Can we talk about how ABM went from hot to cold in just 2 years?

I remember back in 2021, every B2B podcast I listened to was all about Account Based Marketing. Seemed like half the SaaS companies I knew were building out these huge ABM programs with dedicated SDR teams. Fast forward to now and I'm seeing way more talk about PLG and demand gen again. A buddy at a company in Austin told me they killed their ABM program after 18 months because the ROI just wasn't there compared to their content marketing. Is ABM actually dead or did we just do it wrong? Curious what other people are seeing in their own companies.

2 comments

2 Comments

leep8911d ago

Real talk, ABM got oversold by vendors and a lot of companies jumped in too fast without having the data infrastructure to actually target accounts properly. My experience was that it works great if you already have a strong ICP and clean data, but most places just bought the hype and tried to force it. Probably not dead, just way less of a magic bullet than people made it out to be.

riverm4810d ago

Good follow up, but what kind of data infrastructure are we talking about here? Like, is it a CRM hygiene thing or more about having the right tools to actually track account intent signals? I've seen teams waste months on ABM platforms without even having their Salesforce data sorted first. Kind of curious where @leep89 thinks the biggest gap usually is.