ABM Vendor Guide: Differentiators for Result Analysis

...and we wrap up our review of sub-functions from the Raab Guide to ABM Vendors with a look at Result Analysis.

ABM Process	System Function	Sub-Function	Number of Vendors
Identify Target Accounts	Assemble Data	External Data	28
	Select Targets	Target Scoring	15
Plan Interactions	Assemble Messages	Customized Messages	6
	Select Messages	State-Based Flows	10
Execute Interactions	Deliver Messages	Execution	19
Analyze Results	Reporting	Result Analysis	16

As the Guide points out, this category focuses on measurements unique to account-based programs:

Nearly every system will have some form of result reporting. ABM specialists provide account-based result metrics such as percentage of target accounts reached, amount of time target accounts are spending with company messages, and distribution of messages by department within target accounts.

Not surprisingly, most of vendors who do ABM Result Analysis also do some sort of Execution (12 out of 16, to be exact). Another two (Everstring and ZenIQ) didn't fall into the Execution group but came close.  Of the final two, one supports measurement with advanced lead-to-account mapping (LeanData) and one attribution specialist (Bizible). It's important to recognize that many of the Execution vendors will report only results of their own messages.  This is certainly helpful but you'll want to see reports that combine data from all messages to get a meaningful picture of your ABM program results. 

Differenatiators for this group include:

• lead-to-account mapping to unify data
• corporate hierarchy mapping (headquarters/branch, parent/subsidiary, etc.) to unify data
• marketing campaign to opportunity mapping to support attribution
• combine data from marketing automation, Web analytics, and CRM
• track offline channels such as conferences, direct mail, outbound hone calls
• capture detailed interaction history for each Web visit (mouse clicks, scrolling, active time spent, etc.)
• capture mobile app behaviors with SDK as well as Web site behaviors with Javascript tag
• use device ID to link display ads, Web site visits, and form fills to revenue, even when visitors don’t click on ad or Web page
• report within Salesforce CRM on combined information about leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities, campaigns, and owners
• apply multiple attribution methods including first touch, last touch, fractional, etc.
• show account-level descriptive metrics including coverage, contact frequency, visitors, contacts by job title
• show account-level result metrics including reach, engagement, influence, velocity
• show reach, engagement, influence, velocity by campaign, content, persona, segment, etc.
• identify gaps in coverage, reach, or engagement by account and recommend corrective actions

One final reminder: the just-published Guide to ABM Vendors helps marketers understand what tools they need to complete their ABM stack.  It provides detailed profiles of 40 ABM vendors, with contents including:

• introduction to Account Based Marketing
• description of ABM functions
• key subfunctions that differentiate ABM vendors
• vendor summary chart that shows who does what
• explanations of information provided in the report
• vendor profiles including a summary description, list of key features, and detailed information covering  37 categories including data sources, data storage, data outputs, target selection, planning, execution, analytics, operations, pricing, and vendor background.

For more information or to order, click here.

ABM Vendor Guide: Special Features to Deliver ABM Messages

Our tour of sub-functions from the Raab Guide to ABM Vendors has now reached Execution.

ABM Process	System Function	Sub-Function	Number of Vendors
Identify Target Accounts	Assemble Data	External Data	28
	Select Targets	Target Scoring	15
Plan Interactions	Assemble Messages	Customized Messages	6
	Select Messages	State-Based Flows	10
Execute Interactions	Deliver Messages	Execution	19
Analyze Results	Reporting	Result Analysis	16

This has a very broad definition:

These are systems that actually deliver messages in channels such as email, display advertising, social media advertising, the company Web site, or CRM. As used in this Guide, execution may include direct integration with a delivery system, such as adding a name to a marketing automation campaign, sending a list of cookies and instructions to an ad buying system, or pushing a personalized message to a company Web site.

That definition could apply to almost any system that delivers marketing messages, but the ABM Guide includes only ABM specialists. This narrows the field drastically. Most Execution firms in the Guide specialize in a particular channel, such as display advertising, social media advertising, Web content, or email. Many can also push messages to other channels via marketing automation or CRM integration.

Differentiators include:

• channels supported (display advertising, social advertising, CRM, marketing automation, email, direct mail, telemarketing, text, mobile apps, content syndication, etc.)
• channels supported directly vs. via integration with external systems
• targeting at account and/or individual levels
• targeting based on external data assembled by the vendor
• maintain central content library
• present externally-hosted content without losing control over the visitor experience
• integrated a/b and multivariate testing
• vendor provides content creation and program management services
• capture detailed content engagement data across multiple content types and deliver to external systems (e.g. marketing automation or CRM)
• capture detailed behavior data and deliver to external systems
• analyze content consumption to identify visitors with specific interests or surge in consumption volume and pass to external systems
• send alerts to CRM regarding behavior by target accounts
• assign tasks in CRM to sales reps
• salespeople can create custom content streams for specific accounts
• support for channel partner marketing (lead distribution, gamification, marketing development fund management, pipeline optimization, etc.)
• user can specify which ads are seen by each account 
• set up ad campaigns within the system and transfer to external vendors to execute
• buy and serve ads using the vendor's own technology (in particular, platforms that can buy based on IP address or device IDs rather than cookies)
• pricing for ad purchases (some vendors pass through actual costs; some charge fixed CPMs or monthly flat fees and may profit from effective buying)
• tele-verify, gather additional information, and set appointments with leads identified by the vendor
• fees based on performance vs. program costs
• self-service features vs. vendor managed services
• program reporting and analytics

