How to Segment Your Audience for Abm

Client: "We need to focus our ABM on the big names in the industry. You know, the Fortune 500 types." Me: "So, what makes them a good fit for your business?" Client: "Well, they're big and have big budgets." Me: "Okay, but do they need what you offer? Are they a good fit for your ideal customer profile?" Client: "Hmm, I'm not sure... We haven't looked at it that way." Me: "And what about potential value? Will those big names bring in the most revenue? Or are there smaller, faster growing companies with more potential?" Client: "That's a good point. We haven't considered that." Me: "And strategically, does it make sense to go after those giants? Or are there smaller companies that align better with your long term goals?" Client: "Hmm, I see what you mean." Me: "Let me put it another way: Have you ever seen a small company achieve amazing results with a product like yours?" Client: Thinking.. "Actually, yes! There's that one company..." Me: "Exactly. Account selection in #ABM isn't just about chasing big names. It's about finding the best fit for your business, potential value and strategic alignment." Client: "Tell me more..." Me: "Don't get me wrong, big accounts can be great. But those smaller accounts can sometimes bring surprising value and become your biggest wins." Client: "This is making me rethink our entire strategy." Me: "That's the idea. ABM is about finding the accounts that will benefit from your solution and align with your long-term goals." Client: "So, how do we find those accounts with potential?" Me: "Dig deeper. Look beyond size and revenue. Consider their needs, growth potential and their strategic fit. Sometimes, the hidden finds are the most valuable." Client: "This is eye opening. I'm excited to explore this further." Me: "Great. Think over quality over quantity." #b2bmarketing #demandgeneration #marketingstrategy

Dear Marketing - You can't give everyone the VIP treatment. It doesn't matter how "scalable" or "AI-first" your strategy has become. It's a trap many marketers fall into (or dive into depending on your mood), and it greatly affects ABM strategy. "Let's give everyone a highly-personalized marketing HUG." It's so important to structure all marketing efforts (ABM mainly) on the right accounts. Priorization is everything. I'll type it again... prioritization is everything! HockeyStack has been one of my main resources recently to up-level my understanding of how to THINK about prioritization in a meaningful way. Because it may seem easy, but it is damn hard. Spewing “let’s focus on the best-fit accounts” is one thing, but actually aligning sales and marketing on which accounts matter, why they matter, and how to engage them is where things get damn messy. The best teams I've come across have built a scoring framework to help build a foundation around the gut feel. They assign scores based on: Fit – How well does the account match your ICP? Intent – Are they actively researching solutions like yours? Engagement – Are they interacting with your content, attending events, or engaging with sales? "Kyle, c'mon. We were talking about this in 2018." "Well, fictional marketing leader reading this post. We are still lost and haven't advanced from spray and pray. I'm sorry." This is OLD NEWS but it still amazes me how many marketers do not take this approach to building clear account tiers: High-score accounts get custom content, executive involvement, and deep sales engagement. Mid-score accounts get automated nurtures and light-touch outreach. Low-score accounts? They wait until they show stronger intent. Scoring models and frameworks are important, but the alignment between GTM leadership is even more important. If sales is chasing one set of accounts while marketing invests in anything, y'all are screwed. And even MORE importantly, the best teams constantly adjust because if you do it correctly, the tiers will change based on actions. ABM isn’t about reaching more accounts. It’s about reaching the right ones at the right time.

Last week I talked to a Head of Marketing who spent $120K on ABM last year. Total pipeline generated: $89K. They lost money running ads. Here's what went wrong (broken down by the numbers): BACKGROUND: The campaign ran for 9 months targeting "B2B SaaS companies" with digital ads and cold email. Here's the numbers breakdown: → 8,000 target accounts → 45,000 contacts → 2.1% ad engagement → 0.3% website visits → 12 demos booked → 2 closed deals Here's how my conversation went: Me: What do you think killed it? Him: Honestly? We never defined who we were actually going after. "B2B SaaS" was our ICP. That's not an ICP. Me: What else? Him: Every ad went straight to "book a demo." No content. No nurture. Just the ask. We were basically cold-pitching people who had never heard of us. Me: What would you do differently? Him: I'd start with our closed-won deals. Figure out who actually buys from us and why. Then build the campaign around that instead of guessing. That's exactly what we did for a 7-figure SaaS client. Here's what changed: → Sorted deals by LTV first → Built ICP criteria: 500+ employees, post-Series A, 50K+ organic traffic, hiring SEO roles → Tiered 16,000 accounts into 3 buckets → Led with educational content, not demo requests → Retargeted ad engagers with personalized outbound → Used webinar invites instead of cold pitches The results after 90 days: → $37K ad spend → $2M pipeline → $300K closed revenue → $52 back for every $1 spent TAKEAWAY: ABM fails when you target everyone and lead with the ask. It works when you: 1. Know exactly who converts (from your own data) 2. Educate before you sell 3. Layer outbound on top of ad engagement Most teams do it backwards. Education → Trust → Conversion. Not: Ads → Demo CTA → Pray. Are you running ABM campaigns this year?

