Account Lists: Foundation of Your ABM Strategy

An account list is a curated set of customers, partners, and potential customers that represent opportunities to move through the account funnel. These accounts may become new customers, expand through upsell or cross-sell, renew existing business, or develop into strategic partnerships.

Account lists are iterative and evolve over time as your strategy and data maturity improve. Start with an initial set of accounts and refine them continuously based on performance and insights. 

Common stages include:

• Pilot program: Start with a focused segment, such as a specific industry or market, to test and refine your approach.
• Organization-wide rollout: Expand lists based on alignment between Marketing and Sales, often using CRM data and cross-functional input.
• Look-alike modeling: Identify high-performing accounts and find others with similar characteristics.
• Data-driven selection: Use the following Demandbase features to refine targeting.
  • Buying Groups
  • Engagement Points
  • Intent
  • Journey Stages
  • Keyword Sets
  • Pipeline Predict Scores
  • Qualification Scores
  • Technographics
• Optimization through metrics: Continuously improve using metrics like pipeline coverage, deal size, funnel velocity, and cost per opportunity.

Ownership and Management

Account lists should have clear ownership, ideally shared between Sales and Marketing (or Marketing Operations). These owners are responsible for:

• Maintaining and updating the list.
• Documenting selection criteria and data sources.
• Communicating changes to stakeholders.
• Monitoring performance and associated metrics.

Best Practices

• Update lists carefully and avoid frequent changes, especially during a pilot or mid-quarter.
• Align major updates with annual goals, and make smaller adjustments quarterly.
• Adjust lists as needed to reflect new products or market shifts.
• Maintain clear ownership and communication to keep account lists aligned with your ABM strategy.

Getting Started

Demandbase provides pre-built account lists based on your CRM. See Demandbase System Account Lists.

You can also create and manage custom lists to align with your account-based marketing strategy. See Create an Account List and Manage Account Lists.