The Shift to Account-Driven GTM
Part 1 of 3: Why traditional inbound & ABM are no longer enough to win
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There’s no excuse to wait for all of your prospects to come inbound anymore. In fact, it’s probably careless to do this.
It used to be too expensive—both in terms of time and money—to map your entire total addressable market (TAM) into your CRM. This is no longer true. It is now possible for even a marketing team of one to map their TAM, enrich their priority accounts, and create content and campaigns tailored to these accounts.
This means personalized outreach and a unified marketing and sales approach no longer needs to be reserved for the ~100 accounts on your “ABM” list. Plus, inbound no longer needs to be your primary way to collect contact info or gauge intent. Instead, it’s just one of many signals that help you identify the right accounts to focus on.
Your marketing strategy needs to shift to a more account-driven approach, but that does NOT mean you should:
Identify every company in the universe and SPAM them with outbound
Apply the same ABM strategies you previously reserved for a shortlist of accounts to everyone in your TAM
Stop making valuable content that attracts people to your website
But, I am suggesting you rethink some things when it comes to your go-to-market (GTM) strategy…
In this newsletter:
This newsletter is part one of a three-part series. Subscribe so you don’t miss parts 2 and 3.
Why your GTM strategy needs to shift: Tech and data improvements making an account-driven approach necessary
What is an account-driven GTM strategy?: How it differs from ABM, ABX, and traditional inbound
Implementing this strategy: A summary of how to map your TAM, define tiers, track intent signals, run account-driven campaigns, and measure success.
Part 2: Deep dive into the set up and foundation required for an account-driven GTM strategy
Part 3: Deep dive into running signal-based campaigns
Paid subscribers resources: Account-driven signal list, 50+ signal-based campaign ideas, and account tiering methods available now in our template library.
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Last week, I launched Dear Marketers with Emily Kramer & Friends. New episodes will be out every 2 weeks on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & YouTube—and here on Substack with a companion newsletter.
Each episode, my co-hosts, friends, and former Asana marketing teammates, Grace Erickson, Jenny Thai, and Devon Watts answer a question submitted by an MKT1 community member. If you like this newsletter, I think you’ll love this podcast.
What’s behind this seismic GTM strategy shift?
4 factors are driving the change:
If you're on LinkedIn, you've probably seen these trends everywhere, but I’ll recap to show how when combined they’re driving a fundamental shift in GTM.
Ease of mapping your TAM: It’s now possible to research your entire audience, meaning all the companies who you could potentially sell to, and add them into your CRM. And it’s possible to do this at a level-of-detail previously reserved for your tiny ABM list of top tier accounts.
More data & signals: You can automatically enrich those accounts and contacts with a lot more data. From basic demographic and firmographic data, to engagement with your content, to 2nd and 3rd party signals, you can get a much clearer picture of where each account stands and how much effort you should be putting into each one.
Account & contact-specific marketing tactics: Reaching each account and contact through the right channel with personalized, tailored content is now possible at a larger scale. You can craft “bespoke” campaigns for individual accounts or segments, and when done well, this improves both efficiency and effectiveness.
Unification of GTM teams: Due to reasons 1-3, plus the focus on tighter budgets and growth efficiency over the past couple of years, GTM teams are collaborating more closely. I include marketing, sales, rev ops, and customer success in “GTM teams.”
I’m calling this account-driven GTM strategy…
Account-driven GTM involves more than just expanding ABM, redefining inbound’s role, and unifying your GTM teams (marketing, sales, CS). It requires a fundamental change to how marketing works, from how you are set up on the ops and analytics side to how you execute campaigns and create content.
How is this different than ABM or ABX?
You may have seen what I’m describing called ABM 2.0, ABX, or “ABM everything.” Is this the same as what I’m talking about? Not exactly.
While I do love an acronym, all the buzzwords are adding to the confusion. As a B2B marketer in 2025, it’s actually really important to understand that your “tried and true” go-to-market strategy itself needs an upgrade.
That’s why I’m using the term "account-driven GTM strategy" to describe this new approach—at least until something better comes along. This phrasing avoids the baggage of “account-based”. And while not every marketing activity you do will be 100% account-based, your entire GTM strategy should be built on top an account-driven foundation.
I’ll define some terms you might see people talk about, then I’ll explain how each is evolving under the new “account-driven GTM strategy” I'm advocating for:
ABM (Account-based marketing) = A high-touch (and often expensive) marketing approach reserved only for high-value, high-priority accounts, involving personalized, proactive campaigns.
➡️ ABM isn’t going away, but this exact approach will remain a subset of your overall GTM strategy.
