There is nothing more frustrating than being blindsided when a lead goes cold or feeling helpless because your marketing and sales teams have no idea where a certain high-value account is in the sales funnel. Are they considering competitors? Is your product or service even on their internal radar? Exactly how interested are they in your content in general?
This is common in longer buying cycles—and especially in account-based marketing campaigns. Luckily, there’s one solution that solves every woe imaginable when it comes to tracking and interacting with target accounts from point A (awareness) to point B (the sale): account scoring.
If you’re a B2B marketer who stays away from analytics and operations, listen closely. Account scoring, sometimes called account engagement scoring, is a way in which marketing and sales teams assign value to customer interaction and then rank the level of engagement based on which digital assets and content were consumed on your site or third-party sites. The lower the score, the more work will need to be put in for the target to move toward the end goal. While it seems relatively straightforward, account scoring requires a thorough understanding of how marketing assets impact the target audience and how actions and decisions will change by stage of the sales funnel; it’s also imperative to have a solid grasp of campaign metrics.
First and foremost, you should know that an account score isn’t just a singular data point; it’s a compilation of several metrics and information—which you can customise by campaign. Here are five of the most important metrics to look at when developing and analysing an account score.
1. Third-party intent data
Intent data is, by far and away, the most useful piece of information a marketer can use in an account-based marketing campaign. At its most basic definition, Intent data uses IP addresses and browser cookies to track visitors around the web—and thus serve as a powerful predictor of which accounts are in-market or consuming information relevant to your industry or services. There are two types of Intent data out there, first and third-party, but in this case, we’ll focus on third-party.
Third-party Intent data provides information about activities targets perform on other websites—review sites and publications, for example. An Intent data provider (like a TechTarget, 6Sense, or Bombora) will then take the data on what the target is searching and consuming and pass that along so you can learn more about what your target audience wants and needs. Third-party Intent data also helps you identify prospective accounts, those who are interested in what you offer but are not yet aware that you’re in the space or market.
2. On-site page views
You need to know who’s on your website and what they’re consuming, plain and simple. On-site page views, specifically, are aggregate scores based on how much interest is being shown on your site’s content and pages. For example, product pages are scored higher than news articles; resources pages and “about us” pages also show a level of interest and are given scores. Other factors that can influence the on-site page view score include view time and dwell time.
3. On-site interaction score
Once a target is on your site, they will start to engage with what they find. Here, you’ll need to set a different score by action—be it a CTA click, PDF download, ROI calculator, or form submission. A case study download, for example, shows higher intent than signing up for a newsletter, and the ROI calculator will be even higher as it demonstrates clear intent. By setting a ranking system in place with your on-site interaction, you’ll be able to create a more nuanced score, one that is more indicative of the actual reality and the target’s intent.
4. Campaign score
A campaign score is exactly what it sounds like; it refers to how an account interacts with paid campaigns, email campaigns, or any other digital marketing channel you’re executing tactics on (PPC, programmatic advertising, etc). The most important thing to know about the campaign score is this: You must create a tight UTM structure. This makes it easier to process the data later on, as you can set fields to filter out—stage of funnel, product, region, and more. If there’s anything you want to be able to filter by, make sure it’s accurately labeled in the URL.
5. Content score
A content score reveals how an account is interacting with content syndication. Did they download a white paper? Give that action a point. Did the account not even open the case study that was sent to them? No dice. At the end of the day, the content score is going to let you know exactly how effective the content you create is at pushing a target down the funnel.