As with the Customized Messages and State-Based Flow subfunctions, Execution functions can also be delivered many non-ABM specialists.  If you want to go this route, be sure to check how well the system can integrate with your messaging and flow management systems and be sure they can work at the account level.  Those are the places where ABM specialists are most likely to shine.

ABM Vendor Guide: State-Based Flows to Orchestrate Account Treatments

Next up in this series on ABM sub-functions described in the Raab Guide to ABM Vendors: State-Based Flows.

ABM Process	System Function	Sub-Function	Number of Vendors
Identify Target Accounts	Assemble Data	External Data	28
	Select Targets	Target Scoring	15
Plan Interactions	Assemble Messages	Customized Messages	6
	Select Messages	State-Based Flows	10
Execute Interactions	Deliver Messages	Execution	19
Analyze Results	Reporting	Result Analysis	16

Your first reaction that may well be, What the heck is a State-Based Flow?  That's no accident.  I chose an unfamiliar term because I didn’t want people to assume it meant something it doesn’t. The Guide states:

Vendors in this category can automatically send different messages to the same contact in response to behaviors or data changes. Messages often relate to buying stages but may also reflect interests or job function. Messages may also be tied to a specific situation such as a flurry of Web site visits or a lack of contacts at a target account. Flows may also trigger actions other than messages, such as alerting a sales person. Actions are generally completed through a separate execution system. Movement may mean reaching different steps in a single campaign or entering a different campaign. Either approach can be effective. What really matters is that movement occurs automatically and that messages change as a result.

In other words, the essence of state-based flows is the system defines a set of conditions (i.e. states) that accounts or contacts can be in, tracks them as they move from one condition to the next, and sends different messages for each condition. This is roughly similar to campaign management except that campaign entry rules are usually defined independently, so customers don’t automatically flow from campaign to campaign in the way that they flow from state to state. (Another way to look at it: customers can be in several campaigns at once but only in one customer state at a time.) Customers in multi-step campaigns do move from one stage to the next, but they usually progress in only one direction, whereas people can move in and out of the same state multiple times. Journey orchestration engines manage a type of state-based flow, but they build the flow on a customer journey framework, which is an additional condition I’m not imposing here.

This may be more hair-splitting than necessary. My goal in defining this sub-function was mostly to distinguish systems where users manually assign people to messages (meaning that the messages won’t change unless the user reassigns them) from systems that automatically adjust the messages based on behaviors or new data. This adjustment is the very heart of managing relationships, or what I usually call the decision layer in my data / decision / delivery model.

Speaking of hair-splitting, you may notice that I’m being a little inconsistent in referring to message recipients as accounts, customers, contacts, individuals, or people. A true ABM system works at the account level but messages may be delivered to accounts (IP-based ad targeting), known individuals (email), or anonymous individuals (cookie- or device-based targeting, although sometimes these are associated with known individuals). Because of this, different systems work at different levels. The ideal is for message selection to consider both the state of the account and the state of the individual within the account.

As with the Customized Message category I described yesterday, vendors who qualify for State-Based Flows fall into two broad groups: those whose primary function is cross-channel message orchestration (Engagio, MRP, YesPath, ZenIQ, Mintigo*) and those that do flow management to support delivery of messages in a single channel (Evergage, GetSmartContent, Kwanzoo, Terminus, Triblio). Marketers who are looking for a primary tool to manage account relationships will be most interested in the first group.

Differentiators to consider with this group include:

• orchestrates activities at account level (doesn't treat each lead independently)
• assigns Web site visitors to segments during each visit using current data
• automated models to classify content, define segments, and select best content per segment
• automated models to assign contacts to personas and select best content per persona
• automated models to recommend best actions per account
• present sets of content in sequence or all at once
• continue same experience over time across different channels
• prioritization to ensure highest value message is always presented
• accounts can be in multiple programs simultaneously
• contacts can be limited to one program at a time
• limit number of messages sent to each contact within a specified time period

As you no doubt realize, this is the area that most directly overlaps with marketing automation and journey orchestration systems that are not ABM specialists.  They key feature to watch out for when evaluating those systems for ABM programs is the abillity to work at the account level.  That was not part of many older marketing automation systems, although several vendors have now retrofitted their products to support to some degree.
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* via its Predictive Campaign integration with Eloqua