What is Account-Based Marketing Software?
If you want to reach your ideal accounts, your team needs specific Account-based marketing (ABM) software to make it happen. Even though messaging, offers, and positioning are all super important, the ABM software you use can be the strategic advantage needed when targeting specific, high-value customer accounts.
An effective account-based marketing strategy aligns sales and marketing teams, improving lead quality and engagement through tailored tools and platforms.
The ABM software you implement is designed to help your marketing team take a more focused approach to engagement, allowing you to dedicate resources to accounts that have the highest likelihood of conversion.
Account-based marketing tools streamline the way your marketing team identifies, engages, and manages key accounts, making outreach more efficient and effective.
For B2B companies, the challenge often lies in reaching decision-makers within large organizations.
ABM software provides a structured way to identify these decision-makers, personalize communication, and align marketing and sales teams to deliver a consistent experience. By integrating data, personalization, and analytics, ABM tools enable marketing teams to concentrate their efforts where they matter most.
These platforms aren’t just about driving more leads—they’re about driving the right kind of engagement that converts into high-value customers. By personalizing outreach and aligning your marketing efforts with sales goals, ABM software brings a sharper focus to your campaigns, ultimately transforming your outreach into revenue.
In this article, we’ll explore the top account-based marketing software tools that small, scrappy marketing teams can use to streamline their ABM strategies, improve targeting, and drive more meaningful engagement with high-value accounts.
Key Features of ABM Software Tools
Every effective ABM software needs to help you achieve one goal: close more deals by engaging the right accounts in the right way. To do this, ABM tools provide a range of features that facilitate everything from account identification to personalized content delivery and campaign performance tracking.
Successful ABM platforms offer a combination of targeting precision, personalization, and detailed analytics to ensure marketing strategies are effective. These platforms integrate sales and marketing strategies, providing a cohesive approach that addresses customer needs and optimizes engagement throughout the buyer’s journey. The features listed below represent the core functionalities that differentiate high-performing ABM software from more generic marketing tools.
- Account Targeting & Segmentation: Tools should allow you to efficiently identify and prioritize high-value accounts based on firmographic, technographic, and intent data. Getting this right sets the stage for everything that follows. Effective targeting requires a deep understanding of potential accounts, and the best ABM tools integrate multiple data points to help you build accurate profiles and segments.
- Personalized Content & Messaging: ABM isn’t one-size-fits-all. The right platform will help you deliver custom experiences and messaging to individual accounts, making prospects feel like you truly understand their unique challenges. Personalization is key to ABM success, and effective platforms provide the tools to create tailored messaging across multiple touchpoints, from email to social media and web personalization. Personalized campaigns are crucial for delivering tailored messages to high-value accounts, enhancing engagement and improving overall marketing effectiveness.
- Multichannel Campaign Orchestration: Marketing happens across multiple channels—email, web, ads, social, etc. Great ABM software will help you manage campaigns seamlessly across all these channels to maximize account engagement. Coordinating these efforts ensures that your messaging is consistent and that you’re meeting your audience where they are, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
- Account Engagement Insights: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Look for tools that provide visibility into how accounts interact with your campaigns, so you can adjust your strategy in real time. Engagement insights help you identify what’s working, what’s not, and which accounts are ready for sales outreach, giving your team the data they need to optimize efforts effectively.
- Lead-to-Account Matching: ABM is about targeting companies, not just individuals. Effective lead-to-account matching helps ensure the right leads are properly associated with the corresponding target accounts. This feature is crucial for ensuring that every lead generated is connected to the larger account, providing a unified view of account activity that supports more informed decision-making.
- Sales & Marketing Alignment: The best results come when sales and marketing teams are on the same page. Choose ABM software that helps facilitate collaboration between these teams through shared data and unified engagement tools. Alignment tools ensure that sales has access to the same insights as marketing, enabling personalized outreach that aligns with the prospect’s journey and overall strategy.
- Analytics & Reporting: Insight into campaign performance and ROI is non-negotiable. Ensure your ABM platform delivers metrics that matter, like pipeline growth, account engagement scores, and ROI tracking. Detailed analytics provide the feedback loop necessary for continuous improvement, allowing your team to fine-tune campaigns based on real performance data.
