6 ABM Best Practices to Close High-Value Deals in 2025

Introduction

ABM has gone through a bit of an identity shift. A few years ago, it was all about high-intent ads and personalized email sequences. Today, it’s a balancing act; teams are trying to do deep research on each account while also scaling personalization across dozens, sometimes hundreds, of target companies. 

Everyone’s asking the same thing: how do we keep the quality without sacrificing speed?

What’s clear is this: ABM is still one of the most effective ways to drive B2B growth. It’s not just about creating another campaign. It’s about building coordinated experiences that speak to real business pain points, across buying committees, channels, and internal teams. 

Forrester’s 2024 data shows ABM delivers 21%-50% higher ROI, with 23% of companies seeing 51%-200% higher returns, yet only 36% feel confident in their ABM execution.

Why? Because many companies treat ABM like a rebranded demand-gen strategy instead of a highly focused, account-centric approach.

Here’s the reality: ABM isn’t just about targeting high-value accounts, it’s about engaging the right decision-makers at the right time with the right message.

And that requires a strategic mix of precision targeting, multi-channel engagement, hyper-personalization, and seamless sales-marketing collaboration.

So, if you’re wondering how to make ABM click in 2025, this blog is for you. 

I’m breaking down 6 ABM best practices backed by data, real-world execution, and lessons from campaigns that have actually moved pipeline. Let’s get into it.

6 ABM Best Practices for 2025

Account-Based Marketing is more than just about picking a few target accounts and sending out personalized emails. Here, the details matter. How you choose accounts, what messages you use, and how often you follow up can be the difference between a campaign that delivers and one that falls flat. 

That’s why following a clear set of best practices isn’t just helpful; it gives your team focus, improves alignment with sales, and ensures your efforts actually lead to pipeline and revenue.

When we worked with Vymo, they needed to generate a $3M pipeline per quarter while penetrating the highly competitive Indian banking and insurance sector. 

The challenge? Engaging decision-makers across 50 high-value accounts while maintaining a strong brand presence.

Through a mix of targeted messaging, smart channel choices, and close collaboration between sales and marketing, we helped them generate $21M in marketing-sourced pipeline. Every move was intentional, from how accounts were prioritized to how follow-ups were structured.

Read more → How Vymo generated $21M marketing sourced pipeline using this personalized ABM strategy

Here’s how to put structure behind your ABM strategy, one step at a time.

1. Identify and Prioritize High-Value Accounts

The biggest mistake most SaaS companies make with ABM? They cast too wide a net. 

ABM is not about reaching as many companies as possible, neither is it trigger-based marketing. You don’t build a list based on hiring trends or short-term movements; you build it around long-term fit, revenue potential, and strategic alignment.

Here is a breakdown of ABM best practices to get account selection right and how Snowflake puts this into practice using data and intent signals.

Best Practice: Use a Data-Driven Approach to Account Selection

Successful ABM starts with selecting the right accounts using data, not assumptions. 

Here’s how to refine account selection:

1. Go Beyond Surface-Level ICP: 

Many companies stop at industry, company size, and revenue. While these are important, real precision comes from layering firmographic, technographic, and behavioral data.

• Firmographic Data: Includes company size, revenue, industry, and organizational structure. Understanding a company’s growth stage and funding history helps determine fit.
• Technographic Data: Knowing what software and tools a company already uses helps identify potential compatibility and integration opportunities.
• Behavioral Data: Tracking engagement levels such as website visits, content downloads, or webinar participation can signal buying intent before a prospect ever talks to sales.

At Snowflake, marketing works with sales to refine account lists by combining rep input with data signals. They evaluate firmographic fit, engagement patterns, and organizational complexity to build lists that reflect both strategic alignment and likelihood to convert.

2. Leverage Intent Data: 

Tools like 6sense, Demandbase, and Bombora help identify accounts actively researching solutions in your category. Intent data provides insights such as:

• Companies evaluating your competitors
• Organizations reading content related to your product category
• Increased search activity on pricing, integrations, or ROI calculators

Snowflake uses Bombora to track surging accounts across hundreds of topics and competitors. These signals directly guide campaign activation and SDR outreach, helping them respond quickly with relevant content and messaging aligned to what the account is actively researching.

