The State of ABM In Europe
A Look Into ABM in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany
Table of Contents
3.
Key Findings
4.
About the Survey
6.
What Does “ABM” Mean to you?
9.
The UK lags the most in implementing an ABM approach, but is the most eager to do so.
12.
Differing Priorities May Explain Differences in ABM Implementation
15.
Across the Competencies of ABM, US Organizations Are More Likely to Say They’re Successful.
18.
The US Better Recognizes the Benefits of ABM In Most Cases
21.
The Chicken or the Egg?
24.
Fully Integrated Sales and Marketing Teams Are Rare
27.
New Business Generation Is the Clear Priority, but Pipeline Acceleration Becomes More Important as Programs Mature
30.
With a Little Help From My Friends
33.
Third Parties As Revenue Therapists?
36.
Challenges to Implementing ABM Are Fairly Consistent Across Regions
40.
Final Analysis
The State of ABM in Europe // terminus.com
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Particularly within French, UK, and German markets, there is large disagreement about what “ABM” actually means.
While the UK currently lags behind their French and German counterparts, they are much more eager to adopt account-based principles in their companies.
Fully integrated sales and marketing teams– a core tenet of ABM–are still elusive; especially in the UK.
Third-party partners seem to be critical to launching and sustaining successful ABM programs regardless of region – and may be the key to fully integrating sales and marketing teams.
Regardless of region, the barriers to implementing an Account-Based strategy are universal with little variance across borders.
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We surveyed 450 marketing, sales, and customer professionals in the Summer of 2021.
…by Country
…by Organization Sector
…by Organization Size
Respondent Country [450]
What Does “ABM” Mean To You?
A pervasive challenge with implementing an ABM strategy is defining exactly what account-based marketing means. Is it primarily about identifying best-fit accounts? Or is it a holistic approach to generating revenue? There exist rather large disparities across regions about what exactly ABM means, indicating there are still some debates to be settled as to how it fits in an overall go-to-market strategy. Paramount to an account-based approach is aligning sales and marketing, which was the most agreed upon definition. The second most popular definition was the ability to upsell and cross-sell to existing customers, but France and Germany reported a relatively significant disagreement.
[Base numbers in charts], omitting some answer options, split by country.
Which of the following are the biggest priorities for your Organization's Sales/Marketing activity over the next 12 months?
Click on each segment to learn more.
Alignment of Marketing and Sales strategies
Ability to upsell/cross-sell to existing Customers
Tailoring Communications/ Content/Campaigns
Ability to identify high-value accounts
Personalization of Buying Journeys for Customers
Ability to Measure ROI of go-to-market Strategies
A holistic approach to Revenue Generation
Tailoring Communications/Content/Campaigns
The US is only slightly ahead of the mean of those who have implemented an ABM strategy. The UK lags significantly behind France, Germany, and the US by about 20%. While 41% of all respondents indicated that they have implemented an ABM approach, 45% of all respondents have plans to implement that strategy– with the UK leading the pack in plans to launch one in the next 12 months. Fully 86% of all respondents are employing or planning to employ an account based strategy. If UK respondents stay true to their word, we would expect 89% of French companies, 87% of German companies, and 82% of UK companies to employ an account-based approach in the near future.
The UK Lags the most in implementing an ABM approach, but is the most eager to do so.
[Base numbers in chart], omitting some answer options, split by Country
Has your organization implemented or is it planning to implement an Account-Based Marketing (AMB) strategy?
Yes, we’ve implemented an ABM strategy
No, we’ve not yet implemented an ABM strategy, but have plans to within the next 12 months
have plans to implement in the near future [TOTAL]
No, we’ve not yet implemented an ABM strategy, but have plans to beyond 12 months
No, we’ve not implemented an ABM strategy and we have no plans to/interest in such a strategy
YES
NO
45%
No, we’ve not yet implemented an ABM strategy and we don’t have plans to but it would be something we’d be interested in
While the UK is most interested in new business generation, they show an outsize interest in doing so through traditional lead generation with a lessened interest in customer expansion strategies. Conversely, Germany appears to be the most customer-obsessed region, leading the pack by prioritizing their customer expansion and retention efforts over the next 12 months. One possible explanation for this is that Germany’s approach to GDPR is the most restrictive. With a reduced ability to legally market to net-new prospects, a heightened focus on existing customer bases makes perfect sense.