I reviewed a client’s $20k/month ABM program this week. They couldn't answer one basic question (and tbh most teams can't either). Why is this account on your TAL? And if you can’t answer that… LinkedIn will happily charge you to find out. On the call, we pulled up their target list. It was a giant database export. No tiers. No buying committee mapping. No disqualifiers. Just “accounts” → uploaded → spend. That’s not ABM. That’s paid guessing. Here’s the operator version of what actually fixes it: 1) ICP = best-customer patterns → lookalikes → leverage Start with the customers that already convert fast and expand. Pull the pattern: trigger, constraints, why you win, what proof you have. Build lookalikes from that pattern. 2) TAL is a RevOps asset (CRM object), not a spreadsheet TAL lives in HubSpot/CRM with: owner, tier, stage, next action. Reviewed weekly and updated weekly so you can see account progression. Weekly, you should be able to answer: → % of TAL reached → % engaged → % pipeline attached → what moved accounts (signal → action) → what changed in the TAL (adds/removes and why) 3) LinkedIn ABM is judged on progression metrics: If you judge LinkedIn Ads on demos, you’ll kill ABM early. RevOps tracks what moves accounts forward: → audience penetration (% of TAL reached) → engagement rate / CTR by angle → % of TAL accounts reached by ads → account progression (% TAL → pipeline) → pipeline per $ spent 4) RevOps routing is the compounding layer Engagement → Triggers → CRM → Clay → Audience update → Outbound Trigger So signals don’t sit in dashboards. They update tiers, move audiences, and create outbound tasks tied to intent. ABM that works is boring on purpose: clean ICP → controlled TAL → progression tracking → routing. If you’re running LinkedIn ABM right now: Do you have weekly visibility on TAL → pipeline progression? Tools mentioned: Data sources: PandaMatch 🐼, Ocean.io , DiscoLike Routing stack: Fibbler, Trigify.io, Clay, Instantly.ai

If I was running ABM at a fast-growing security company (like Wiz, Snyk, or Netskope), here's how I'd avoid wasting money on bad-fit accounts. 👇 AI Segmentation. Most companies segment by industry. They say something like: "We target Tech, Retail, and Hospitality companies with 1,000+ employees." Motel 6 and Airbnb show why this breaks. Same firmographic profiles. But very different business situations, needs, and priorities when it comes to information security (or any tech purchase). You wouldn't sell to them the same way. AI Segmentation helps you uncover and target the highest value segments for your business, beyond basic industries. Here's how I would do this for a security company: 1.) Segment on business situation (not industry). -- Analyze your best customers (high NRR, high ACV). -- Group by specific situations that align to your value prop. e.g. Security Maturity Level, Security Use Cases, Compliance Sensitivity, etc.  -- Find the *natural* clusters based on value, not generic industry labels. 2.) Identify segments with AI. -- Use Keyplay AI to categorize every account in your market. -- Backtest segments against historical data to find which segments have the highest NDR, ACV, and Win Rates. -- Find new ICPs, outside generic vertical groups. 3.) Action the data -- Create ABM plays at intersections with highest win rates. -- Develop content specific to each segment combination (e.g., "Cloud Security for Advanced DevSecOps Teams in Retail") -- Refine your segmentation models as you grow. This process can reduce non-ICP Spend (waste) by 20-30% and help you find thousands of net new target accounts. Don't just throw your budget at industries. Find the segments where your solution resonates most, where you win often, win fast, and win big. That's strategic segmentation. p.s. If you want me and my team to kick-start this process for you, we're offering a free strategic segmentation analysis to CMOs at SaaS security companies with >$20M ARR. Get your report here --> https://lnkd.in/gMezS4Zk #ABM #ICP

