B2B marketers use account-based marketing strategies to foster collaboration with sales, grow new business and spur demand from existing customers. Product marketers should evaluate ABM platforms that enable better decision making, improve engagement across accounts and deliver measurable value.
Market Definition/Description
Gartner defines the account-based marketing (ABM) platform as a technology that enables marketers to run ABM programs at scale, including account selection, planning, engagement and reporting. In ABM programs, B2B marketers align with sales counterparts to engage a defined set of high-priority accounts and buying committee members with targeted marketing and content to help buyers explore and evaluate solutions. To support this effort, ABM platforms may engage audiences via the following channels:
- Display advertising and retargeting
- Social advertising
- Content syndication
- Web personalization
These platforms use a mix of native capabilities and integrations for activating audiences to other channels that are not natively supported. In addition, to measure and improve performance, these platforms provide reporting across channels, campaigns and programs.
The core capabilities of the ABM platform market include:
- Audience management to unify first- and third-party data
- Use of third-party, account-level intent data (proprietary and/or licensed) to understand buyer interest and behavior
- Creation and management of target account segments and audiences
- Cross-channel campaign orchestration and activation to drive engagement
- Sales alerts based on accountwide actions and engagement, triggering sales interactions.
- Account measurement and analytics to quantify lift and performance.
Optional capabilities of the ABM platform market include:
- Predictive analytics (fit/propensity to buy models and next best actions)
- Attribution modeling
Magic Quadrant
Figure 1: Magic Quadrant for Account-Based Marketing Platforms
Source: Gartner (January 2022)
Vendor Strengths and Cautions
6sense
6sense is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. The 6sense Account Engagement Platform helps sales, marketing and operations teams run ABM programs. Its operations are mostly focused in North America, and its customers are geographically dispersed organizations ranging from small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to enterprise organizations, particularly in the technology vertical. 6sense’s roadmap includes campaign orchestration via goal-based artificial intelligence (AI) for driving increased web engagement, creating and accelerating new account opportunities, and retaining and upselling customers. 6sense also plans to expand its predictive models into pipeline reporting (recently acquired from Fortella) to support account prioritization activity.Strengths
- Audience management: 6sense’s embedded B2B customer data platform (CDP) ingests, normalizes, cleanses, and enables activation of first-party account and person-level data. Users are able to create dynamic, static or look-alike account segments by leveraging multiple data points and combining behavioral and profile analytics with predictive analytics to create account segments.
- Customer success and satisfaction: To support product adoption and customer success, 6sense has defined 20 use cases aligned to new account conversion, as well as retention and upsell scenarios. Furthermore, 6sense’s customer success teams are compensated based on helping clients achieve “green use cases” (successful completion of a use case), and its customers consistently cite positive experiences with these teams in Gartner Peer Insights reviews.
- Thought leadership and communities for ABM: The 6sense video series (Studio6), Next-Gen Marketing certification and its weekly CMO Coffee Talk sessions provide access to thought leadership from experts within and outside of 6sense. Its thought leadership marketing supports the company’s product vision and roadmap, while also providing multiple communities for customers and noncustomers to share and learn best practices for optimizing their ABM efforts.
Cautions
- Orchestration and support for native channels: 6sense supports ABM orchestration through a partner ecosystem, meaning some channel functionality (for example, web personalization) is delivered through third-party applications. Marketers seeking native capabilities to orchestrate (plan, create, manage and measure) multichannel campaigns should evaluate their partner ecosystem for fit.
- Industry-specific support: ABM tactics often vary by industry; however, 6sense primarily serves customers in the technology vertical. While this is the largest vertical for most ABM providers, organizations in other industries should evaluate 6sense’s capabilities and roadmap to ensure fit.
- Geographic strategy: 6sense’s customers and employee base are currently centered in North America, although it recently expanded to EMEA. ABM marketers outside of North America should evaluate 6sense’s ability to support programs in their local region or country.
Demandbase
Demandbase is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its Demandbase One ABX Cloud provides a comprehensive and integrated platform for ABM programs. Its operations are mostly focused in North America, and its clients tend to be midmarket and enterprise organizations in high tech, business services, manufacturing and financial services. Demandbase plans to add several predictive intelligence capabilities to forecast the “next product purchase” and make recommendations for the next best action that marketers should take to advance the buyer’s journey. In 2022, Demandbase plans to release support for HTML/text email as a native channel, including email design, delivery and analytics.Strengths
- Comprehensive product vision and strategy: Demandbase enables marketers to run advanced ABM programs by providing robust capabilities for audience management, intent data, campaign activation and orchestration for native and non-native channels, and account measurement. The roadmap for the Demandbase One ABX Cloud also includes features to improve the alignment between sales and marketing teams such as unified sales insights (via integration of InsideView sales intelligence).
- Customer success, service and support resources: Gartner Peer Insights users indicate that Demandbase’s teams who provide services for onboarding, education and campaign management are helpful and responsive to client needs. Demandbase also offers online training, certifications and a customer community to help users learn best practices and improve their adoption of the Demandbase One ABX Cloud.