[Base numbers in chart], showing the combination of responses ranked first, second, and third, omitting some answer option, split by Country
Which of the following are the biggest priorities for your Organization’s Sales/Marketing activity over the next 12 months?
Customer Expansion
Customer Retention
Brand Awareness
New Business Generation
Lower Cost of Acquisition
Lead Generation
Product Adoption
Pipeline Acceleration
From account targeting through customer expansion, US companies are more likely to be ‘very successful’. Again, we see Germany ahead of the mean when it comes to customer-centric strategies with 50% of respondents saying that an account-based approach to customer retention is ‘very successful’ and 39% saying the same of their customer expansion strategies.
[Base numbers in chart], showing the percentage of respondents who say their Organization is very successful in each of the areas, split by Country
How would you rate your Organization’s performance in each of the following areas?
1. Targeting Accounts: organizations who are not yet Customers or ours but fit our Ideal Customer profile
2. Engaging with Target Accounts: Targeting Accounts that have engaged with our Brand, whether it be any digital channel or personal communication
4. New Deals Won from Target Accounts: new customers who have signed
3. Creating opportunities with Target Accounts: legitimate revenue opportunities with any of our Target accounts
5. Customer Retention: Existing Customers who have renewed their use
6. Customer Expansion: creating extra value of our product/service to encourage customers to buy more/increase usage
1. Targeting Accounts
2. Engaging with Target Accounts
3. Creating opportunities with Target Accounts
4. New Deals Won from Target Accounts
5. Customer Retention
6. Customer Expansion
With the exception of sales and marketing alignment (more on that shortly), US respondents express that their organizations experience better outcomes than their European counterparts. This is mildly surprising given that the US data regulations are so much more lax than Europe’s.
[Base numbers in chart], omitting some answer options, asked to respondents from organizations who have, have plans to or would be interested in implementing and (ABM) Strategy, split by Country
What benefits has your organization experienced or do you anticipate with the implementation of an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Strategy?
More Successful Sales Conversion
Better Customer Service
More efficient use of budget
A more tightly aligned Sales and Marketing team
A clearer/stronger Measure of ROI
Shorter Sales Cycle
There are no Benefits to an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Strategy
The overwhelming majority of respondents (92%) agree that a fully aligned sales and marketing strategy is vital to a successful go-to-market strategy, but there’s significant disagreement about whether sales/marketing alignment is the input or the outcome of a successful ABM program. Clearly there is education to be done that sales and marketing efforts need to be coordinated around an account-based strategy in order to achieve success. One would hope that sales and marketing would continue to become more tightly aligned, but it needs to be made clear that it won’t happen organically as an ABM strategy is implemented.
… of all respondents agree that a Fully aligned Sales and Marketing team is vital to activating a successful go-to-market Strategy
… of all respondents say that, based on their prior understanding, ABM means the Alignment of Marketing and Sales Strategies
…of respondents from Organizations who have, have previously, have plans to or would be interested in implementing an ABM Strategy say it would result in a more tightly aligned Sales and Marketing team
Despite an near-unanimous agreement that sales and marketing alignment is critical to a successful go-to-market strategy, less than one-quarter of all respondents said their teams were fully integrated. Of those fully integrated teams, 30% of them were in the US, with France and Germany slightly behind taking credit for 25% each, while the UK lags significantly behind with only 13% representation. Interestingly, companies with over 1,000 employees found that their sales and marketing teams were more fully integrated by 7%.
Percentage of respondents who say their Organization’s Sales and Marketing teams are fully integrated
Which of the following best describes the level of integration between your organization’s Sales and Marketing teams? [450], omitting some answer options
Percentage of respondents who say their Organization’s Sales and Marketing teams are fully integrated [Base numbers in chart], split by Country and Organization size
[Base numbers in chart], split by Country and Organization size
New Business Generation Is the Clear Priority, but Pipeline Acceleration Becomes More Important as Programs Mature.