3. Segment Accounts by Buying Stage: 

Not all accounts are ready to buy. Divide accounts into different stages of the buyer journey to tailor engagement:

• Top-of-Funnel Accounts: Share educational content like industry reports, whitepapers, and thought leadership pieces.
• Mid-Funnel Accounts: Provide ROI calculators, case studies, and customer testimonials to deepen engagement.
• Bottom-Funnel Accounts: Offer personalized demos, 1:1 consultations, and limited-time incentives to accelerate conversions.

To map outreach to buying stages, Snowflake analyzes a mix of anonymous web behavior and CRM activity. Accounts showing intent but no engagement are routed to top-funnel programs, while sales engages active accounts using tailored content and personalized landing pages.

4. Utilize Predictive Analytics: 

Analyze past sales data to identify trends in high-converting accounts:

• Which industries generate the highest conversion rates?
• What job titles are most involved in purchasing decisions?
• What content types drive the most engagement among decision-makers?

Predictive models at Snowflake generate Marketing Qualified Account (MQA) scores that combine fit and intent signals. These scores are visualized inside Salesforce, helping SDRs quickly identify high-potential accounts and act on real-time engagement insights without missing key windows.

Snowflake’s approach to account selection, rooted in intent signals, predictive scoring, and buying stage segmentation, helped them triple lead-to-opportunity conversion rates and contributed to its $3.4 billion IPO, proving the power of targeted ABM execution.

“We use intent data for account prioritization, topic selection, and understanding subsidiaries... helping us bridge the gap in the 60% of buying cycles that happen anonymously.” — Hillary Carpio, Director of ABM at Snowflake

2. Engaging Decision-Makers at Every Level

SaaS purchases are rarely made by a single individual. A study by Gartner shows that B2B buying decisions involve multiple stakeholders, typically 6 to 10, each with different perspectives and priorities. 

A buying committee typically includes the end-users, economic buyers (CFOs & finance teams), technical decision-makers (IT & security teams), and executive sponsors (the senior leaders making strategic decisions). 

Failure to engage the full buying committee can result in stalled deals or lost opportunities. 

Here you’ll know how to engage those decision-makers across roles and how Qlik built this into their ABM motion with precision.

Best Practice: Identify and Tailor Messaging to Different Stakeholders

1. Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Identify key stakeholders within your target accounts by searching for relevant job titles and organizational roles.

2. Analyze Historical Deal Data: Identify common decision-makers from past successful deals to find patterns in the purchasing process.

3. Conduct Stakeholder Interviews: Get firsthand insights from existing customers to understand how decisions were made.

4. Segment Stakeholders by Influence: Categorize them based on decision-making authority and prioritize those with the most sway.

Qlik used 6sense’s buying team intelligence to surface key decision-makers across target accounts and uncover gaps in engagement. This gave both sales and marketing a unified view of the entire committee, helping them focus outreach on stakeholders most likely to influence deals.

5. Develop Persona-Based Content Strategies: Create specific content tailored to each type of stakeholder to increase engagement.

• CFOs & Finance Teams: They need a clear return on investment (ROI) and financial justification. Sharing financial models, detailed cost savings breakdowns, and multi-year impact assessments can make your case stronger.
• IT & Security Teams: They want to ensure compliance, integrations, and minimal security risks. Providing regulatory compliance reports, cybersecurity certifications, and API documentation can help.
• End Users: They need a seamless user experience and workflow optimization. Conducting usability studies, offering free trials, and showcasing customer success stories focusing on productivity gains can engage them.
• Executive Sponsors: They look for competitive advantages, long-term business impact, and scalability. Delivering vision-driven content, thought leadership articles, and analyst-backed industry insights will make them see the broader picture.

With this visibility in place, Qlik developed persona-specific messaging that addressed each role’s concerns. Content was aligned to where the stakeholder sat in the buying journey, from early education for technical teams to business-case ROI material for executives and finance leads.

Qlik’s ability to align content and outreach with each stakeholder’s role helped reduce time wasted on low-intent accounts by 30–40%. 

