Account-Based Marketing isn’t just another marketing trend. It’s a deliberate, focused strategy designed to engage high-value accounts that matter to your business. Unlike traditional lead generation, which casts a wide net and hopes for conversions, ABM prioritizes quality over quantity. It ensures that marketing and sales efforts are aligned, targeting the right companies with the right messaging at the right time.
But ABM execution is where most teams struggle. Without the right tools, account-based marketing can be difficult to manage. Manually identifying target accounts, tracking engagement, and personalizing outreach across multiple channels takes time and effort.
Good thing there are HubSpot ABM features to help. HubSpot provides a structured approach to ABM, equipping businesses with target account tracking, AI-powered insights, automated engagement workflows, and detailed reporting. It removes manual busywork, helping teams focus on closing deals and strengthening customer relationships.
If ABM is part of your strategy or if you’re considering adopting it, understanding how to execute it efficiently is critical. Let’s get into it.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a targeted marketing approach that focuses on high-value accounts instead of chasing many leads. Instead of marketing to individuals, ABM treats entire companies as key customers. Marketing and sales teams work together to engage decision-makers within those companies using tailored content, ads, and outreach.
This approach is especially effective for B2B companies that sell to large organizations with multiple stakeholders. ABM ensures that every marketing effort is aligned with sales, leading to more relevant interactions and higher-quality deals.
How is ABM Different from Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing is like casting a wide net, hoping to catch as many leads as possible and then sorting through them later. Account-based marketing, on the other hand, is more precise. It focuses only on accounts that are a strong fit for your product.
Key differences:
Targeting: Traditional marketing reaches broad audiences based on demographics and behaviors. Account-based marketing focuses on companies that match your ideal customer profile (ICP), ensuring resources are spent on high-potential accounts.
Personalization: General marketing uses mass emails, blogs, and ads. ABM delivers tailored content, such as customized email sequences, account-specific webinars, and targeted ads for decision-makers.
Sales & Marketing Alignment: In traditional lead generation, marketing and sales often work separately. ABM requires collaboration, using shared data to engage and close high-value deals efficiently.
Measuring Success: Traditional marketing tracks clicks and impressions. ABM focuses on account engagement, pipeline movement, and revenue impact, ensuring marketing efforts lead to actual business results.
ABM shifts how businesses think about customer acquisition. It prioritizes quality over quantity, ensuring your efforts go toward companies that matter.
Benefits of Account-Based Marketing
Traditional marketing hopes to catch as many leads as possible. But not all leads are worth pursuing. Account-based marketing flips this approach, focusing only on high-value accounts that are a strong fit for your business.
Higher-Quality Leads: Your team targets companies that have a real need for your product instead of chasing unqualified leads.
Increased Conversion Rates & Larger Deals: ABM nurtures relationships with decision-makers, leading to higher close rates and bigger contract values.
More Personalized Customer Journey: Instead of generic messaging, ABM provides customized outreach, tailored demos, and personalized experiences.
Better Use of Resources: ABM concentrates your budget on high-value accounts, ensuring marketing dollars directly impact revenue.
Why Account-Based Marketing Works for B2B Businesses
B2B sales are complex, involving multiple stakeholders with different priorities. Account-based marketing ensures marketing and sales efforts are directed at the right people, increasing efficiency and deal size.
Reaching Decision-Makers: Traditional marketing often attracts people without buying power. ABM targets executives, directors, and key influencers who actually make purchasing decisions.
Higher ROI Than Mass Marketing: Many leads from traditional campaigns never convert. ABM focuses on accounts that already align with your ICP, ensuring higher conversion rates and stronger return on investment.
Sales & Marketing Alignment: ABM forces both teams to collaborate, ensuring everyone focuses on the same high-value accounts. This creates a smoother buying experience and leads to higher close rates.
ABM also helps businesses expand existing relationships and increase long-term revenue. It’s a proven approach for companies that need to engage large, high-value clients.
How HubSpot ABM Features Support Your Strategies
HubSpot provides a dedicated Account-based marketing toolset that helps businesses identify, engage, and track high-value accounts. These features use data and automation to make targeting and outreach more efficient.
Prioritizing the Right Accounts
Account-based marketing is more than selecting target accounts. To stay relevant, it requires ongoing tracking and engagement. HubSpot’s tools help businesses focus on the most promising accounts while monitoring interactions in real-time.
Target Account Dashboard: Provides a real-time view of account engagement, sales activity, and pipeline progress, replacing spreadsheets and scattered data.
