Skip to content
Use Cases
Sales
Marketing
GTM Ops
Recruitment
Products
Prospector
Enrich
Chrome Extension
Intent Data
Integrations
Why Cognism
Why Sales Intelligence
ROI
See How We Compare
Cognism vs Zoominfo Cognism vs Lusha Cognism vs Apollo Cognism vs Other Providers
Data
About our data
Contact
Context
Compliance
Success Stories
Case Studies
Customer Reviews
Cognism Champions
Links
All Resources
Blog Books & Reports Checklist & Templates Newsletters Podcasts Webinars
Diary of a first-time CMO Fix Your Funnel The RevOps Guide RevOps on Demand SDR Zone The State of Cold Calling Report The Demand Gen Playbook Course
Interactive Resources
Free Product Tours ROI Calculator
TAM Calculator Cognism Signatures
CTA
Pricing
FAQ
Links
About Us
Careers
Partnerships
CTA
ACCOUNT-BASED MARKETING PLAYBOOK

Generating $300k pipeline in 8 weeks with a Cognism-led ABM Strategy.

In early 2024, we launched an ABM motion and converted 60% of accounts in our 1:1 program into qualified opportunities. 

This playbook breaks down our workflow to identify, engage, and convert high-value accounts at scale. 

It breaks down how we use Cognism to focus on best-fit audiences, our account selection process and the activation playbooks that bank us enterprise pipeline.

Channels run
  • Ads
  • Email
  • Bespoke dinners
PLAYBOOK HOST
Untitled design (97)

Tim Hughes

Demand Gen Lead @Cognism

RECOMMENDED FOR
Marketers who are struggling to build effective 1:Many, 1:Few and 1:One ABM programs
Marketers who want to build laser targeted audiences for each tier so that their campaigns reach only best fit accounts
Marketers looking for ABM inspiration with a proven impact on enterprise pipeline generation ($300k in 8 weeks)

Let's jump in 👇🏻

💡 Step 1 | Defining your ABM motion

Our ABM motion is split into three layers:

  • 1:Many
  • 1:Few
  • 1:One

ABM Program


The 1:many and 1:few layers are what we call account progression campaigns.

The goal of these campaigns is to build authority, raise awareness, and warm up accounts within our target account list.

So when they do move in-market and show intent, they are far more likely to convert in our one-to-one layer.

This is because we've already made them aware of Cognism, our value props, and what differentiates us.

Let's show you how we build  1:many and 1:few campaigns in practice 👇

💡 Step 2 | Building a 1:many campaign

For our 1:many layer, we focus on industry-specific campaigns, targeting verticals or sectors where we win the bulk of our deals and bring in good business.

Our workflow always starts with Cognism. We have a broad target account list that was built with sales, but it includes many different company types and industries. 

To maximise our 1:many campaigns, we need to whittle down that broad account list so that we can focus on one industry and effectively personalise our campaigns.

Let's say that we want to run a SaaS industry campaign:

  1. We'll upload our broad target account list to Cognism
  2. Filter it to only include accounts from the SaaS industry 
  3. Instantly turn that SaaS account list into a contact list. Complete with emails and mobile numbers

Once ready, you can use this audience for LinkedIn Ad campaigns or email nurture campaigns. To start building awareness, communicating value props and penetrating accounts.

This demo shows you how to upload an account list, narrow it down and turn it into a list of prospects 👇

💡 Step 3 | Narrowing down for a targeted 1:few campaign

From here, we can make the industry list more granular so it's applicable for a 1:few campaign.

A typical 1:few campaign we run is to target decision-makers who have recently joined our target accounts in a new role.

Again, we leverage Cognism here and its 'job join' filter. This helps us quickly identify new hires in our target accounts and build a contact list that we can use for ad and email campaigns.

Alternatively, we could also send the list to our sales team so they can prioritise these contacts in their outreach.

The job join filter is one option we use in Cognism for 1:few campaigns. We also use other filters in Cognism to whittle down our lists.

  • Job changes (New hires, Leavers)
  • Location moves
  • Hiring data (Accounts hiring for specific roles)
  • Technographics (Tech stack for specific accounts & contacts)
  • Company funding events
  • Company IPO events
  • Company acquisition events 
  • 3rd party Bombora intent data (companies and contacts searching online for topics relevant to your business)
Context data

💡 Step 4 | Identifying accounts for 1:1 activation

The final layer of our ABM strategy is 1:One. Targeting is even more crucial here, as your casting the net to a handful of priority accounts. 

