Jan 03, 2025

What Is ABX Marketing and Why Is It Important to B2B Customer Experience?

Updated: January 3, 2025

ABX reshapes the B2B engagement by placing the customer experience front and center, from pre-sale interactions to long-term customer support. While customer retention can save your business 5% to 25% in budget compared acquisition, ABX goes further by building personalized, value-driven experiences that fuel long-term growth.

ABX stands for account-based experience.

ABM vs. ABX

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy used to attain high-value business customers through tailored marketing and sales outreach. Its goal? Securing high-dollar deals. Because resources are concentrated on a select few accounts with a high sales potential, an account-based approach can drive higher conversion rates than traditional marketing.

ABX takes ABM to the next level by shifting the focus from acquisition to delivering an excellent customer experience throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Its goal is to drive long-term revenue by building deeper relationships and providing ongoing value.

Although ABM and ABX have recently gained in popularity, B2B marketers have been practicing their principles long before they became defined strategies with structured frameworks and dedicated tools. Their increasing adoption is largely due to advances in technology that make it easier to identify and target specific accounts, scale personalized outreach and create more connected, data-informed experiences.

ABX: A Hyper-Personalized Customer Experience

The customer-centric approach of ABX is made possible with data and analytics. With behavioral, firmographic and intent data, you gain a granular understanding of the unique needs, preferences, motivations and challenges of individual buyers at different stages within a target account. These insights will help you create a profile for key decision-makers that will guide you on when and how to engage and with what messaging – whether pre-purchase or as part of an ongoing relationship.

With ABX, your messaging is personalized for each account, customized for individual roles and tailored for every touchpoint. This means you’ll need the right type of information in the right format, shaped to fit each person’s unique perspective and responsibilities. Plus, whether a buyer connects with you early on or during post-purchase support, the experience should feel consistent, reinforcing a unified personalized message that builds long-term trust and value.

Building an ABX Strategy

Set clear goals – What are your desired outcomes? Building brand awareness, generating quality leads or closing more deals? Having clearly defined goals will help you stay on track and give you a way to measure success as you go.

Choose your target accounts – Consider aspects like company size, industry, revenue and location. You might also need to dig deeper to determine if accounts require your product or service. The goal here is to pinpoint potential accounts closely matched to your offerings, so you’re putting energy where it’ll have the most impact. For example, if you’re a SaaS company, technographic data can help you understand if their technology aligns with your solution.

Get to know the account’s needs and challenges – Conduct surveys and customer interviews and analyze data to identify specific needs, pain points and goals so you can address what really matters to them.

Build buyer profiles – Identify the buyers and influencers within each account and gather data on individual roles, responsibilities and priorities to identify specific challenges, communication styles and motivations. Use insights from sources such as LinkedIn, ZoomInfo and account-based research to build profiles for each person.

Create tailored content – For each account, develop content that speaks to their unique needs and challenges on an account level. The goal is to speak their language and show you understand what they’re up against.

Pick the right channels – Based on the insights you collected, choose channels where key decision-makers are most active and engaged. This ensures your messaging hits where they’re already paying attention.

Build a personalized experience – Bring together your insights to build a cohesive experience for each account. This means customizing content to role-specific needs and preferences. Content should engage each individual at their current stage, build on previous interactions and move them further along the journey. No matter what type of encounter an individual has with your brand, the experience should be relevant to their role while reinforcing a cohesive, account-level narrative.

Connect  Use targeted emails, social outreach and one-to-one conversations to interact with key individuals. The key here is to show you’re paying attention to their needs and are there to provide value, not just push a sale.

Measure, learn and adjust – As you go, keep an eye on how things are working. Track key performance indicators (KPIs) to see what’s landing and where there’s room for improvement. This feedback will help you refine your approach and make future exchanges even more meaningful.

The Role Technology Plays in ABX

Technology enables ABM marketers to identify, target and engage with ideal accounts more efficiently and effectively. A recent survey shows that 80% of ABM marketers are using a technology platform to manage campaigns, with a priority on its value in helping to execute and measure campaigns and engagement metrics and determine next actions.

For ABX, technology is vital to create a seamless customer journey across all touchpoints, from initial engagement to post-sale support and advocacy. Here are some of the ways technology supports ABX activities:

  • Identify the most promising accounts by analyzing data from multiple sources such as CRM, marketing automation, web analytics and social media. This data can help you create a list of target accounts and identify key decision-makers within those accounts.
  • Create personalized content at scale with marketing automation tools such as Marketo, Pardot and HubSpot, which can be used as you create personalized emails, landing pages and other content based on specific needs and preferences.
  • Analyze historical data with predictive analytics tools such as 6sense, Lattice Engines and Everstring, which use machine learning algorithms to analyze patterns in data and make predictions about which accounts are most likely to convert.
  • Target specific accounts with advertising campaigns on social media and search engines through platforms such as Demandbase, Triblio and Kwanzoo.
  • Help sales teams engage more effectively with target accounts through sales enablement tools such as Outreach, Salesloft and Salesforce Engage, which automate outreach, track engagement and deliver personalized content to prospects.

Provide a Game-Changing Customer Experience

ABX is a game changer for businesses aiming to drive revenue growth across the customer lifecycle with a customer-centric experience. Whether you’re just getting started or looking for an experienced B2B marketing agency to strengthen your ABX strategy, we’re here to help. With over 25 years of expertise in B2B marketing, Elevation Marketing can help you navigate the complexities of ABM and ABX marketing. Our tailored approach ensures your account-based approach is driven by strategy and fueled by insights that enhance your success.

Contact us to see how we can help you connect and engage high-value audiences to drive measurable results.

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