Top Account-Based Marketing Software Tools for Small, Scrappy Teams
ABM Platforms for Sales and Marketing Teams
Account-based marketing platforms are foundational for sales and marketing teams looking to create, execute, and measure campaigns at the account level. These platforms enhance the effectiveness of sales reps in nurturing leads and managing customer relationships. They are designed to foster close collaboration between marketing and sales, ensuring that both teams have the insights they need to drive results.
- HubSpot: HubSpot is a staple for many marketing teams because of its CRM, marketing, and sales features that seamlessly integrate. HubSpot’s ABM tools allow you to create target account lists and deliver personalized content across different channels, making it an all-in-one solution for small teams. It offers features like intent data, website personalization, and reporting dashboards that make it easy to understand how well you’re engaging target accounts.
- Salesforce: This CRM powerhouse integrates ABM capabilities through add-ons and native features. Tools like Einstein (AI-powered insights) and Pardot (B2B marketing automation) can help smaller teams achieve ABM goals without investing in a suite of different products. Salesforce’s strength lies in its ability to provide detailed account insights and unify your sales and marketing strategy, ensuring every interaction is informed by the latest data.
- Apollo.io: Apollo is a hybrid of a CRM, prospecting tool, and ABM software. It has an extensive database of companies and contacts, offering verified email addresses and a powerful search engine that makes finding the right leads easy. Its multichannel campaign capabilities allow users to nurture leads across different platforms. Apollo is particularly well-suited for small teams that need robust lead generation combined with ABM features in a single, cost-effective package.
- Marketo Engage: Owned by Adobe, Marketo offers an ABM solution ideal for teams looking to execute complex multi-channel ABM campaigns. It provides advanced personalization options and multi-touch revenue attribution to help you understand exactly where your efforts are paying off. Marketo’s integration with other Adobe products also allows for a richer marketing experience, including advanced analytics and creative tools that enhance personalization efforts.
- Lemlist: Lemlist focuses on personalized email outreach and multichannel follow-up campaigns. Its main strength lies in its ability to make outreach more human, even at scale, making it ideal for scrappy teams looking to make their outreach stand out. Lemlist provides features that support A/B testing, customization, and detailed analytics, making it a great choice for small teams that want to improve their email engagement rates.
Lead Generation and List Building Tools
Lead generation is a crucial part of ABM, as identifying the right contacts at the right companies can make or break your campaign. The following tools are designed to help marketing teams efficiently build targeted lists and ensure they’re working with high-quality data.
- Leadfeeder: This tool identifies companies visiting your website and provides in-depth profiles on these companies. For ABM teams, this is an invaluable way to prioritize leads and understand who’s actively interested in your brand. Leadfeeder’s integration with CRM platforms allows you to pass this data to your sales team in real-time, making it easier to follow up with interested accounts promptly.
- Clearbit: Clearbit helps you build a robust lead list by leveraging real-time intelligence to provide detailed company and contact information. It integrates with tools like Salesforce and HubSpot, making it easy to put this information to use quickly. Clearbit’s strength lies in the depth of its data, providing insights that help tailor your messaging and ensure your campaigns reach the right decision-makers.
- Seamless.ai: Seamless.ai uses AI to find, verify, and enrich contact information, simplifying the lead generation process. The accuracy of its contact data is a standout feature, helping teams focus their efforts on high-potential leads. By automating the data gathering process, Seamless.ai allows small teams to allocate more time to strategy and outreach rather than data collection.
- Ocean.io: Ocean.io takes a unique approach by using AI to surface and prioritize accounts based on firmographic and technographic data. It’s a great option for smaller teams looking for a more scientific approach to account selection. Ocean.io helps identify target accounts that are not only a good fit but also have a high likelihood of engaging with your campaigns, ensuring your efforts are spent on the best opportunities.
- Clay: Clay is a data automation platform that enables marketers to build workflows for gathering and enriching datasets. If you need to automate data tasks within your marketing efforts, Clay can be a powerful ally in your ABM stack. Its versatility means you can use it to integrate data from various sources, enrich your contact lists, and build custom workflows that streamline your lead generation process. It’s a great tool for both marketing and sales teams.
Reporting and Analysis Tools
Reporting and analytics are essential components of any ABM marketing strategy. These tools provide the data needed to evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns, understand audience engagement, and make data-driven decisions to refine future efforts.
- Factors: This platform tracks and analyzes marketing campaigns using AI to provide actionable insights. Its focus on marketing analytics makes it ideal for teams that need a clear picture of campaign ROI and areas for improvement. Factors’ AI capabilities help identify patterns and trends that may not be immediately obvious, giving small teams a competitive edge by enabling smarter decision-making.
