The 2025 Account-based Marketing Playbook
I'm rebuilding the ABM motion for a unicorn SaaS.
Here's exactly how:
1️⃣ Total Addressable Market Map
You should have data on every company in your ICP.
In this case:
↳ Their Salesforce CRM had 2500 accounts
↳ Sourced from ZoomInfo + Cognism
↳ We did a CRM download.
↳ Added industry matches scraped from the internet using DiscoLike.
Meaning we had WAY more accounts.
But not all were qualified.
2️⃣ Develop ICP model
Few companies study their ICP like a science:
↳ Analyze closed won for signal trends.
↳ Study highest-spend customers.
↳ Find commonalities among closed-lost.
↳ Backtest model against closed won.
Now, you have a model to score your TAM map.
3️⃣ Account research + company scoring
The point of ABM is that you focus on the right accounts:
↳ Automate account research using Clay.
↳ Deploy research agents to scrape info from websites.
↳ Add enrichments from data providers.
↳ Feed data into AI scoring prompt.
↳ Categorize accounts into Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and unqualified.
Send data on qualified accounts back to the CRM.
4️⃣ Find relevant contacts at company
Multithreading is key when it comes to ABM:
↳ Use Clay, Apollo.io, or Icypeas to find people by title.
↳ Key decision makers are Tier 1.
↳ Management end-users are Tier 2.
↳ Operational end-users and Tier 3.
↳ AI scoring prompt to categorize.
Big deals require buy-in from all three tiers.
5️⃣ Track first- and third-party signals
This is to prioritize accounts when timing is right.
1st party signals:
↳ Outreach replies.
↳ Data straight from your CRM.
↳ Ad insights w/ Fibbler, Vector 👻, or Influ2.
↳ Product usage w/ Amplitude, Mixpanel, or Heap.
↳ Website visits w/ Warmly, RB2B, or MeetVisitors.
↳ LinkedIn signals w/ Common Room, Teamfluence™, or Trigify.io.
This makes up your engagement score:
↳ Aware (0-40), Interested (41-70), Evaluating (71-100)
2nd party signals:
↳ Review sites like G2, Capterra, or ColdIQ.
↳ Champions w/ LoneScale, UserGems 💎, or Champify.
↳ Tech integrations w/ Crossbeam, PartnerStack, or Reveal.
3rd party signals:
↳ Job openings w/ Clay, PredictLeads, or PDL.
↳ Funding w/ Crunchbase, PitchBook, or Owler.
↳ Company initiatives w/ Clay, Serper, or 10-K reports.
↳ People changes w/ Clay, LoneScale, or UserGems 💎.
↳ Tech stack w/ BuiltWith, HG Insights, or Wappalyzer.
↳ Social signals w/ PhantomBuster, Trigify, or Common Room.
These make up your intent score:
↳ Low (0-40), Medium (41-70), and High (71-100)
6️⃣ Composite score and CRM enrich
In Clay, this data is composited into one priority score.
And sent back to the CRM.
7️⃣ Segment actions based on scores
Strategy for Tier 1 acquisition:
↳ 1:1 outreach
↳ Focused ad spend
↳ Event invites + warm intros
↳ Personalized videos + landing pages
For Tier 2 and 3s, you can automate:
↳ Email outreach w/ Instantly.ai
↳ Linkedin outreach w/ HeyReach
↳ Multichannel sequences w/ lemlist
Comment if you'd like the full res graphic 👇