Company Scoring & Custom Properties: Assigns ICP tiers and scoring based on industry, engagement level, and buying signals, helping teams prioritize accounts.
Buying Role Identification: Tracks key decision-makers like Budget Holders, Influencers, and Decision Makers, ensuring outreach reaches the right people.
Tracking and Managing High-Value Accounts
Most CRMs store contacts and companies but don’t actively support ABM strategies. HubSpot’s CRM provides a shared view of account interactions for both marketing and sales.
Account-Based Segmentation: Automatically categorizes accounts by ICP tier, industry, and engagement score, helping teams focus on high-priority accounts.
Contact-to-Account Mapping: Groups multiple interactions from the same company under a single account view, providing better insights into interest and intent.
Deal Tracking for Target Accounts: Shows where each account stands in the buying process, allowing teams to adjust their approach accordingly.
Personalized Engagement for ABM
Generic outreach doesn’t work for high-value accounts. HubSpot’s personalization tools ensure the right message reaches the right people at the right time.
Dynamic Website Personalization: Displays different content based on a visitor’s company, industry, or role, making interactions more relevant.
Targeted Email Sequences: Adjusts messaging based on engagement, sending follow-ups based on downloads, clicks, and previous interactions.
Smart Content for Ads & Landing Pages: Customizes ads and landing pages to speak directly to an account’s needs, improving engagement.
Automating ABM Outreach & Lead Nurturing
Consistent engagement is key to ABM success. HubSpot’s automation tools remove manual follow-ups, keeping outreach timely and relevant.
ABM Workflows: Automates account assignments, follow-ups, and sales notifications when a target account interacts with content.
Multi-Touch Lead Nurturing: Creates multi-step campaigns that nurture accounts based on activity and interest.
AI-Powered Outreach: Uses Breeze AI Agents to analyze engagement data and suggest optimal send times, content, and messaging.
Core Components of a Strong ABM Strategy (And How HubSpot Helps You Execute Them)
ABM engages with target accounts with a structured, data-driven approach. Without clear segmentation, personalized outreach, multi-channel engagement, and sales-marketing alignment, ABM can fall short. HubSpot provides tools to help businesses execute these elements effectively.
Defining and Identifying the Right Accounts
Not all accounts are worth pursuing. ABM starts with identifying high-value companies that match your ideal customer profile. HubSpot helps score, segment, and rank accounts using engagement data, not just assumptions.
Personalized, Data-Driven Engagement
Generic messaging doesn’t work for key accounts. ABM requires tailored interactions based on a company’s needs. HubSpot enables:
Targeted email sequences that adjust based on engagement.
Dynamic website content that changes based on visitor data.
Messaging aligned with decision-makers’ roles.
Multi-Channel Outreach That Meets Buyers Where They Are
Decision-makers use multiple platforms. ABM efforts need to be consistent across channels to stay visible. HubSpot integrates with:
LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads for targeted promotion.
Email marketing for direct, personalized communication.
CRM data to ensure messaging stays relevant across platforms.
Sales & Marketing Collaboration for a Unified Buying Experience
For ABM to work, sales and marketing must be aligned. When marketing nurtures an account, sales should have full visibility into interactions.
ABM dashboards track account engagement.
Engagement tracking ensures outreach is timely.
Sales alerts notify reps when key accounts take action.
HubSpot helps businesses stay organized, target the right accounts, and maintain meaningful engagement at every stage.
HubSpot Account-Based Marketing Features
HubSpot’s ABM tools help marketing and sales teams identify, engage, and track high-value accounts. These tools are built into Marketing Hub Professional/Enterprise and Sales Hub Professional/Enterprise, making it possible to execute ABM strategies without relying on multiple platforms.
1. Target Account Dashboard: Central Hub for Managing High-Value Accounts
Manually tracking multiple accounts is inefficient. The Target Account Dashboard consolidates key insights, helping teams stay organized.
Real-Time Engagement Tracking: See which accounts have interacted with emails, ads, or website content without digging through multiple reports.
Deal Progress Visibility: Identify roadblocks and adjust your approach when accounts get stuck in the pipeline.
Prioritized Outreach: Focus on accounts that need immediate follow-up based on engagement activity.
Instead of managing data across different tools, the dashboard keeps everything in one place for marketing and sales alignment.
2. Company Scoring & Custom Properties: Prioritizing the Right Accounts
Not every large company is a good fit. HubSpot’s Company Scoring and Custom Properties help teams focus on accounts that are likely to convert.
Engagement-Based Scoring: Assign values based on website visits, email opens, ad clicks, and past purchase behavior.
