What is account-based marketing (ABM)?

Written by Madalena Rugeroni, founder of Mazo · Updated 10 November 2026

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a go-to-market approach where sales and marketing pick a named list of target companies first, then build outreach, content and ads for those accounts and the people inside them. It flips the usual funnel: you choose who you want as customers before you generate any leads.

The three ABM tiers

Tier	Accounts	What it looks like
One-to-one	5–20	Research and messaging written for each account, often with a custom proposal or event
One-to-few	20–200	Clusters of similar accounts (same industry or trigger) sharing one tailored campaign
One-to-many	200+	Light personalisation at scale, usually ads and sequences targeted by account list

Worked example

A fictional compliance SaaS with a €30k ACV has 4 customers, all mid-sized European payment companies.

The founder lists 60 similar payment companies and names the head of compliance and the COO at each.
Each account gets a short note referencing a public trigger: a new licence, a regulator fine in their market, a compliance job posting.
Over a quarter, 14 accounts reply, 9 take a call and 3 become qualified opportunities. At a €30k ACV, one closed deal pays for the quarter's effort many times over.

Why it matters from €0 to €1M ARR

Fits when: ACV is roughly €10k or more, your ICP fits on a list of a few hundred companies, and several people sign off on each purchase.
Skip it when: ACV is low and buyers self-serve. A €30-a-month product can't fund per-account research.
Before €1M ARR: ABM is the founder, a spreadsheet of target accounts and personal outreach. Dedicated ABM platforms come later, once there's a team to run them.

Mazo's rule of thumb: write the target account list before anything else, and keep it short enough that you could name the reason each account is on it. If you can't, the list is a lead list with a new label.

Common ABM mistakes

Buying a platform before having a list. Tools amplify targeting you've already done.
Targeting one person per account. Reach the user, the champion and the budget holder (see buyer persona).
Measuring leads. Track engaged accounts, opportunities and pipeline per target account instead.
Marketing and sales working different lists. ABM only works when both chase the same accounts.

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FAQ

Is ABM worth it for an early-stage startup?

Yes when your contract values are high and your ideal customers fit on a list of a few hundred companies. In that case founder-run ABM is simply careful, researched outreach. For low-price, self-serve products it rarely pays back.

What is the difference between ABM and outbound sales?

Outbound is a channel: reaching prospects who did not ask to hear from you. ABM is a targeting strategy: choosing specific accounts first and coordinating outbound, content, ads and events around them.

How do you measure account-based marketing?

Track the share of target accounts engaged, meetings and qualified opportunities per target account, pipeline value and win rate on target accounts compared with everything else.

Who wrote this

Madalena Rugeroni built Mazo. She's an ex-Googler, a startup advisor and investor, and runs a portfolio of internet companies. Before that, as Head of Growth at Amplemarket, she scaled a B2B SaaS to $10M ARR. LinkedIn

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Further reading. The term "account-based marketing" was coined by ITSMA (the Information Technology Services Marketing Association) in 2004. Mazo is not affiliated with or endorsed by ITSMA.