• by Ray Schultz , June 28, 2019

Adobe has launched a product called ABM Essentials for Marketo Engage to help B2B firms deliver account-based experiences (ABX), a new term in the marketing lexicon, at every touchpoint in the buyer journey.

ABX, a term coined by Adobe, is “where ABM (account-based marketing) and customer experience management come together,” says Brian Glover, director of product marketing for Marketo Engage, Adobe.

ABM Essentials is intended to "help sales and marketing teams close sales opportunities faster and easier, and to coordinate across all channels and buyer journey stages,” Glover adds. 

This help is needed because ABM practitioners are still struggling with pulling in data from all sources and with other issues, he adds.

 “It’s difficult to bring all these things together,” Glover says. “Do I need to buy and integrate 15 other point tools? Are there intent indicators -- are the people in the account engaged with us?” 

Glover says “the ABM maturity level is all over the map.”

Some companies are sending campaigns in individual channels such as email, and others are doing cross-channel point-in-time campaigns.

Email is a core channel of Marketo Engage, but firms have to ensure that targets are getting the same experiences on their website.

“You might send them a highly personalized email, and they may have an interaction with a salesperson, but the salesperson doesn’t have the full context, and you might have personalization in some channels and not in others.”

What’s more, marketing and sales have to coordinate. Marketing may be sending emails, and so might sales. “How do you know when to stop doing email because sales is emailing?” Glover asks.

The weakest area of ABM is at the top of the funnel. The classic inbound model is to create content and wait for people to come to you,” Glove says. “But they will not always land on your website or content through Google. How do you reach them where they are?

ABM Essentials provides these five capabilities, the company says:

1. Account insights & profiling—This allows marketing and sales to partner on a shared strategy and identify the right target accounts using data and artificial intelligence. 
2. Contact discovery — This helps brands attract new contacts across paid media and identify key personas within target accounts.
3. Cross-channel engagement — B2B Firms can Automate account-based experiences with personalized campaigns and intelligent nurturing. 
4. Sales & marketing partnership — Sales and marketing can pursue accounts together with visibility into activity on both sides.
5. Measurement & attribution — The user can use this to measure account engagement and the combined impact of sales and marketing activity. 

The firm is working with strategic partners to brings these tools to bear on the challenge, Glover adds. Marketo also has a product called Sales Connect to help with the ABM process. 

You've heard of ABM an CX. Time will tell if ABX will become the new industry buzzword.