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Account-based marketing

When every account matters, spray and pray is a tax.

Selling $50K+ deals into a market of a few thousand companies? Volume outbound leaves most of it on the table. We install the full ABM engine: the account list, the research, the signals, the campaigns, and the reps’ playbook, wired into your CRM as one system.

When ABM is the right motion

High ACV

Deals worth $50K+ a year justify per-account research and multi-threaded outreach. Below that, volume motions usually win on cost.

Finite market

Under roughly 20,000 qualified companies. When every logo matters, low-conversion spray tactics leave too much revenue uncaptured.

Buying committee

Multiple stakeholders sign off: decision-makers, champions, influencers. ABM maps and works all of them, not just one inbox.

The engine

Seven components, built in order

ABM fails when it’s run as an ads campaign with a fancy name. It works when it’s infrastructure. Each component below feeds the next, and everything lands in your CRM, not in our reports.

TAM mapping + target account list

We build a target account list that captures 90%+ of your addressable market. One database never gets you there, so we combine three or more sources: prospecting databases, lookalike engines, specialized directories, and raw web scraping for niches LinkedIn misses. Then AI research agents qualify every company from its actual website, because database industry filters lie.

Apollo.ioZoomInfoDiscoLikeOcean.ioAI ArkClayApifyAnthropic
  • Written ICP model with tiering the sales team agrees on
  • 3+ data sources merged and deduped into one account list
  • AI qualification pass on every company, back-tested until it holds

Stakeholder mapping

For every account we map the buying committee: decision-makers, champions, influencers, and end-users, by title group. Contacts get pulled from multiple providers, then emails and phone numbers are verified through a waterfall so reps never dial dead numbers.

Apollo.ioAI ArkClayLeadMagicProspeo
  • Title taxonomy per persona group, tuned against closed-won deals
  • Contacts pulled from multiple sources per account
  • Verified emails + mobile numbers for priority personas

Account research at scale

AI research agents collect 30+ custom data points per account: sub-industry, tech stack, headcount by function, parent-child ownership, whatever your campaigns and reps actually need. Each one becomes a CRM property, so research lives where sellers work instead of in a spreadsheet nobody opens.

ClayExaParallelAnthropicOpenAIHubSpot
  • Custom data-point spec mapped to CRM properties before anything runs
  • Web research agents + rented data providers per data point
  • Account scoring computed from the research, recalculated on change

CRM enrichment engine

The one-time map becomes permanent infrastructure. Every new record that enters your CRM flows through the same enrichment and scoring automatically, with freshness windows that re-enrich stale data. We clean up duplicates and property sprawl first, so the engine runs on solid ground.

HubSpotClayn8n
  • CRM cleanup: dedupe, property audit, hygiene rules
  • Evergreen enrichment workflow on every new + existing record
  • On-demand enrichment buttons inside company and contact views

Signal tracking

Static data tells you who fits. Signals tell you when to move. We wire buying signals into the CRM as triggers: website visits, hiring, funding, tech adoption, competitor engagement, and champion tracking, so when a past champion lands at a target account, a rep knows the same week. We track 19 signal categories; this step plugs the full signal stack into your account scoring. See the full signal taxonomy.

RB2BUnifySignalizDemandbaseClay
  • Signal stack wired into CRM properties and account scores
  • Champion job-change tracking across your target list
  • Trigger-based workflows that route hot accounts to reps
  • Full taxonomy on the Signals page: 19 categories, each with a play

Staged engagement campaigns

Accounts move through awareness stages, and each stage gets different content. Broad 1:many ads warm the list, engagement data flows back into the CRM per account, and intent segments tell us which pain each account cares about. No stage skipping: cold accounts see problem content, warm accounts see product.

LinkedInHubSpotGoogle Ads
  • Stage model with engagement thresholds per stage
  • Ad engagement synced to CRM at the account level
  • Intent segments that tag what each account engaged with

Sales activation + measurement

When an account crosses the engagement threshold, reps get it with full context: what it engaged with, which stakeholders to hit, and what to reference. Outreach is personalized by intent segment, not mail-merged, and tier-1 accounts get channels email can't match: warm intros mined from your network, gifts, and handwritten letters that land on a decision-maker's desk. We report on pipeline per dollar spent, stage conversion, and account coverage, so the engine is judged on revenue.

SmartleadSalesfinitySendosoGongHubSpot
  • Intent-tagged handoff: reps see why the account is hot
  • Multi-channel outreach: email, calls, LinkedIn, per persona
  • Warm-intro paths mapped from investors, advisors, and customers
  • Gifting + handwritten letter campaigns for tier-1 accounts
  • Pipeline-per-dollar and stage-conversion reporting

The stage model

Accounts earn their way to a rep

Every account sits in exactly one stage, driven by its own engagement data in the CRM. Content matches the stage, and reps only spend time on accounts that have shown they’re warm.

  1. Stage 1

    Identified

    On the target account list

    Broad 1:many awareness ads on the pains your ICP actually has

  2. Stage 2

    Aware

    Meaningful ad impressions logged

    Problem and category content, still no hard sell

  3. Stage 3

    Engaged

    Repeat clicks or content engagement

    Solution and product content, intent segment recorded

  4. Stage 4

    Considering

    Demo booked or trial started

    Personalized BDR outreach referencing what they engaged with

  5. Stage 5

    Selecting

    Open deal in the CRM

    Full multi-threaded sales motion across the buying committee

Methodology informed by Growth Unhinged’s modern ABM engine breakdown and Userpilot’s public 90-day ABM writeup, whose team reported $650K in pipeline at $12 per ad dollar in the first quarter of running a staged motion like this.

See the plan before you commit

Book a free GTM audit. We map your funnel and pipeline gaps, show you the exact engine we would build, and you decide who runs it: your team or ours.

30 minutes. No pitch deck. You keep the audit either way.