We've set up dozens of ABM programs. Of every component we ship, awareness scoring is my favorite.  5 stages, all auto-updated by workflows in your CRM: 1. Identified 2. Aware 3. Interested 4. Evaluating 5. Selecting The first and last are fixed: - Identified = on your TAL, no engagement yet - Selecting = open deal in your CRM The middle 3 are yours to customize. You define the end conditions for each stage based on your business, your motion, and the signals you want to track. Here are some of the variables worth considering in your model: 🟡 Aware • Website visit in the last 30 days • 1+ engagement on social content • Intro call from investors • Newsletter signup • Low-level ad impression 🟠 Interested • 2+ contacts connected with co-founders • Attended a low-intent event • Member of your community • Repeat website visits • Content download 🟢 Evaluating • Trial start • High-intent webpage visit (pricing, comparison) • Positive outbound reply • LinkedIn ad engagement • Event attendance • Webinar attendance The criteria you choose will dictate which tools you’d need. Some of the most common ones: Fibbler, Jungler, RB2B, HubSpot, Clay For each signal, you set 3 things: - Recency (e.g. last 30 days) - Threshold (e.g. 3+ opens, 50+ impressions, 2+ clicks) - Stage priority (higher stage wins if criteria overlap) And accounts move both ways. (if activity drops below threshold or the time window expires, the account falls back to a lower stage) To set this up in HubSpot, you’d need: - One list (segment) per stage with enrollment criteria - A custom "Awareness Stage" property on the Company object - Workflows that update the property when accounts enter/exit lists From there, each stage triggers a different play: - Identified & Aware → marketing pushes more ads and content - Interested → SDR starts personalized touchpoints - Evaluating → AE gets involved - Selecting → full sales motion ___ This is the best methodology we've found to ACTUALLY get reps to use RevOps systems. Unlike most things RevOps ships, reps LOVE this one.

“We decided to stop using 6sense.” That’s a line I’ve heard from quite a few MNCs lately, and honestly, it’s a classic problem. The problem isn’t with 6sense. Most of the time, it just needs a few iterations, adjustments, and the right setup to work the way it’s meant to. Here’s the pattern I’ve seen: Teams sign up for this incredibly powerful platform, but instead of building a strategy around it, they treat it like another media tool. They sync ads to LinkedIn, Facebook, and the 6sense DSP, then expect magic to happen. ✨ And when the reports don’t make sense or the attribution looks fuzzy, they conclude : “It’s too complicated. Let’s drop it.” But the problem isn’t complexity. It’s clarity. You can’t expect to navigate a galaxy of intent data if your map still lives in Excel sheets. 🌌 Manual uploads. Disconnected CRMs. Zero segmentation logic. And no media plan that connects audience → impressions → engagement → pipeline. It’s like driving a Ferrari in first gear and complaining it’s slow. Here’s what actually works: 1️⃣ Start with Dynamic Segments. Sync your CRM, filter accounts by awareness stage, engagement, and buying readiness. That’s your roadmap to prioritize accounts. For example: If there are thousands of low-engaged accounts, put them in a 1:Many ABM journey to drive top-funnel awareness. If there are clusters of accounts showing similar engagement patterns or messaging themes, put them in a 1:Few ABM journey with tailored campaigns. And if you have highly engaged ICPs who filled forms, attended webinars, or even contacted sales, put them in 1:1 ABM and go all in. That’s where the real impact begins. 2️⃣ Plan your media like you plan your budget: Define audience size, expected reach, impressions, and outcomes. Then revisit quarterly, remove what’s not working, double down on what is. 3️⃣ Use Conversational Emails wisely. Warm accounts deserve human-like engagement, not another automated nurture. 4️⃣ Leverage Sales Insights. Show your reps which accounts are heating up, then tie campaigns to those insights. Even better, build microsites personalized for those accounts with the rep’s name and face. 6sense doesn’t create alignment; it reveals whether your sales and marketing are truly aligned. If your inputs are scattered, the platform will only magnify that chaos. So before quitting 6sense, ask yourself: Are we using it wrong or are we just not ready to use it right? #6sense #challenges #b2b #B2bmarketing #salesandmarketing