3. The Multi-Channel, Multi-Touch Engagement Model

SaaS buying cycles are long and require multiple touchpoints across various channels. A prospect rarely converts after a single interaction. 

An effective multi-touch engagement strategy ensures that target accounts see relevant messaging across multiple platforms, reinforcing the brand’s value proposition at every stage. 

McKinsey reveals that companies that provide the best omnichannel experience are improving their market share by at least 10% annually.

This section breaks down how to create a coordinated engagement model that stays relevant over time and how PitchBook executed this to shorten sales cycles and improve win rates.

Best Practice: Build a Multi-Channel Approach

1. Build a Multi-Channel ABM Strategy: Build an ABM strategy that doesn’t rely on a single channel but strategically combines multiple touchpoints to ensure sustained engagement. 

Here’s how each channel plays a role in an effective ABM strategy:

• Email Sequences: Personalized outreach via email remains one of the most effective ways to communicate directly with key decision-makers. Customized messaging based on prospect behavior (e.g., a follow-up email after an eBook download) can drive higher response rates.
• LinkedIn Engagement: Engage with target accounts by sending connection requests, interacting with their posts, and sharing valuable insights through direct messages.
• Retargeting Ads: Prospects who visit your site or interact with emails should be retargeted with dynamic ads across Google, LinkedIn, and other programmatic platforms. ABM-specific ad campaigns tailored to industry pain points can improve brand recall and increase click-through rates.
• Webinars & Virtual Events: Live, interactive events tailored to industry challenges can position your company as a thought leader. Use first-party data from registrations to create follow-up cadences and customized post-event engagement plans.
• Direct Mail & Personalized Gifting: While often overlooked, direct mail and gifting can break through digital noise. Sending a tailored gift, such as a book on industry trends or a handwritten note, can strengthen relationships with high-value accounts.

PitchBook layered display ads with outbound sales touches using RollWorks to make sure target accounts saw consistent messaging across both marketing and sales channels. 

2. Develop a 90-Day Account Engagement Plan: Ensure that each high-value target receives 8-12 touches over three months across multiple channels. Structure engagement efforts so that outreach moves from awareness (educational content) to decision (personalized demos and offers).

To structure their campaigns, PitchBook used account intent data to guide when and how to activate outreach across their 90-day cycle, keeping sales and marketing aligned throughout.

3. Leverage Intent Signals: Use platforms like 6sense, Bombora, and Demandbase to identify accounts actively researching solutions in your category. Prioritize engagement based on real-time buying signals rather than cold outreach.

PitchBook utilized RollWorks to find which accounts were in-market and prioritize them accordingly, allowing the team to focus only on accounts that showed active buying signals.

4. Automate Outreach with Personalization: AI-driven tools like Drift, Outreach.io, and Marketo allow marketers to scale engagement while keeping messaging highly relevant. Use dynamic content to personalize touchpoints at scale.

By connecting RollWorks with their marketing automation tools, PitchBook was able to launch coordinated campaigns that delivered consistent messaging relevant to each prospect's current stage in the buying journey without manual effort.

5. Measure and Optimize: Track engagement metrics across channels and adjust strategies based on which touchpoints drive the most impact. Use heatmaps and analytics dashboards to identify where prospects are dropping off and optimize accordingly.

PitchBook reviewed campaign performance across ad engagement, site visits, and pipeline impact, refining strategies based on what resonated most with target accounts.

PitchBook’s multi-channel ABM strategy led to a 14.94% faster sales cycle, a 24.32% higher win rate, and a 36.85% increase in average deal size. Over 31% of their closed-won pipeline came from ad-influenced opportunities.

4. Hyper-Personalization Beyond Generic Outreach

Traditional marketing often focuses on broad, one-size-fits-all messaging, but ABM is fundamentally different; it requires highly customized, account-specific engagement at every touchpoint. 

Generic outreach leads to low engagement rates, while hyper-personalization significantly improves response rates, deal velocity, and conversion rates. This is backed by a 2024 Statista study that states 58% of B2B marketers in the U.S. are optimistic about adopting AI in B2B marketing to enhance personalization efforts.

This section looks at how to build personalization at every touchpoint and how Dialpad used this approach to boost engagement and accelerate deal cycles.