ABX (Account-based experience) = An evolution of ABM that focuses on delivering personalized, cross-channel campaigns based on intent signals and engagement to a broader swath of target accounts through marketing, sales, and customer success efforts.
➡️ This is a key part of an account-driven strategy as well. But IMO this strategy can lead to a hyper-focus on target accounts. It often ignores the need for brand awareness activities. And it doesn’t always call for setting up clearly defined ways to handle unexpected, non-ICP inbound leads. And put simply, not every buyer needs an account-based experience, but behind-the-scenes, you should know what account they are part of!
Inbound = Attracting potential buyers by sharing valuable content that drives them to your website and nurtures them through the sales process.
➡️ Inbound is shifting from a top-of-funnel strategy to a mid-funnel signal. Inbound should now be prioritized by account fit and intent and be part of a mutli-channel approach for each account.
Intent signal = A behavioral or data-driven indicator that suggests a company or individual is actively researching, considering, or ready to buy a product or service.
Isn’t this lead scoring? Kind of, I’d call it a cousin of your old lead-scoring indicators, but with a new name because you can capture so many more of these now. And you can apply this intent data not just to your leads, but to entire accounts.
➡️ Intent signals will help you prioritize your accounts, trigger marketing and sales activity (alongside ICP fit, revenue potential, and other data), and craft relevant content.
Lead stages = Lead stages are the steps a prospect moves through in the marketing and sales funnel before becoming a customer.
➡️ In ABM/ABX, you still need lead (or contact) stages to help you prioritize contacts in a given account. But, you also need account stages to show progress of each company in your pipeline.
Note: Some people might argue you don’t need lead stages in an account-driven model, but I believe it’s an “and” not an “or” situation.
Which startups need to make the shift to an account-driven GTM strategy?
You may be reading this and wondering, does this even apply to me? The answer is yes. We’ve reached a tipping point and an account-driven strategy is quickly becoming table stakes for B2B companies.
If you continue waiting for leads to come to you, especially in a time when search traffic is declining, you will have a very hard time winning against companies employing this strategy. The tools and data to do this are everywhere, and it’s really a matter of when to make the shift rather than if you should.
And while this strategy may seem more essential for B2B companies targeting enterprises, using a sales-led motion, or at a later-stage, a version of an account-driven strategy is necessary for product-led growth, self-serve motions, early-stage startups as well. In those situations, it’s still helpful to have accounts pre-loaded in your CRM, to track progress against them, and to proactively go after engaged accounts (think of this as ad retargeting on steroids). Maybe you won’t develop super high-touch campaigns for tier 1 accounts, but building an account-driven rev ops structure still makes sense.
Still not convinced? Here are some metaphors…
🎣 Fishing:
This one is a bit cruel to animals, apologies.
We used to fish with nets, waiting and hoping to catch the right kind of fish. The we sorted through the net to find the fish we planned to serve for dinner. How wasteful.
Now we can go spear fishing. We can proactively research the best fish to catch, find them quickly, and then catch them at the right time, with exactly the right tool.
🏀 Sports recruiting:
We used to just take whoever lived in a city or went to a school, and assembled the best team we could with who we had.
Now, recruiters scout from across the world. When they see a player that’s a fit for their team, they go watch them play, and then throw ridiculous amounts of cash at them (maybe don’t do that last part).
Where are most startups in this transition today?
If you aren’t in a perfect account-driven state today, not to worry. Most startups I chat with are not fully set up with this new strategy, but they are making strides in this direction. I’ve seen a few different patterns when I talk to teams about evolving their GTM strategy:
They’re in the dark: Either they don’t understand that ABM-like strategies are possible at scale, or they don’t think the new tools and tactics are for them. But, they are feeling pain hitting pipeline goals and observing that old tactics aren’t working as well as they used to. If this is you, I hope this newsletter shows you the light.
They’re curious: They know there are new tools out there that could give them better data, more signals, easier campaign execution, etc., but they have no idea where to start. Start with tier 1, your highest value accounts!
They’re going halfway: They’re using some of the new tools to map and enrich accounts, and personalize their campaigns. But they have stopped short of applying this strategy to their entire TAM. I believe in you, keep going!
I’m not going to pretend this shift will be easy, but I do feel strongly that it’s worth the effort. And the remainder of this newsletter series (including parts 2 & 3 in the coming weeks) will lay out a clear blueprint for making these changes.
How to implement an account-driven GTM strategy
As I’ve described, the high-level idea of an account-driven GTM strategy is to structure your GTM strategy around accounts (and the corresponding contacts or people working at those companies). Based on data for each account, you then customize your marketing efforts and campaigns to more effectively reach them.