- Hockeystack: Hockeystack specializes in providing detailed insights into how users interact with your product and website. With attribution tracking and growth optimization features, Hockeystack helps teams refine their ABM campaigns based on real user data. This tool is particularly useful for SaaS companies looking to understand the entire customer journey, from initial engagement to conversion.
- Databox: Databox integrates with a wide range of data sources, from Google Analytics to HubSpot, to create visual dashboards for your key metrics. For teams needing an at-a-glance understanding of how campaigns are performing, Databox is a strong choice. Its customizable dashboards make it easy to track the metrics that matter most to your team, providing clarity and direction for ongoing ABM efforts.
Full Stack Account-Based Marketing Solutions
Full stack ABM solutions are designed to handle everything from account selection and targeting to campaign execution and performance analysis. These platforms offer a comprehensive set of features that make them ideal for teams looking to simplify their ABM tech stack.
- 6sense: 6sense uses predictive analytics to determine the best accounts to target, ensuring that your sales and marketing resources are focused on accounts most likely to convert. It offers real-time insights into which accounts are actively researching your products or services. 6sense’s capabilities allow teams to prioritize efforts effectively, ensuring that marketing and sales resources are dedicated to the most promising opportunities.
- Demandbase: Demandbase is an all-in-one ABM solution. It combines account-based advertising, website personalization, and sales insights, making it particularly powerful for teams that want a comprehensive ABM suite without having to cobble together different tools. Demandbase’s integration capabilities mean that data flows seamlessly between sales and marketing, supporting cohesive campaigns that drive engagement at every stage of the funnel.
- Terminus: Terminus offers an ABM platform that provides comprehensive multichannel account engagement. It includes features like account-based advertising, chat for ABM, and detailed analytics, helping your team align marketing efforts to drive revenue. Terminus’s strength lies in its ability to engage accounts across multiple touchpoints, ensuring that your message is consistent and that your team can effectively measure and optimize engagement.
- RollWorks: RollWorks provides easy-to-use tools for identifying and engaging target accounts. Its integration with CRMs and marketing platforms makes it accessible for small teams looking to enhance their ABM efforts without a massive tech stack overhaul. RollWorks offers a balance between ease of use and powerful features, making it a great choice for teams looking to get started with ABM without extensive technical resources.
Trends in Account-Based Marketing Software
Increased Adoption of AI and Machine Learning
Artificial intelligence is changing the game for ABM. Platforms are increasingly relying on AI to personalize targeting and improve campaign efficiency. AI can help marketers identify high-intent accounts, create personalized content, and even automate outreach based on user behavior. Expect AI-powered chatbots, predictive analytics, and account prioritization to become standard features in ABM software moving forward.
As AI becomes more prevalent, it’s also making ABM more accessible to smaller teams by automating processes that were previously manual and time-consuming. For scrappy marketing teams, this means the ability to punch above their weight class, delivering personalized experiences at scale without the need for massive resources.
Growing Importance of Customer Experience
ABM in 2024 is all about experience. Prospects are more demanding than ever, and a personalized experience can make or break a deal. Platforms that provide a unified view of customer interactions across channels are in high demand. Your ABM tools should help you deliver the right message at the right time—consistently.
Customer experience is no longer limited to just marketing—it’s the sum of all interactions a prospect has with your brand, from initial awareness to post-sale engagement. ABM platforms that provide insights into customer behavior across channels enable teams to tailor their messaging and ensure that each touchpoint adds value, ultimately improving conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
Key Takeaways for Small, Scrappy Marketing Teams Looking for the Right ABM Software
ABM software tools can be a lifeline for small, scrappy marketing teams, helping them drive impactful engagement with high-value accounts through a well-implemented account based marketing strategy. Implementing a well-aligned marketing strategy can facilitate lead generation and customer engagement throughout the marketing cycle and the customer journey. Whether you need help with targeting, lead generation, or multichannel orchestration, there’s a solution out there that fits your needs. Tools like HubSpot and Salesforce provide comprehensive ABM platforms, while options like Leadfeeder and Clearbit help you zero in on the right leads for your marketing efforts.
The trends for 2024 are clear—expect more AI, more personalization, and a greater emphasis on experience. As you evaluate your ABM stack, remember that it’s not about having every feature; it’s about having the right features to drive the outcomes that matter most for your team.