Best Practice: Implement Deep Personalization Across All Touchpoints

To drive meaningful engagement, every interaction must demonstrate a clear understanding of the prospect’s industry, challenges, and company goals. 

Here’s how to do it effectively:

1. Account-Specific Content & Reports

Create customized resource hubs for each target account, featuring relevant case studies, competitor comparisons, and industry insights. Decision-makers respond best to data-driven reports that highlight how their company stacks up against industry benchmarks and how your solution can improve key metrics.

Dialpad developed persona-specific ad campaigns addressing distinct pain points, directing prospects to tailored feature pages instead of the generic homepage.

2. Personalized Email & Video Outreach

Move beyond templated emails by referencing company milestones, funding rounds, or leadership changes. Complement this with 1:1 video outreach like recorded messages that directly address a prospect’s pain points make engagement more genuine and effective.

By integrating RollWorks with Salesforce, Dialpad synchronized data to craft personalized outreach, enhancing engagement with key stakeholders.

3. Dynamic Website & Landing Page Personalization

Rather than directing prospects to generic landing pages, build microsites with personalized messaging, relevant case studies, and ROI calculators. Tools like Mutiny and Clearbit enable real-time personalization, ensuring that each visitor from a target account sees content relevant to their role and industry.

4. Leveraging Automation & CRM Data for Tailored Outreach

AI-driven tools like Drift, Marketo, and Outreach.io dynamically insert company names, industry trends, and engagement history into messaging. Your CRM contains valuable interaction data; tracking website visits, content downloads, and sales conversations helps tailor follow-ups based on real-time engagement.

Dialpad utilized RollWorks' machine learning to target personas accurately, ensuring ads reached the right individuals within their target accounts.

5. Multi-Channel & Omnichannel Engagement

A well-rounded ABM strategy requires consistent engagement across LinkedIn, email, retargeting ads, and direct messaging. Omnichannel engagement ensures that prospects experience a seamless, personalized journey across multiple touchpoints, reinforcing your brand's presence.

6. Social Selling & Relationship Building

Engaging on LinkedIn through comments, shared insights, and direct outreach builds trust and credibility. Strategic social selling helps penetrate target accounts, strengthen relationships, and position your brand as a trusted industry solution.

Dialpad's hyper-personalized ABM approach led to a 10x increase in site visits from target accounts, a 21x lift in engaged accounts, and a 52% faster deal cycle.

5. Sales & Marketing Alignment

A successful ABM strategy hinges on seamless collaboration between sales and marketing. If marketing generates high-value ABM leads but sales fails to act on them promptly and effectively, conversion rates plummet. 

Forrester states at least 26% of ABM programs lack a solid foundation, often due to misalignment between sales and marketing teams.

To maximize ABM success, both teams must work in lockstep, ensuring that messaging, targeting, and execution are aligned at every stage of the buyer journey.

This section highlights ABM best practices to foster this alignment and how IBM successfully implemented them during their US Open campaign.

Best Practice: Foster Seamless Sales-Marketing Collaboration

Achieving sales-marketing alignment requires structured processes, shared goals, and consistent communication. 

Here’s how to create an integrated approach:

1. Joint Account Selection & Unified Data

Sales and marketing should collaboratively identify high-value accounts by combining sales insights with marketing data analysis. A unified CRM ensures both teams track engagement history, buying signals, and interactions in real time, eliminating communication gaps.

During their US Open campaign, IBM’s marketing and sales teams jointly identified and prioritized over 9,500 engaged accounts using Demandbase data, tripling their results from the previous year.

2. Real-Time ABM Dashboards

Shared dashboards in HubSpot, Salesforce, or Marketo provide sales reps with instant visibility into how prospects interact with marketing content. This enables timely, personalized outreach, improving engagement and conversion rates.

3. Revenue-Focused Metrics & KPIs

Instead of siloed metrics (MQLs vs. closed deals), both teams should align on revenue-driven KPIs like pipeline influence, deal acceleration, and closed-won rates to measure ABM success effectively.