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) Tiers: Rank accounts as Tier 1 (ideal fit), Tier 2 (possible fit), or Tier 3 (low priority) based on firmographics and engagement data.
Buying Role Identification: Tag contacts as Decision Makers, Budget Holders, or Influencers to ensure outreach reaches the right people.
With these tools, sales teams focus on qualified accounts, reducing wasted effort.
3. Ads & Retargeting: Staying Visible to Key Accounts
A single email won’t keep you top of mind. HubSpot’s ads and retargeting tools ensure target accounts see your brand across multiple platforms.
LinkedIn Matched Audiences: Sync your target account list with LinkedIn and serve ads directly to key decision-makers.
Retargeting for Engaged Accounts: Show tailored ads on Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn to accounts that visited your site but didn’t convert.
Lookalike Audiences: Expand reach by targeting companies similar to your best customers.
This keeps your brand in front of decision-makers, reinforcing messaging beyond direct outreach.
4. AI & Data Insights: Smarter ABM Targeting
HubSpot’s AI and data-driven insights help you understand which accounts are most likely to convert, when to engage, and how to personalize outreach.
Predictive Lead Scoring: AI evaluates engagement history, firmographics, and behaviors to highlight accounts with buying intent.
Content Recommendations: Get AI-driven suggestions on content that will resonate with specific accounts.
Engagement Timing Insights: Identify the best time to reach out based on past interactions.
This eliminates guesswork, helping teams engage accounts that are most likely to convert.
5. Reporting & Analytics: Measuring ABM Success
ABM helps you land high-value customers. HubSpot’s ABM reporting tools go beyond vanity metrics like clicks and impressions, focusing on account engagement, deal movement, and revenue impact.
Account Engagement Reports: See which accounts are interacting with content, emails, and ads.
Deal Influence Analysis: Measure which marketing efforts contribute to closed deals.
ABM Dashboard Templates: Pre-built reports track account progression through the sales cycle.
These insights help teams refine their strategy, focusing on what drives real business results.
How to Implement Account-Based Marketing in HubSpot
Account-based marketing requires a structured approach. HubSpot’s built-in ABM tools help you categorize accounts, automate engagement, and track results. Here’s how to set it up.
1. Activate HubSpot’s ABM Features
Before you start, HubSpot’s ABM tools must be manually enabled. Only Super Admins or users with Account Access permissions can activate them. Once activated, they cannot be turned off.
Go to CRM > Companies and select “See Target Accounts“. This enables access to ABM-specific features.
Click “Get Started” to activate the Target Accounts dashboard, account lists, and ABM reports.
Once activated, HubSpot automatically categorizes accounts and tracks engagement.
Without activation, you won’t be able to use HubSpot’s ABM tracking or automation tools.
2. Identify and Categorize Target Accounts
ABM is only effective if you’re targeting the right companies. HubSpot provides tools to segment and prioritize them.
Mark Target Accounts: Use the “Target Account” checkbox to flag key companies.
Assign Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Tiers: Categorize accounts as Tier 1 (high priority), Tier 2 (medium priority), or Tier 3 (low priority) based on company size, revenue, and industry.
Use HubSpot’s AI and Engagement Scoring: Track account interactions with emails, ads, and web pages to prioritize outreach.
Clearly defining accounts prevents wasted time on unqualified leads.
3. Update ABM Properties for Smarter Targeting
To personalize engagement, you need accurate data on key decision-makers within each account. HubSpot’s ABM tools let you assign roles and create workflows to keep account data updated.
Contact-Level Properties
Buying Role: Assign contacts as Decision Makers, Budget Holders, Influencers, or Blockers so that outreach is directed at the right people.
Engagement Tracking: Monitor which roles engage with emails, ads, and content, signaling buying intent or a need for further nurturing.
Company-Level Properties
Target Account Checkbox: Keeps accounts grouped and trackable within ABM-specific reports.
ICP Tier Assignment: Helps sales team prioritize outreach.
Automating Property Updates
Use pre-built templates: HubSpot includes an ABM workflow template to auto-assign ICP tiers based on annual revenue, industry, and location.
Customize workflows for accuracy: Modify rules to match your business’s specific ABM criteria, ensuring that accounts are categorized correctly from the start.
Without structured property management, accounts can be miscategorized, leading to lost opportunities.
4. Automate Account Workflows for ABM Efficiency
Manually updating accounts is inefficient. HubSpot’s workflows automate key ABM processes, keeping accounts properly categorized and engaged.
Go to Automations > Workflows to create custom ABM workflows.