Making this shift is a cross-functional change, it will involve your entire GTM organization and be primarily driven by Growth Marketing (or Demand Gen), Rev Ops, and your sales leader.
Here’s how I break down the steps (which will be covered in great detail in part 2 and 3 of this newsletter series):
Phase 1: Build your rev ops foundation for account-driven GTM
Step 0: Define ICPS & TAM: If you don’t understand your audience and who you are going after over the next year or so, the rest of this work will be super difficult!
Step 1.1: Define account tiers: Segment your TAM into 3–4 tiers based on fit, value, and intent to prioritize marketing and sales efforts effectively.
Step 1.2: Research accounts & contacts: Use data enrichment tools to map accounts, add relevant contacts, and structure CRM fields for tracking.
Step 1.3: Identify signals & enrich data: Identify key 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-party intent signals to prioritize outreach and personalize engagement strategies
Step 1.4: Set up account stages: Before you can run campaigns, figure out how you’ll track success and make sure you have clear stages (which will help you set and follow rules of engagement across marketing & sales).
Phase 2: Layer on account-driven campaigns and workflows
Step 2.1: Prioritize “campaign” ideas: This will take time to build out, start with campaigns for tier 1 and highest-intent signals, and continue from there.
Step 2.2: Create high-value content for each campaign: From writing emails and social copy, to making tailored customer stories and resources for certain accounts, make sure you have fuel to go with your well-crafted engine.
Step 2.3: Set up and run cross-channel campaigns: Test first and then scale based on results.
Step 2.4: Create “playbooks” by account tier: Based on what’s working, set up always on campaigns based on tier, signals, and account stages
Step 2.5: Measure and optimize: Track progress against accounts, then use this plus campaign influence reporting to adjust your strategy, mix of channels, content, and tiering process itself over time.
After setting this all up, you will end up with tiers, plus clear marketing and sales strategies for each:
Remember these principles when making the shift:
Unify audience data and campaigns: Previously, this was only possible for a subset of high-priority accounts (what we called ABM). Outside of that list, you waited for inbound leads and then enriched account and contact data.
Shift from reactive to proactive: Instead of being proactive with a small group and reactive to whoever came inbound, you’re now proactively engaging a much larger number of accounts.
Use new tools to speed up the process: Advances in data, AI, and GTM tech allow for deep audience insights, granular targeting, more connected workflows, and customizing content. Don’t make this shift manually!
Borrow from ABM, don’t copy it for all segments: In an account-driven approach, you determine marketing and sales tactics based on fit, value, and intent—you don’t apply ABM tactics to everyone. In other words, this shift isn’t about replacing inbound with expensive, bespoke ABM-style strategies for all accounts.
Define your ICPs & map your TAM first: None of this work is possible without deeply understanding and narrowing in on the right ICP for you. Making a plan for handling inbound activity outside of your researched accounts allows for flexibility if your ICP definition isn’t 100% correct (which it never is!).
Enhancing the people funnel with account data: You don’t need to abandon your existing lead funnel, but you can now layer in account-level insights to see how many companies are at different engagement stages.
To be continued…
Part 2 (out now): Deep dive into the set up and foundation required for an account-driven GTM strategy
Part 3 (coming in March): Deep dive into running signal-based campaigns
More from MKT1
🙏 Thanks again to our sponsors: Attio, the next-generation CRM with built-in AI; Ten Speed, an agency partner for organic growth, full-service SEO & content marketing; and Omni Lab: an agency partner for paid media & demand gen. All 3 companies have MKT1 discounts!
🙏 Special thanks to the contributors to this newsletter: Crissy Saunders & Charlie Saunders at CS2, a GTM Strategy & Operations Agency, Maddy Fennessy at Metronome, Erin May at User Interviews, and Urska Blagojevic.
🧑🚀 Job board: Jobs from the MKT1 community
🧑🎓 Recommended courses: I’ve partnered with Maven, where I used to teach courses, to curate courses from GTM leaders I admire. These courses will help you grow your career—and you can get $100 off by signing up on my Maven page.
📰 Next newsletter: Part 2 is available now:
Part 3 will hit your inboxes in early March.
🎙️ Next podcast: Dear Marketers Episode 2 is out on Wednesday, answering the question “How do I tell a more effective story?”
✂️ Template: Signal-based campaign ideas
Template & resource library for paid subscribers only.
This resource, in Google Sheets, helps you identify signals, craft campaigns for your target accounts, and organize your accounts into tiers (don’t miss all 3 tabs). It’s a great place to start if you are brainstorming campaigns to run to your target accounts!