4. Regular ABM Sync Meetings

Consistent check-ins between sales and marketing help refine targeting by reviewing lead quality, engagement patterns, and objections encountered. This ensures ongoing optimization of content and outreach strategies.

IBM used regular cross-functional meetings during the campaign to analyze real-time engagement and adjust follow-ups, allowing both teams to act on insights while the campaign was live.

5. Sales Enablement & Tailored Outreach

Equip SDRs with battle cards, competitive intelligence, and custom pitch decks to tailor outreach based on industry trends, account pain points, and past interactions, strengthening engagement with key decision-makers.

IBM’s sales team used Demandbase personalization insights to tailor follow-ups based on each account’s behavior on their US Open campaign microsite, delivering more relevant outreach at scale.

IBM’s sales-marketing alignment helped them identify 3x more engaged accounts than the year before and double the number of top accounts surfaced during the US Open campaign.

6. ABM Metrics That Matter

ABM success is no more determined by traditional marketing metrics like website visits, email open rates, or even social media impressions. These vanity metrics provide surface-level insights but fail to capture the real impact of ABM on revenue growth and pipeline acceleration. 

ABM is fundamentally about quality over quantity; the key is to focus on revenue-driven KPIs that provide insights into pipeline velocity, multi-stakeholder engagement, and account conversion rates.

In 2023, 71% of companies planned to increase ABM spend, with an average ABM budget growth of 13.1% year-on-year, indicating a focus on measurable outcomes.

This section focuses on the metrics that matter most and how Personify used them to prove real ABM success.

Best Practice: Focus on Revenue-Driven ABM Metrics

Instead of vanity metrics, successful ABM teams track KPIs that provide a direct link between marketing efforts and revenue outcomes. 

Here’s what to measure:

1. Pipeline Velocity & Account Progression

ABM success is measured by how quickly accounts move through the sales funnel. Tracking pipeline velocity and account progression ensures ABM efforts accelerate decision-making and nurture high-value deals efficiently.

2. Multi-Touch Attribution Models

ABM is multi-touch by nature as a single interaction rarely leads to conversion. Multi-touch attribution models connect emails, ads, and webinars to revenue outcomes, revealing the most effective engagement strategies.

3. Engagement Scoring for Prioritization

Assign scores to interactions like whitepaper downloads, demo requests, email responses, and LinkedIn interactions. High-scoring accounts should be prioritized for sales outreach to increase conversion rates.

Personify used RollWorks to build engagement-based scoring models that identified which accounts were progressing and which needed further nurturing, ensuring their sales team focused only on accounts likely to convert.

4. Multi-Stakeholder Engagement 

ABM deals involve multiple decision-makers. Tracking how many stakeholders from a target account engage with your content increases deal conversion rates. 

More engaged stakeholders = higher success probability.

5. Closed-Won Rate & Revenue Influence

Measure the percentage of ABM-targeted accounts that convert into customers. Instead of MQLs, track what portion of total revenue is influenced by ABM, proving its impact on business growth.

6. Deal Expansion, Retention & Renewals

The true success of ABM is in expanding the acquired accounts. Assess lifetime value (LTV), cross-sell opportunities, and retention rates to quantify ABM-driven revenue growth.

7. Sales & Marketing Reporting Alignment

A shared ABM dashboard with real-time engagement tracking ensures marketing efforts translate into actionable sales opportunities, preventing misalignment between sales and marketing teams.

By connecting RollWorks with Salesforce, Personify gained a unified view of account behavior and marketing impact, allowing them to report on sourced pipeline, influenced revenue, and campaign ROI with complete accuracy.

Personify’s data-driven ABM strategy led to an 8.5x return on marketing-sourced revenue and a 39x increase in engaged site visitors.

Final Thoughts

ABM success lies in targeting the right accounts, engaging them through multiple touchpoints, hyper-personalizing outreach, and aligning sales and marketing efforts.

The most successful SaaS companies in 2025 will be those that prioritize quality over quantity in account selection, implement highly personalized and data-driven engagement strategies, align sales and marketing to drive revenue-focused ABM initiatives, and use meaningful ABM metrics to track and refine strategies.

Ready to elevate your accounts-targeting with these ABM best practices? Let’s make it happen with your personalized ABM strategy!