Most ABM campaigns fail to deliver pipeline. Here's why—and how to fix it.
Knowing what ABM is and building your campaign plan are just the start. Next, you’ll need to maximize your chances of success by fail-proofing your account-based B2B marketing tactics.
To do that, it’s important to understand why ABM campaigns typically fail and how to reduce your risk of making the same mistakes. We'll cover eight reasons ABM campaigns fail and seven ways to avoid those mistakes.
8 reasons ABM campaigns fail
First, let’s start by looking at common reasons why B2B account-based marketing fails.
1. Lack of alignment between sales and marketing teams
Many businesses treat ABM as marketing-only. That's a mistake. ABM works when sales and marketing run it together.
Successful ABM requires tight coordination between marketing and sales.
This alignment helps marketers create personalized content for each stage of the funnel using the information the sales team shares about the target buyers’ pain points and sales journey. That personalized content drives better lead quality and higher conversion rates.
On the other hand, the sales team nurtures and converts warm leads that the marketing team sends their way. Both teams need to stay aligned throughout the campaign.
2. Lack of common KPIs for determining a campaign’s performance
“Account-based marketing campaigns often fail because teams lack common KPIs,” shares Daily Profit Cycle’s Founder, Nick Hodge.
“While there will undoubtedly be some disparities in objectives, there must be common performance indicators to measure overall achievement. If marketing teams are evaluated solely on their ability to create leads, for example, this incentivizes them to generate more leads regardless of quality,” Hodge explains.
“Simultaneously, when sales teams are assessed solely on sales metrics such as transaction size, sales may engage with a fraction of prospects they deem worthwhile of their time.”
Common KPIs keep both teams focused on the same outcomes—pipeline and revenue.
3. Little to no campaign personalization
ABM also fails when marketing creates generic content that doesn't speak to specific account needs.
UserGems’ Senior Director of Revenue Operations, Joss Poulton, observes, “Unsuccessful ABM campaigns blast the same generic emails to one large audience of target accounts and lean on sales reps to do that painful work in the middle to draw people in where marketing couldn’t.”
Personalized content that addresses specific account pain points is essential for ABM success.
Your content needs to address specific struggles, offer real solutions, and use language your prospects actually use.
4. Not taking the customer into account
Account planning and ABM must be centered on the buyer / customer. Focus on the customer’s world, their context and challenges, and where you might be able to help them.
If your content only talks about your solution, you won't earn buyer trust.
Your message won't resonate, and your campaign won't drive pipeline.
5. Lack of top-down support and consistency
“ABM initiatives need executive support,” points out UserGems’ Marketing Campaign Lead, Khuyen Nguyen.
Without executive buy-in, your ABM program will struggle to get the resources and cross-functional alignment it needs.
“Because ABM requires a high level of commitment and teamwork from across multiple resources in the company, support from the top is critical for its success,” Nguyen explains.
6. Deploying every marketing trick in the bag
Pipeline anxiety is real. It pushes teams to launch too many tactics at once across too many channels. Trying everything at once dilutes your focus and makes it harder to track what's working.
It also makes it challenging for you to track each tactic’s progress, making it harder to understand which ones are the top performers.
Not to mention, when your focus is poor and you're trying too many tactics at once, you struggle to reap early wins. This, in turn, prevents you from getting stakeholder buy-in.
7. Giving up to early
Yet another reason why ABM campaigns fail is simply giving up too early. For example, teams often give up on paid media after a few weeks without results.
ABM that works requires consistency. Instead of assuming an ABM lever has failed, review the plan to see what could possibly be optimized.
8. Not leveraging the right tools
The right tools help you identify in-market accounts, track buyer signals, and coordinate outreach across sales and marketing.
For example, by tracking and showing details of how leads are interacting with the content you share with them, the right CRM can help you personalize your interaction with target accounts.
Similarly, by using automated pipeline generation playbooks to fill the gaps in your buying committees or track when key contacts join a target ABM account, your campaign team can automate outreach. OR reach out to satisfied alumni customers and accelerate the deal.
The wrong tools won't kill your ABM program outright. But they'll slow you down enough that you might give up before seeing results.
How to prevent your ABM campaigns from failing
Here's how to avoid these mistakes.
1. Make sure your sales and marketing team are aligned
Sales and marketing need to align on target account personas, pain points, and shared KPIs.
Keep both teams aligned throughout the campaign.
But make sure this alignment remains intact throughout the campaign. Because even if the teams are aligned at the beginning, Trinity Nguyen, VP of Marketing at UserGems, observes they can fall out of alignment in a quarter or two.
“Starting aligned is easy. Staying aligned is harder, especially when teams have conflicting priorities,” she notes.
Sharing her experience, Nguyen writes, “In one of my previous companies, we had all the best ABM tools. We also had alignment on our target account list and process. We thought we were aligned.
“A quarter after launching the program, we realized that the sales team only worked on half of the target accounts. Marketing wasted 50% of the ABM budget. Results fell short. This created mistrust between teams, and the ABM program stalled.”
