Skip to content
Log in
← Glossary

account-based marketing (ABM)

Also called: ABM, account-based selling

An approach in which marketing and sales pick specific target companies first and then shape messages, content and outreach for the people in those companies, instead of attracting as many leads as possible and sorting them later.

Account-based marketing (ABM) reverses the usual order of B2B marketing. Instead of attracting as many leads as possible and sorting them later, marketing and sales first agree on a short list of target companies (accounts), then research them, map the people in each buying committee and shape messages, content and outreach for those people. Marketing and sales work from the same list and the same plan.

ABM comes in depths. At its most personal, one account gets its own plan: a committee map, material written for its situation (for a training provider, a sample lesson built on the client's own documents), meetings with each role. Shallower forms group similar companies into clusters that share one case study and one message, or run light programs for every company that fits the ideal customer profile. Which depth an account gets is decided by account tiers.

ABM is worth it when deals are large, the list of fitting companies is finite and several people decide. It is costly per account, so it needs a good ideal customer profile first, and it is judged by what happens in the target accounts: meetings with the right roles, pilots, pipeline and won revenue, compared with what those accounts would likely have done anyway. It is not a tool, and it is not personalised email at scale; it is a decision about where to spend limited time.

Example

In autumn 2026 Klasna for Teams has about 100 hours a month for account work (its planning number, not a benchmark) and three accounts that could each change the year:

Account
Lessons a month
Value a year at 800 UAH
Veloria (logistics)
300
2,880,000
Cobalt (IT services)
450
4,320,000
Orchid (retail chain, head office)
400
3,840,000

Together 11,040,000 UAH a year (1,150 lessons × 800 × 12). These three get the one-to-one form of ABM: 45 hours a month, 15 each. For Veloria that means a committee map, a sample lesson built on a customs form, and a pilot plan agreed with Pavlo and the finance director, rather than a generic brochure.

The same month, a cluster of about a dozen IT services firms shares 10 hours: one case study, one webinar on English for client calls, follow-ups adapted to each firm, under an hour per firm. Success is judged per account: did Veloria's finance director take a call, did the pilot start, not how many people opened an email.

Common mistakes

  • Starting without an ICP. A target list chosen by fame or size spends the most expensive effort on the wrong companies.
  • Too many one-to-one accounts. Hours are fixed; every extra personal account thins the others.
  • Marketing and sales on different lists. ABM only works when both teams work the same accounts with one plan.
  • Measuring clicks and opens. Judge it by meetings with the right roles, pilots, pipeline and revenue in the target accounts.
  • Crediting every target-account deal to ABM. Compare with what similar accounts did without it before claiming the lift.

Learn it in the course