As account-based programs mature, new business generation becomes increasingly important among the goals of those programs. For fully mature ABM programs, we found their interest in pipeline acceleration to be moderately more important.
Which of the following are the biggest priorities for your organization’s Sales/Marketing activity over the next 12 months?
We’re in an experimental, pilot phase with our ABM Strategy [45]
[Base numbers in chart], showing the combination of responses raked first, second and third, omitting some answer options, split by ABM maturity (Q9) and showing data for those who have ABM Strategy *Caution - Low base size
We’ve mostly implemented our ABM Strategy and we’re continuing to optimize it [53]
We’ve Fully implemented our Abm Strategy [19]*
Given that respondents in the UK were the least likely to say their organization has implemented an ABM strategy or relies at least somewhat on a third party/trusted partner, it’s clear the two are intrinsically linked. There is further evidence to support this when taking a closer look at those who say their organization does rely at least somewhat on a third party/trusted partner. Those who have implemented an ABM strategy and those in the earlier stages of their ABM journey are much more likely to have this reliance. This suggest that third parties play a vital role in the very beginning of rolling an ABM strategy out and, over time, their level of reliance decreases.
Percentage of respondents who say their Organization relies heavily/somewhat on a third-party/trusted partner [281], omitting some answer options, spit by ABM Strategy maturity [Q9]
As we’ve seen, sales and marketing alignment is as desired as it is elusive. However, there is evidence that among companies who rely heavily on a third party, over two-thirds have fully integrated sales and marketing teams. It could be that having a neutral third party help dictate the strategy for sales and marketing teams accelerates the integration of those teams.
Percentage of respondents who say their Organization relies heavily/somewhat on a third-party/trusted partner [281], omitting some answer options, spit by level of integration between respondents Organizations’ Sales and Marketing teams [Q5]
Regardless of locale, it’s heartening to know that all of our go-to-market challenges are similar. French companies seem most hamstrung by lack of personnel while British companies lack the technology. US companies, who are typically more mature in the ABM strategies, are mostly concerned with scaling their programs.
[Base numbers in chart], omitting some answer options, asked to respondents from organizations who have plans to, have done previously or don’t believe they would be interested in implementing an ABM Strategy, split by Country
What barries have/do you think your organization experience of fo you anticipate with the implementation of/would experience if you were to implement an Account-Based (AMB) Strategy?
Not enough personal to execute
Insufficient Contact and Account Data
Concerns around our ability to Scale ABM
Not enough Expertise to Execute
Executive Buy-in and Support
Insufficient engagement or Performance Data
Insufficient or Limited Technology
Marketing team Buy-in and Support
Legislation
Sales team Buy-in and Support
There are no barriers with the implementation of an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Strategy
There is still much work to be done around educating and demonstrating the definitions and benefits of an account-based go-to-market strategy, especially in European markets.
Organizations need to come to an understanding that aligning sales and marketing teams is fundamental to the success of an account-based marketing program and not the result of it.
There is evidence that organizations that use third-party consultants in their ABM strategy helps accelerate successful results of that strategy– and may even be the key to uniting sales and marketing teams.
[CEROS OBJECT]
All in all, it’s still early days for account-based go-to-market strategies. The data suggests that, since the challenges to implementing ABM are similar across regions, adoption is still nascent and has not been overly impacted by legislation. That said, one would expect the go-to-market strategies of European countries to quickly adapt in response to data regulations like GDPR. Certainly there is an appetite for such GTM strategies, there appears only to be a slight lag in adoption. For companies eager to adopt ABM, our research suggests that third-parties can be game-changers not only for adoption but for the ever-elusive alignment of your sales and marketing teams.
As data privacy regulations become more firmly established around the world, we expect to see account-based go-to-market adoption to increase. At its core, ABM is simply about identifying future customers, tailoring messages to drive voluntary engagement, and coordinating sales and marketing activities around that engagement. Terminus is uniquely positioned to help companies achieve success with ABM. As originators of the account-based movement and creators of best-in-class technology, we’re uniquely able to help marketers in the US and Europe identify their best-fit accounts, engage them across every channel, bring together sales and marketing efforts, and measure the full impact on revenue.
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