Report: Despite Challenges, B2B Marketers Remain Dedicated to Account-Based Marketing

Although B2B marketers are still relatively new in adopting account-based marketing (ABM), new research shows that they are already seeing success with this tactic.

DemandGen recently conducted the “ABM Benchmark Survey Report” along with Uberflip and Vidyard, and statistics showed that 52 percent of B2B marketers have had an ABM strategy in place for up to a year. In addition, about 50 percent claim that their ABM efforts are meeting their organizational expectations.

That being said, the implementation of ABM hasn’t come without its challenges for some marketers. The majority of B2B marketers (40 percent) said that proving ROI/attribution is their largest issue when it comes to ABM. This was followed by sales and marketing alignment (39 percent), and personalization at scale toward target accounts (35 percent).

Marketers Growing Confident in their ABM Tactics

Despite  challenges associated with ABM, previous research suggests that marketers are still overall relatively confident when it comes to this tactic.

Openprise surveyed marketing executives for its “2018 Marketing Operations Benchmarking Report,” and asked respondents to rank their responses based on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. When asked how confident they felt about ABM, companies with 501 to 1,000 employees showed the highest level of confidence, averaging a 3.73 response. Companies with more than 5,000 employees were close behind (3.55), followed by those with 251 to 500 employees (3.42).

“Surprisingly, respondents had more confidence in their ability to execute their ABM strategy than most other categories, suggesting the coming of age for ABM programs,” wrote the authors of the report.