Common barriers to account-based marketing personalization (and how to overcome them)

If you’ve worked in a B2B digital marketing or sales role recently, you've probably heard a lot about account-based marketing (ABM) personalization, or account-based marketing campaigns. 

For many brands, ABM is now a go-to marketing strategy — for good reason. 

In an account-based marketing strategy, digital marketers and the sales team work together to identify the specific needs and preferences of their customers so that they can create and deliver personalized experiences. As part of the ABM process, brands identify target accounts and push content, such as personalized messaging, personalized campaigns, and personalized landing pages, to them —  with the goal of increasing conversions, number of booked meetings, demo sign-ups, and, ultimately, sales.

However, despite the obvious commercial potential, many marketers find it difficult to implement personalization into their ABM strategy successfully because of a handful of barriers. 

In this post, we’re going to zero-in on the common barriers to ABM personalization that prevent brands from achieving their digital content goals, and explore strategies to overcome them. 

Using the wrong tech stack

ABM personalization leverages the tech stack to not only provide critical customer data but to equip marketing teams with the flexibility and functionality to craft impactful digital experiences. 

However, many companies aren’t using technology that was designed with personalization in mind — which is an obvious barrier to the fulfilment of ABM personalization goals, such as deploying specific content for a target account. Legacy content management systems (CMSes), for example, are typically highly coupled, all-in-one platforms that don’t lend themselves to the integration of the technology that brands need to deliver the highly targeted, personalized content experiences that underpin an ABM strategy. 

To overcome those limitations, brands need to consider moving away from outdated, monolithic tech stacks, and embracing the possibilities of MACH architecture — that is microservice, API-based integration, cloud-native, and headless delivery.

A MACH-first technology stack is essential for supporting the high levels of personalization required for successful ABM because it allows marketing and sales teams to be agile and efficient with content creation. It means they can push content out in an omnichannel marketing strategy without formatting or coding concerns, and adapt the tech stack to meet new market demands as necessary.

MACH also enables teams to automate much of the ABM personalization process, including testing and experimentation, customer segmentation and data management, and the application of real-time personalization and optimization processes. 

A lack of coordination between marketing and sales

ABM personalization relies on the synergy between marketers and salespeople, which means a lack of coordination between those teams can create a significant efficiency barrier. 

One of the primary causes of poor marketing/sales coordination is that, in many companies, those departments operate in silos, which significantly undermines communication and collaboration channels, and prevents teams aligning with each other's needs. When marketers don’t have access to the customer data that salespeople can provide (and vice-versa) messaging for specific accounts becomes difficult. 

To address marketing and sales silos, brands need to think about infrastructure — not just in terms of how teams are organized on an interpersonal level, but how they access and use technology tools. In practice, this means helping marketers and salespeople align in person with check-ins and meetings, but also building communication and collaboration tools into the tech stack that don’t require technical expertise to use. 

That kind of accessible environment is a foundation for the marketing/sales synergies that you’ll need to optimize your ABM personalization effort.  

Siloed and non-unified customer data

In order to deliver a personalized, account-based marketing experience, modern businesses need to have a complete and unified view of their customer data. 

Developing that view is easier said than done, especially in organizations where the divide between departments and software systems has created silos, which make it almost impossible for anyone to get a holistic view of the customer journey. These environments also end up making it difficult for different teams to implement a single source of truth, and so they are left with different definitions of key customer data points. 

That fracturing of data undermines personalization efforts because teams simply can’t find and retrieve critical data when they need to. 

To overcome siloing and the challenges associated with non-unified data, businesses need to invest in modern customer data platforms, customer relationship management (CRM), and marketing automation solutions — and connect them as part of their digital ecosystem services. In this environment, individual apps and services can work together to provide a unified view of the customer journey. 

Investing in the wrong data strategy

Data is the lifeblood of every account-based marketing campaign. Without data, marketing and sales teams have no way of knowing which types of customers’ accounts to target, what type of content to send, or when to engage individual target accounts.

However, no matter how good your teams’ collective ability is to read the commercial landscape accurately, your account-based marketing personalization efforts are likely to fall flat if they’re relying on the wrong data strategy.

One of the most common barriers to ABM personalization success is simply an investment in the wrong data strategy. Here, “wrong data strategy” typically means a brand is relying heavily on third-party providers to deliver the data it uses to fuel its personalization efforts. While third-party data can be useful, it’s often inaccurate and incomplete, which makes it difficult to use in the creation of targeted campaigns. In some cases, third-party data can even be inaccurate, which may undermine personalization efforts significantly. 

Given those risks, businesses need to be choosy about the data they invest in and use to fuel their personalized marketing efforts. 

One of the ways they can do this is to focus on first-party data, collected directly from customers and prospects. Because it’s more reliable and actionable than third-party data, first-party data can provide better insight into customer needs and preferences, and generate value more efficiently. 

From a strategic perspective, businesses that invest in, and build a strong foundation on, first-party data are more likely to be successful with their account-based marketing personalization efforts. 

Not knowing where and how to get started

Many businesses want to personalize their account-based marketing efforts but don't know where to start. They may feel overwhelmed by the thought of creating personalized content, or of tailoring their message to specific accounts.

It's important to remember that ABM personalization is a journey, not a destination. It’s perfectly reasonable to start small, experiment with one or two personalization tools, and learn from the results. 

By taking baby steps, and slowly building their ABM personalization program, marketing teams can avoid being overwhelmed by data and infrastructure, increasing their chances of making a meaningful, positive difference to their personalization standards.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to ABM personalization, so it's important to experiment and learn from your successes and failures. Testing and experimentation isn’t a box to be ticked on the road to successful personalization; customer behaviors and market trends shift, so you’ll need to test constantly to deliver effective results over the long term.

For an example of successful personalization in action, check out Personio’s success story with Contentful, implementing a personalization strategy at scale, for a huge lift in conversions.

The bottom line: Take ABM to the next level with personalization

Successful account-based marketing is predicated on achieving effective personalization, but that means being ready to tackle a number of potential barriers.

Fortunately, those barriers aren’t insurmountable, and sales and marketing teams can give themselves a head start by leveraging their tech stacks. With Contentful, for example, teams have access to a suite of personalization tools to support their ABM efforts that includes advanced data management capabilities, AI-powered testing tools, and an array of content personalization features to help craft unique, engaging experiences for every customer. 

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