If you are writing sales messaging that could apply to anybody in your TAM, you're writing sales copy that nobody gives AF about. OUCH! I know that might be hard to hear, but here's the hack to better segment your TAM in 2025. ➡️ The harsh truth is that Founders who take a "boil the ocean" approach to selling in will fail. Here's how you can get better results in 3 steps: Step 1 - Move your focus from everybody who *could* possibly buy from you to the group of folks who are most likely to buy now, buy at a high price point, and later renew or be a referral source. Step 2 - From that much smaller group of accounts, create segments. These are not the traditional segments that help your organize your territories. These are segments that help you speak the language of a deep sub-set of prospects. I suggest at least 5 layers of segmentation blending firmographic data, signals, and contact-level data. EXAMPLE: You sell production line automation software. You believe your ICP is: US-based supply chain executives in manufacturing organizations with at least 1k employees. Great start, but it's time to add 5+ layers of segmentation before you can create a message that matters. Segment 1: Midwest "Manufacturing Belt" only Segment 2: Chief Supply Chain Officers only Segment 3: Machinery manufacturing only Segment 4: 50,000 to 100,000 employees Segment 5: New CFO hired in the past year Now you are only speaking to the CSCO or a sub-industry working in the region where you have the strongest social proof. By tightening the employee range you know they have a big enough problem to solve (+ can pick the best name drops) and a new CFO signals an openness to (re)explore cost-saving software. Step 3 - Use this process to launch dozens of micro-campaigns that speak to specific sub-sets of your territory because you've created enough segmentation to be 99% sure your copy will be RELEVANT to them. This is THE only way I've found to personalize at scale. I love teaching orgs how to better segment their accounts and create segment-specific value props. I call it #ValueBasedSegmentation ➡️ The result is: - Highly relevant copy - Emails that can be fully automated - High CTRs/replies without tedious personalization 📌 How do you personalize at scale?

Most people think LinkedIn is the end-all-be-all for ABM. It’s not. Not even close. Sure, LinkedIn’s targeting is solid. You can filter by title, company size, seniority, etc. But if you're only using what LinkedIn gives you 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺, you're leaving opportunity on the table. Here's what we do differently at Impactable 👇 We’ve got a full license to 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵, which lets us see what technology a company is using on their site. HubSpot, Shopify, Salesforce, etc. That’s called 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗰 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 and it’s a game-changer when you combine it with LinkedIn's filters. So instead of just targeting “Marketing Managers at SaaS companies,” we’re targeting decision makers at companies that already use HubSpot because we know that’s who our clients convert best. Then we take it a step further: We enrich those account lists to find the actual humans inside those companies. Now we’re not just guessing. We 𝘰𝘸𝘯 the data. And once you own the audience? You can advertise to them across LinkedIn, Facebook, programmatic, whatever. You’re not limited to just one platform. This is how we run cold ABM like retargeting. Hyper-focused, high-frequency, and everywhere they scroll. If you’ve got a list of 500 dream accounts… this is how you stay in front of them until they convert. #ABMstrategy #LinkedInAds #B2BMarketing #DemandGen

5 practical ways to segment your database better. Not doing this is hampering campaign performance for Channel partner & SaaS marketing teams. No point blaming tools or timing when campaigns underperform. Yesterday’s post of mine on fixing poor targeting sparked a great comment asking "how to segment database effectively". A very valid question. Here are 5 practical ways to do that (standalone or in combo): 1) By industry / vertical: → BFSI, Manufacturing, Pharma, IT/ITES 2) By role / persona: → CXOs (CIO, CTO, CISO) → Influencers (IT Managers, Procurement, Compliance Heads) 3) By company size / maturity → Early-stage startups (education, enablement messaging) → Growing SMBs (scaling, compliance, data governance messaging) → Enterprises (integration, risk reduction, RoI messaging) 4) By solution / practice area: → Cybersecurity, Cloud, Infrastructure, Managed Services 5) By engagement stage: → New leads, Warm prospects, Active clients, Dormant, Lost, Referrals Do not delay segmentation. It is the foundation of your campaigns. Because right messaging to the right audience resonates. And your results depend on it. ---- Rajeev Mamidanna Fixing what most tech founders miss out - Brand Strategy, Marketing Systems & Unified Messaging in 90 days & helping you with continuous Marketing