Layering ABM Onto Marketing Automation in 2016
A playbook for layering account-based marketing onto automation in 2016, when platforms added account scoring and engagement tracking on top of lead automation.
Most teams heading into 2016 already had lead-level automation running: scoring, nurture tracks, a CRM connection. The question this playbook answers is different from a “start from zero” guide. It’s how to layer account-based marketing on top of a program that already exists, since that’s the shift the whole category was making that year.
Step 1: build your target account list before touching any tooling
ABM starts with a defined list of companies, not a defined segment of individuals. Pull this list from your best existing customers’ firmographic profile, cross-referenced with sales input on which accounts they’d most want to win. This list is deliberately short, often measured in dozens or low hundreds of companies, not the thousands your lead-level automation is used to handling.
Step 2: get sales to co-own the list
An account list built by marketing alone and handed to sales afterward rarely survives contact with a sales team’s own priorities. Build the list together, or at minimum review and get explicit sign-off from sales before launching any account-based campaign against it. The entire value of ABM comes from marketing and sales working the same accounts in coordination, not marketing running a separate program sales ignores.
Step 3: layer account-level scoring on top of your existing lead scoring
Rather than replacing your lead scoring model, add an account layer above it: track engagement in aggregate across every contact at a target account, not just individual contact scores. A single low-scoring contact at a high-priority account can still represent real opportunity if enough people at that account are engaging collectively, something individual lead scoring alone will never surface.
Step 4: build account-specific content and offers for your top tier
You don’t need custom content for every account on your list, but your highest-priority tier, the accounts sales cares most about winning, benefit from content that references their specific industry or situation rather than generic messaging. This is more production effort per account, which is exactly why the target list needs to stay short.
Step 5: coordinate channels, not just email
Account-based marketing works best when email nurture is paired with targeted advertising to the same account list and direct sales outreach happening in the same window, so a target contact sees consistent messaging across channels rather than an isolated automated email. Most automation platforms in 2016 were adding integrations to support this coordination directly, which is worth evaluating before building the coordination manually.
Step 6: measure at the account level, not just the lead level
Your existing MQL and SQL metrics still matter for lead-level programs, but ABM success gets measured by account engagement and account-level pipeline movement, questions like how many contacts at a target account have engaged, and whether the account as a whole is progressing, not just individual lead scores.
Layering ABM onto an existing program in 2016 wasn’t about replacing what worked. It was about adding a second lens, the account, on top of the individual-lead automation most teams had already spent years refining.
Keep exploring: browse more Email Marketing guides, see everything we published in 2016 or check out the Digital Business Marketing Awards.
