Did you know that 87% of marketers say Account-Based Marketing (ABM) delivers higher ROI than other marketing initiatives? In today’s B2B landscape, businesses are increasingly turning to ABM to target high-value accounts with precision and personalization. Rather than casting a wide net, ABM focuses on individual accounts, treating them as their own distinct markets.

In this post, we’ll explore what makes ABM so effective and take a deeper dive into a successful ABM program I led at Okta, showcasing real-world strategies that drive meaningful results.

What is ABM?

ABM is a strategic approach where marketing and sales teams collaborate to create personalized buying experiences for high-value target accounts. Instead of relying on broad-based demand generation, ABM focuses on key prospects with customized content and engagement strategies to deepen relationships and maximize ROI.

Why ABM is Powerful

1. Highly Personalized Approach: ABM allows businesses to tailor content and outreach specifically for each account, improving relevance and engagement.
2. Sales and Marketing Alignment: ABM fosters closer collaboration between sales and marketing, ensuring both teams are working together to move high-value accounts through the funnel.
3. Efficient Resource Allocation: Focusing on high-potential accounts minimizes wasted marketing efforts, optimizing ROI and driving better results.

ABM in Action: My Experience at Okta

At Okta, we integrated ABM components into several successful campaigns. Here’s how we approached it:

Step 1: Target Account Identification & Segmentation

Using 6Sense, we identified high-potential accounts by combining intent data with direct collaboration from sales. This allowed us to hone in on the Target Account List (TAL), aligning marketing and sales efforts on the most strategic accounts. We mapped each account to the right buyer stage — ensuring that our messaging and offers were appropriate for their current level of engagement.

Step 2: Personalized LinkedIn Campaigns

Once we had our TAL, we launched highly personalized campaigns on LinkedIn. By leveraging LinkedIn’s advanced targeting tools, we focused on reaching the right job titles and roles within each account. We used a mix of promoted posts, carousel ads, lead generation ads, and event registration ads — each customized by buyer stage, industry, and role. For high-priority accounts, we even created ads that called out the account by name, addressing their specific business challenges.

This personalized approach led to a 35% increase in engagement from target accounts and 10% more meetings booked through the LinkedIn platform.

Step 3: Tailored Follow-Up Sequences and Personalized Portals

Leads generated from these campaigns were entered into personalized follow-up sequences through our SDR teams. Each lead received a link to a customized portal built specifically for their account, showcasing the most relevant use cases, customer stories, and features for their industry. These portals even introduced the prospects to their dedicated sales reps, which helped build rapport and trust early in the relationship.

This increased lead-to-opportunity conversion by 15%.

Step 4: Field Events and Meeting Incentives

For prospects who engaged with our offers or attended field events (both virtual and in-person), we used a variety of personalized incentives to encourage meeting bookings. For example, those who booked meetings received “Meeting Makers” — themed gift boxes that included fun goodies, branded items, and a handwritten card. This human touch reinforced the personal connection we were trying to create and led to a 20% increase in meetings booked from prospects.

Step 5: Engagement-Driven Follow-Ups

At our live events, we took detailed notes on each participant’s questions and challenges, allowing us to tailor follow-up discussions to their specific needs. This personalized engagement helped us fast-track conversations and deepen relationships with key decision-makers.

Step 6: Scaling Engagement with Broader Stakeholders

Once an account converted into an opportunity, we expanded our efforts. We increased digital ad spend to reach more stakeholders within the organization, ensuring that everyone from influencers to decision-makers was aware of our solutions. Depending on the size of the opportunity, Field Marketing collaborated with ABM to organize invite-only, account-specific events — such as private dinners and sports events — designed to build stronger relationships with key stakeholders.

This multi-channel approach helped us accelerate deals, ultimately leading to higher win rates and faster deal velocity.

Key Components of a Successful ABM Strategy

From my experience, here are the key elements for ABM success:

1. Data-Driven Targeting: Tools like 6Sense allow you to identify the right accounts at the right time, ensuring that your marketing efforts are laser-focused on accounts that are primed to engage.
2. Personalized Multi-Channel Engagement: Using LinkedIn to target specific roles within accounts, while also leveraging email, direct mail, and personalized content portals, ensures your message reaches the right audience at the right time.
3. The Human Touch: Personalized gifts like “Meeting Makers” or handwritten notes make prospects feel valued, enhancing engagement. This human connection can drive meetings and relationship-building opportunities.
4. Sales and Marketing Collaboration: Sales and marketing must work hand-in-hand, ensuring consistent messaging and seamless follow-up. In the Okta campaign, this collaboration was key to turning engagement into real opportunities.

The Results Speak for Themselves

Our ABM efforts at Okta produced significant results, including a 35% lift in engagement from target accounts, 15% higher conversion rates, and a 160% ROI on certain key campaigns. By focusing on high-value accounts and delivering a highly personalized experience at every stage of the buyer’s journey, we were able to drive faster deal velocity and larger opportunities.

The Future of ABM

ABM is evolving. With advancements in AI and machine learning, we’ll see more sophisticated ways to identify target accounts and deliver even more personalized engagement.

Currently, tools like AmpleMarket Duo can autonomously do deep company prospect research, create hyper-personalized outreach sequences and respond to prospects with all the intelligence about your offerings and full knowledge of your sales enablement library that it has been trained on.

And this is just one of a entirely new generation of tools, such as 11x.ai, Unify, CommonRoom, TofuHQ and AirOps which are able to go beyond what ABM marketers of yesterday could dream of. LLMs are finding, enriching and stitching together profiles, as well as creating emails, chats and webpages on-the-fly.

In the coming years, ABM will continue to be a critical strategy for businesses looking to deepen relationships with their most valuable prospects.