
• Focusing your energy (and resources) on a curated list of target accounts.

If that sounds familiar, good. Your ABM approach might already be more mature than you realise.

Four Pillars of Account-Based Marketing

Effective ABM is a strategic mindset. The tactics and tools look different for every organisation. However, all successful ABM strategies are built on four core elements:

• ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles): You probably have a sense of your best customers already. ABM combines sales and marketing insight to define their key characteristics clearly.
• Decision-makers and influencers: B2B deals rarely involve just one person. Who shapes the buying decision? Who needs convincing? Mapping the decision makers & key influencers into a Buying Group is key.
• Tailored messaging: Once you know the people involved, you can speak to them directly. That means moving from linear campaigns to personalised messaging for the Buying Group in addition to specific experiences for: decision-makers, influencers, users, detractors, and procurement.
• Meaningful success measures: Forget lead volume. ABM is about how deeply you’re engaging the right accounts and their stakeholders, and how effectively they’re moving through the sales funnel.

You don’t need four fully built pillars to begin. We look at account-based marketing maturity as a matrix with spectrums in each quadrant, rather than a linear scale.

Breaking Through ABM Barriers

If account-based marketing is so simple, why aren’t more B2B organisations doing it to a high level? We see the same hurdles pop up time and again, across different industries and company profiles.

The Immovable Mountain of Marketing

There’s a misconception that ABM replaces traditional B2B marketing approaches. It doesn’t. It applies a new lens, one that’s capable of zooming out to see the entire account while simultaneously tracking multiple individuals within it.

This means an account-based marketing strategy can roll out alongside or within your existing systems, gradually reframing your approach rather than suddenly upending it.

“Traditional demand-gen marketing casts a wide net. Marketers chase lead volume and score individuals, and sales only get involved when leads hit certain thresholds. With ABM, the teams are united in scoring accounts and measuring the strength of relationships. You’re still engaging people – just with the context of their role in the buying group and their influence on the decision.”

Richard Austin, B2B Practice Lead

Lack of Experienced Support

In xGrowth’s State of ABM in APAC 2024 survey, more than 40% of new ABM practitioners reported that a lack of implementation support was a significant pain point. Around 30% also cited a lack of experience. Around 27% felt the process was too complicated.

This matches our experience. We often hear of teams getting overwhelmed before they really get started, whether due to internal capability gaps or a lingering bad taste from a failed ABM experiment.

How To Get the Right Support:

• Audit your team’s experience and capabilities; identify gaps and key requirements
• Be smart about your goals and KPIs.
• Work with strategic consultants who are experienced in ABM.
• Engage them early to ensure customer centricity is built into the foundation of your ABM approach.

Sales and Marketing (Mis)Alignment

From the xGrowth’s survey, sales and marketing alignment was the main motivator for 75% of new practitioners and around 60% of established teams. Overall, 62.8% of respondents said greater alignment was the biggest benefit of implementing ABM.

How To Align Sales and Marketing Behind ABM:

• Set shared goals.
• Identify common ICP traits.
• Collaborate on account planning sessions.
• Define who owns what stage of the customer journey.

Define the process to manage leads, sales handovers and ongoing marketing support.

The last point is where a lot of organisations become stuck, aiming to create the perfect solution before any work is done. Taking an agile approach, working with a small group of ABM advocates from sales, will enable these processes to be developed alongside the PoCs and initial ABM tactics.

“ABM is a catalyst for sales and marketing alignment. Sales and marketing alignment is an enabler for ABM. This is usually a profound insight for clients we help to properly implement and mature a long-term ABM approach. They help each other out, and also help the business to become integrated and customer-centric.”

Richard Austin, B2B Practice Lead

The Perfection Problem

Perfection is the enemy of progress. Don’t wait until every ICP profile, workflow, or dashboard is flawless.

Every business is at a different point. For example, you might know who makes the decisions at your ICP’s company but not how to reach them. Or you might have a slick sales deck that works in some boardrooms but not others.

Start where you are, not where you think you should be. You’ll get the most value by testing your account-based marketing approach with a handful of accounts and iterating as you go.

How To Start:

• Launch a pilot with what you have.
• Pick one thing: a single high-value account or ICP.
• Test your concept and learn from mistakes.
• Measure what matters and refine as you go.
• Establish maturity milestones.

Tech Overwhelm

You don’t need a giant tech stack to see momentum or value in account-based marketing. In fact, you probably have what you need right now: a CRM, engagement platforms, and access to LinkedIn. Nearly 1 in 2 new ABM adopters (46.3%) and 1 in 3 established practitioners (over 30%) don’t have any specific tech. Tools help, but strategy and alignment are far more impactful.

Optimising Your Tech Stack for Maximum Impact

• Focus on strategy, not software.
• Use the tools you already have to get started.
• Upgrade or update existing tech before investing in new tools.
• Layer in new tech only when there is a clear ROI.

Where To Start With ABM and What’s Holding You Back

Why We Always Start With Strategy

We talk to a lot of marketing and sales teams who feel like they’re skimming the surface of account-based marketing but can’t break through. They’re targeting key accounts. Maybe they’re testing personalised campaigns or gathering data on individuals within ICPs.

They score a few wins, but then progress falters and people get frustrated. The problem isn’t that ABM is wrong for the business. It’s simply the disconnection between these first efforts.

This is why an ABM strategy workshop is valuable. It’s a chance to:

• Get sales and marketing in a room together.
• Map out what’s already happening.
• Agree on where you want to go.
• Define your best-fit customers.
• Align on what “good” looks like.

More than anything, it’s an opportunity to define how you see ABM. Every business defines it differently. A clear and agreed vision is the essential core of every effective account-based marketing strategy.

Pinpointing ICPs For a Pilot

For many organisations, a simple “lookalike” strategy is one of the fastest, smartest ways to prove there’s value in pursuing an account-based marketing strategy. Find new accounts that look similar to your best current customers, and test the aligned approach on them.

There will be missteps and tactics that fall flat. But you’re guaranteed to learn a lot from every interaction. As long as you’re taking calculated risks, that experience is significantly more valuable than doing nothing.

You Don’t Need A Perfect Account-Based Marketing Approach

Just Keep Moving, Learn and Optimise as You Go.

Account-based marketing strategies enable brilliant B2B customer experiences. By aligning your teams behind what matters most, and focusing your resources where they’ll have the biggest impact, you’ll create a revenue engine that delivers exceptional ROI.
What you can’t afford to do is get bogged down in details right at the starting line. If you take one thing away from this guide, let it be this: momentum beats perfection every time.

ABM is never finished. New opportunities arise, markets change. You’ll always be learning and refining your approach. Everything else – messaging, targeting, measurement – falls into place as you mature.

In our next guide, we’ll dig into the people side of ABM strategies. How to map decision-makers, engage influencers, and personalise your approach for every key role in your target accounts. Follow us on LinkedIn or join our mailing list to hear about it first.