Account-Based Marketing

8Measuring What Matters:

What Effective Metrics Look Like for ABM

You may remember from earlier in this book that we said there were two central concepts to ABM and they should always be on your mind—accounts and revenue. It would not be incorrect to add the third concept of measurement.

Though it seems common sense that of course businesses know to measure regularly, in our experience the common sense does not always translate to common practice.

For example, certain types of brand awareness are extremely tough to measure. You may have spent six figures or more to have your logo appear on the wall of a sports arena, in view of television cameras. Good luck with tying that back to measurable results. That is not to say that all such money is wasted. Maybe there are intangible reasons for executives making those decisions. As long as they represent a small amount of the marketing budget, they may have a place.

We think that the vast majority of a marketing budget should be spent in ways where the results can be reliably measured.

Attribution

We know that the grass often seems greener where others live, but even so, we think the B2C marketers have it a little easier. We’re referring to attribution, or the practice of trying to determine what action resulted in a conversion.

B2C sales can be complex if they involve, for example, the sale of a Gulfstream jet to the ultra-rich. But most consumer purchases are relatively short and transactional. A company runs an ad that’s tagged ...