So we invest a lot of time into building a data-backed selection process. 

Our first step is to use the intent data filter in Cognism.

Again, we'll keep the industry filter on but now add in specific intent topics to find out which target accounts in our chosen industry are showing intent for our solutions.

This demo shows you how we find those companies 👇


Once we have our list of high-intent companies, we overlay additional trigger points to further validate which accounts we want to prioritise.

We use a tool called qualified to track their website engagement and also look at other triggers such as whether they are recently hiring SDRs or whether the account previously closed loss within the last 12 months.

We factor in all of these trigger points to determine how likely the account is to move into the funnel.

If they meet our agreed engagement threshold, we move them into our 1:One program.

Qualified engagement

💡 Step 5 | Mapping the buying committee for 1:One activation

Once we understand which accounts we want to target, we'll use Cognism to identify the buying committee and key stakeholders we need to influence.

We can search by job titles, functions and locations to find these contacts and then we can push this list into our one-to-one campaign.

Whether that's a dedicated LinkedIn campaign, email nurture, or whether you want to use this data to promote offline initiatives like in-person dinners or events.

Let's dive into that 1:One activation 👇

💡 Step 6 | Activating a 1:One campaign

Creating microsites

Once we have a target account within our scope, we get to work on building them a custom microsite.

These call out the target company name alongside personalised pain points we've uncovered in our account research.

Here are the results we had from one of our recent personalised microsites:

  • 5.6 minutes time on page.
  • Over 70 website visits since August.
  • 150+ views of the interactive demo.

Cognism Interactive demo
Email nurtures

We send our target decision-makers within accounts to these microsites via email nurtures. The aim is to build a relationship. Providing the sales rep with email templates and messaging they can use to provide potential customers with value.

We're seeing higher open rates with these emails then the standard emails the reps are normally sending.

Email example
Targeted ads

Our ABM ads accumulate all the intelligence gathered from the research phase, supplemented with our product strengths to show the account where their gaps are.

When you listen to Gong calls from previous discussions it's quite easy to understand their pain points. We then relay that message through our ads.

The average dwell time for our 1:one ABM ads is 5.2 seconds, whereas dwell time on our normal always-on ads is 3.7 seconds.

Ad example
Bespoke, exclusive dinners

Once we have a good idea of the accounts we are targeting, we invite decision-makers from target accounts to join us in person for dinner with other decision-makers from enterprise companies.

It’s a chance to network and socialise outside of the event schedule — and who doesn’t like a free dinner?

At a recent Forrester event, we hosted an exclusive, invite-only dinner with LeanData and invited a number of accounts we are targeting.

After the event had passed, we then sent them our CMO Alice de Courcy’s ‘Diary of a First Time CMO’ as a follow-up and began our one-on-one personalised LinkedIn campaign, and increased our account penetration activities.

This resulted in a $75,000 opportunity.

ABM impact

💡 Step 7 | Watch the results roll in... 🎉

Our ABM workflow we started from zero at the start of 2024.

Now we've generated $800k in enterprise pipeline and 60% of accounts that have entered our 1:1 layer have become opportunities. 

The crux of our success has come from:

  • Clearly defining the role of each layer and taking a progressive approach through each tier
  • Laser-targeting on the right audiences with Cognism
  • Combining our intent data with qualified data to build a clear engagement threshold for 1:1 activation
  • Building personalised experiences and campaigns to differentiate our offering and brand

If you're struggling to see results from ABM, steal this workflow and start building out a fresh approach with Cognism.

We use Cognism’s data to find the best accounts that fit our ICP. I use the hiring trigger to search for organisations that have been hiring relevant job titles in the last six months. This gives us a clear indication the business is looking to scale in our space
Metrikus
Derayo Adetosoye, Marketing Manager
Read Full Case Study

Related Playbooks

B2B marketing
Increasing LinkedIn Ads CTR with matched audiences
B2B marketing
How to revitalise your stagnant LinkedIn campaigns
B2B marketing
Route your enriched leads with ease
View all Resources