Account Based Marketing (ABM) shifts the unit of marketing from the individual lead to the whole account. Instead of targeting one contact at a time, you look at every person at an account together, score the account as a group, and build campaigns that speak to the account-level buying committee. Act-On's ABM module gives you the dashboard, reporting, grouping, and send tools to do that work on top of your existing CRM sync.

ABM helps you

• Link buyer behaviour and data across contacts for a single, account-wide view
• Create account-centric campaigns that reinforce your nurture strategy
• Score accounts for prioritisation and product matching
• Deliver role-relevant messaging to the different people at a target account

Included features

• Accounts Dashboard
• Account Report
• Account Groups
• Email Account Contacts as a group
• CRM Segmentation
• CRM Personalization

Setup

Check the field you're using

ABM is built around the lead score field on your CRM contacts list. Make sure the field is set up and populated in the CRM and that it exists on the list that syncs to Act-On.

1. Go to Contacts > Accounts > All Accounts > Configure Accounts:

2. Select the List where your CRM contacts live. The Field dropdown shows the lead score field you're using.

3. Click Cancel to close without changing anything - you're just confirming the setup.

Create a recurring CRM sync

Go to Contacts > Accounts. The first time you visit, Act-On checks that you have a recurring CRM sync configured. If you don't, go to Settings > Data Management and set a sync frequency so your CRM data keeps flowing in.

When you come back to the Accounts Dashboard, a popup asks which list contains your CRM contacts and which field in that list holds the desired lead score. If you haven't already, create a List Maintenance Program that writes each contact's score into the configured field on a schedule. The score can come from your default score sheet, or from a separate score sheet built specifically for account scoring - whichever better reflects how you want to prioritise accounts.

Finally, choose the method used to combine contact scores into the roll-up account score (for example, sum or average). Once you've finished, the account score appears in the account listings and in the Account Report.

You can change these settings later from the Actions dropdown next to the default All Accounts group at the top of the Accounts Dashboard.

Feature details

The Accounts Dashboard

Go to Contacts > Accounts to open the Accounts Dashboard. In ABM you work with Groups of accounts, which work a lot like contact segments. Act-On creates an "All Accounts" group by default, containing every account synced from your CRM. The dashboard shows the number of accounts and associated contacts. As you create more Account Groups, they appear and are managed here.

The Actions dropdown lets you view the underlying accounts, create a new group, manage the email list and score field, or edit, delete, or email an Account Group.

With an Account Group selected, View Accounts opens a list of every account in the group, showing the account name, the number of contacts, and the cumulative account score. From there you can:

• Select one or more accounts and email every contact at all of them at once using the Email button in the top right. The Message Composer opens so you can use a template, resend a previous message, or start from scratch.
• Select an account and choose Contacts from the Actions dropdown to see the people at that account, with their titles and scores. You can email one or more of them, or open any single contact's Contact Report.

Use your browser's back button, or the left-arrow button in the top right, to return to the previous page anywhere in the Accounts section.

Account Report

The Account Report pulls together Act-On and CRM data to give you a single cumulative view of every lead and contact associated with an account, plus a roll-up score for the account itself. See The Account Report for the full walkthrough.

Account Groups

Account Groups let you segment accounts by CRM attributes the same way you segment contacts. Well-defined groups make it easy to target accounts in a specific industry, territory, revenue band, or customer profile.

1. Click New Group in the upper right of the Accounts Dashboard.
2. Give the group a Filter Name, then add filters using AND/OR logic. For example: "Software companies in California added after 1 January."
3. Click Save.

From there you can view the Account Group, drill into individual accounts and their Account Reports, or send a targeted email to every contact in the group.

Send a message to a group

In the group list view, select one or more accounts and click the Email button in the top right to email every contact at those accounts simultaneously. The Message Composer opens so you can work from a template, resend a previous message, or compose from scratch.

Next steps

• The Account Report: the detailed view for a single account.
• CRM Segmentation: segment contacts using CRM-sourced fields.
• CRM Personalization: use CRM data in message content.
• Creating a List Maintenance Program: the scheduled program that writes scores to the contact field ABM rolls up.