Select “Create Workflow” and choose “Update Company Properties” to auto-assign ICP tiers and buying roles.
Customize criteria based on segmentation needs, such as industry, employee count, or engagement history.
Set up notifications for sales when target accounts take key actions (e.g., visiting a pricing page or opening multiple emails).
Automated workflows help keep ABM organized, consistent, and scalable.
Common ABM Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
ABM works when done right, but common mistakes can undermine results. Teams often spend too much time manually selecting accounts, fail to align sales and marketing or ignore post-sale engagement. These missteps lead to wasted effort and lost revenue.
Mistake #1: Relying Too Much on Manual Targeting Instead of AI
Choosing target accounts based on intuition can lead to inconsistent selection and missed opportunities. Sales teams may focus on the wrong prospects, while better-fit accounts go unnoticed.
What To Do Instead: Use predictive lead scoring and ICP matching in HubSpot to identify accounts showing buying intent. Track engagement signals like email opens, ad clicks, and website visits. Automate account categorization based on firmographics and past behavior to ensure focus on the right opportunities.
Mistake #2: Sales and Marketing Aren’t Aligned on Target Accounts
ABM fails when sales and marketing teams target different accounts. If marketing attracts leads that sales don’t prioritize, efforts are wasted, leading to mixed messaging and lower conversion rates.
What To Do Instead: Create a shared, real-time target account list in HubSpot. Set up automated alerts when a target account engages with content. Regularly review and update the list based on engagement and pipeline progress to keep both teams focused on the same high-value accounts.
Mistake #3: Neglecting Post-Sale Engagement
ABM shouldn’t stop once a deal is closed. Ignoring existing customers means missing opportunities for renewals, upsells, and referrals. Without continued engagement, accounts may lose interest or switch to competitors.
What To Do Instead: Enroll closed-won accounts into nurture sequences for product updates, exclusive insights, and renewal reminders. Assign a success manager to monitor engagement and expansion potential. Use HubSpot’s reporting tools to track usage patterns and identify growth opportunities.
Making ABM Work: Why HubSpot is the Right Platform for High-Value Account Targeting
ABM changes how businesses go after high-value accounts. When done right, it gets sales and marketing on the same page, cuts wasted effort, and keeps the right customers engaged. But without the right tools, it can turn into a mess of manual tracking, scattered data, and missed opportunities.
HubSpot makes ABM easier. It helps teams focus on the right accounts with target tracking, automation, AI-powered insights, and built-in reporting—so you’re spending less time managing spreadsheets and more time closing deals. Its CRM and lead scoring tools help you spot the best-fit accounts, while dashboards, notifications, and engagement tracking keep sales and marketing working together. Workflows take care of outreach, and ABM reports show what’s actually moving accounts through the pipeline.
ABM isn’t an overnight fix, but with the right tools, it works. If targeting, alignment, or personalization feels like a struggle, HubSpot’s ABM features can help. Want to see the impact? Dive in and start using HubSpot Account-based marketing tools today.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How does HubSpot ABM compare to other ABM platforms?
HubSpot ABM tools are built into its CRM and marketing platform, making it easy for teams already using HubSpot to manage everything in one place. Platforms like Demandbase or Terminus offer advanced ad targeting and data enrichment but often require separate integrations. If you need an all-in-one solution, HubSpot keeps ABM centralized.
What’s the difference between Account-based marketing and traditional inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing attracts a broad audience and nurtures leads over time. Account-based marketing targets specific high-value accounts from the start, focusing on personalized outreach to key decision-makers. Both can work together: inbound brings in leads, and ABM ensures top accounts get the attention they need.
How does HubSpot’s AI help with Account-based marketing?
HubSpot’s AI predicts which accounts are most likely to convert based on engagement and past behavior. It recommends content tailored to each account and suggests the best times to reach out. These insights reduce manual work and help teams focus on accounts with real buying intent.
How does Account-based marketing fit into a larger B2B marketing strategy?
Account-based marketing works alongside inbound marketing, outbound sales, and customer retention efforts. While inbound attracts leads, ABM prioritizes top prospects. After a sale, ABM continues nurturing customers to drive renewals, expansions, and referrals. HubSpot connects these efforts within a single platform.
Can I use HubSpot ABM tools if I don’t have a dedicated sales team?
Yes, but Account-based marketing works best when sales and marketing collaborate. If you don’t have a sales team, you can still use HubSpot to identify high-value prospects, personalize outreach, and automate engagement. A structured follow-up process, whether handled by marketing or a founder, is key to closing deals.