Keep teams coordinated with weekly or biweekly meetings to review performance and share buyer intel.
For instance, at UserGems, where we’ve grown revenue by 5 times in one year with our ABM program, the ADR team sits within the marketing function.
Nguyen elaborates, “It ensures that the marketing team and ADRs go after the same accounts — and the same buyers — at the same time. When it is coordinated, our conversion rates double.”
It’s also important here for both teams to predefine and coordinate on which KPIs to track. This will ensure they are each held responsible for delivering the same standard of work and are motivated by the same results.
2. Personalize your ABM campaign
“Successful ABM targets specific companies and personas with content tailored to their needs, based on carefully researched account lists.,” explains Joss Poulton, the Senior Director of Revenue Operations here at UserGems.
Address specific pain points and show how you solve them. This builds genuine interest.
Poulton recommends using thought leadership content for this. “…[Create] brand presence through thought leadership and [stoke] product interest between the top and middle of the funnel.”
Your content needs to solve real problems for target accounts.
Show them how to solve the problems they're facing.
Use at least two channels where your target accounts are active.
Stay active on at least two different channels your target accounts use so they can see your business as a trustworthy source that can help them solve their problems.
3. Focus on your customer
Every piece of content should answer the prospect's question: what's in it for me?
This keeps your ABM focused on the customer, not your product—which builds trust.
As Tuchmayer puts it, “Focus on customer success, not your sales pitch. Otherwise, buyers will tune you out.”
First, both teams need to understand your ideal customer and their specific struggles.
List the common problems prospects face and how your product solves them.
Use this to create content that positions your product as the solution to their specific problems.
4. Get stakeholder buy-in early on
“Early wins secure stakeholder buy-in for future ABM campaigns,” suggests Travis Lindemoen, the Managing Director at Nexus IT Group.
To get early wins, you need to “You need budget for targeted content (ads, direct mail), time to work closely with sales, and media spend to reach your target accounts at scale.,” Lindemoen says.
Get the basics right first. Then you'll see early results that earn executive support.
5. Start small with a sharp focus
Don't try to do everything at once. Start with these steps:
Select 1-2 marketing channels your target accounts commonly use.
Work out which marketing tactics you want to run with. For example, LinkedIn ads, newsletters, thought leadership content, etc.
Decide which content assets you need to create. Choose from ad content, educational blog posts and videos, and LinkedIn articles, for instance.
This focused approach drives better results. All while making it easy to track the progress of each marketing tactic, channel, and content asset.
6. Be consistent with your efforts
“ABM requires a multi-year commitment.,” explains Lindemoen. Consistency matters.
First, set the right expectations. As Lindemoen notes, “Expect higher marketing and sales costs upfront. ABM requires significant planning, testing, and cross-team collaboration before you see results.”
You'll invest time and budget upfront before seeing returns.
Don't change your strategy or switch tactics just because you don't see immediate results. Instead, after you’ve put the initial legwork into planning a well-thought-out ABM strategy, stick with executing it by the timeline you originally set.
If a tactic isn't working, figure out why before you abandon it.
7. Invest in the right tool stack
Choosing the right sales prospecting tools for your account-based marketing campaigns can be overwhelming. However, you don’t need an elaborate tool kit. Instead, a CRM that meets your business needs paired with a simple sales prospecting tool is enough.
As Evking’s Managing Director, Gavin Johnson, advises, “A customer relationship management (CRM) platform that can report on engagement and the progress of customers moving through the sales process is all you need at the most basic level.
“You can use LinkedIn, Facebook, and AdRoll for account-based ad targeting after you’ve mastered these KPIs, or you can try with gifting applications for your first campaign.
“To execute a small pilot, none of these products demand six-figure yearly commitments or contracts. It’s time to start looking at adding additional horsepower to your toolkit when you’ve successfully demonstrated that an ABM approach will work for your firm,” Johnson adds.
At UserGems, our B2B ABM strategyrelied on a modest budget and a focused set of tools.
Salesforce for understanding our ideal customer profile (ICP)
Our own account tracking product that helps identify and add relevant prospects to target to our CRM
Improve your B2B account-based marketing today
Successful account-based marketing boils down to strong alignment between B2B marketers and the sales team. Communicate about who target customers are, their pain points, and how your product or service can help them. It’s also important for both teams to track common KPIs and review progress together to evaluate how well the campaign is attracting, nurturing, and converting customers.
Everyone involved should understand that ABM marketing takes significant time and effort upfront before it delivers ROI.
Investing in the right tools is essential to speed up progress and improve your ABM strategy's odds of success. A powerful CRM is a must.
You’ll also need a pipeline generation tool like UserGems that identifies warm target accounts such as alumni customers who have used your product and are likely to use it again in their new roles.
The best part? UserGems automatically shows these prospects and their new contact information in your Salesforce. This way, you can see new accounts to target and convert right away in your CRM — without additional admin work.
See it in action? Try UserGems for B2B account-based marketing today to give your ABM campaign a competitive edge.