- Third-party integrations: Demandbase offers robust integrations with a broad ecosystem of technology partners. For several partner categories, such as CRM/sales force automation (SFA), marketing automation platforms (MAPs), sales engagement tools, website chat and social ads (LinkedIn), Demandbase provides standard out-of-the-box data connectors that enable bidirectional syncing of data between systems.
Cautions
- Usability: The broad set of capabilities offered by Demandbase One ABX Cloud can be overwhelming for new customers. Gartner Peer Insights users mention that the user interface can be complex for roles outside of marketing operations and requires an investment in time and training to achieve proficiency.
- Content syndication: Customers surveyed cited content syndication as one of Demandbase’s largest product capability gaps. The activation of audiences for these campaigns requires manual export of account lists. Marketers should evaluate the integration roadmap for content syndication partners.
- Global sales and support: Demandbase has been expanding its sales presence in EMEA with an office in the U.K.; however, the majority of operations are based in North America. Marketers seeking global support should ensure that Demandbase can meet their organization’s service and customer support requirements.
Jabmo
Jabmo is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant. Its Jabmo ABM Platform is mainly focused on helping companies with account expansion via preconfigured capabilities for display, video and social ads. Jabmo also offers managed services to supplement limitations in customer resources and skills. Its HQ is in France, but the majority of its sales and support is based in North America, and it targets clients in manufacturing, life sciences and healthcare. It is advancing the product by adding new advertising channels, such as connected TV and podcasts. In addition, Jabmo is enhancing its multichannel orchestration user interface and adding a dynamic landing page builder.Strengths
- Vertical industry focus beyond technology: Jabmo is one of the few ABM vendors in this research that has a clear focus on a specific set of industries outside of technology companies (manufacturing, life sciences and healthcare), and has tailored aspects of the product to these markets. Its domain expertise is accessible in the form of managed services for campaign planning, setup and optimization.
- Native email support: Jabmo is the only ABM platform vendor in this Magic Quadrant to currently support native email capabilities for engaging known contacts. Jabmo’s ABM Platform is similar to MAPs, in that users can set up email journeys and orchestrate this touchpoint along with other channels, including advertising, retargeting and website personalization. Not needing to license a separate MAP can provide sizable cost savings to companies, as well as reducing the internal skills and resources required to support ABM programs.
- Customer retention rate and revenue growth: Jabmo has one of the highest, self-reported customer retention rates among vendors in this Magic Quadrant, suggesting client satisfaction with its product and services. In addition, revenue growth in percentage terms for 2020 was among the highest reported.
Cautions
- Display advertising uses a preconfigured demand-side platform (DSP): To support less sophisticated and resource-constrained marketers in specific industries, Jabmo preconfigures many options for display advertising campaigns (in the DSP). This may be a concern for marketers who want to control the settings themselves for optimizing their advertising campaigns.
- Lack of implementation partners: Jabmo has only one implementation partner currently servicing two joint customers. Organizations will need to rely on their own skills and resources for implementation tasks or use Jabmo’s managed services.
- Limited number of customers: Jabmo has fewer customers than other vendors in this Magic Quadrant across a limited number of verticals. Organizations considering Jabmo may not find a large number of case studies or references from verticals beyond manufacturing, life sciences, or healthcare to support their evaluation process.
Madison Logic
Madison Logic is a Challenger in this Magic Quadrant. Its ML Platform is focused on supporting marketers running ABM programs that rely heavily on ABM content syndication and display advertising. Its operations are geographically diversified, and its clients tend to be large enterprise and high-growth technology and software companies. The company’s roadmap includes plans to enhance APIs for third-party integrations to support additional marketing channels, including direct mail and chat. Furthermore, Madison Logic plans to add support for advanced media channels, such as streaming music services (for example, Spotify) and connected TV to enable marketers to extend their targeting reach and improve revenue and pipeline attribution.Strengths
- Display advertising and content syndication: Madison Logic offers comprehensive support for digital display advertising, enabling marketers to easily set budgets, create and forecast audiences, select creative assets, and measure ad performance from within the platform. In addition, marketers can create, execute and measure content syndication campaigns using a range of formats, such as white paper, e-book, webinar and software download.
- Platform pricing model that varies with media spend: Unlike other vendors, Madison Logic’s platform fee is waived for customers who meet a minimum level of media spend. The platform fee includes unlimited account lists and users, all integrations with a CRM, MAP and LinkedIn, and professional services.
- Support for global brands: Madison Logic supports customers with regionally based customer success teams in North America, EMEA and Asia/Pacific (APAC). While the platform is only offered in English, marketers are able to reach accounts in more than 130 countries. Furthermore, support for more than 100 languages is available to analyze content and ensure ads are not served near content that doesn’t meet brand standards.
Cautions
- Marketing channel support and orchestration: Madison Logic’s platform lacks support for orchestrating nonmedia marketing channels, such as email, website chat and direct mail. Although native support for website personalization is on the roadmap, organizations should validate if supported channels meet their requirements.
- Sales and marketing strategy: Madison Logic focuses on selling primarily to marketers who have mature marketing technology stacks in enterprise technology organizations, but its engagement with IT and sales leaders is limited. Organizations that include sales and IT decision makers in their buying committee should be aware that Madison Logic may not address requirements from these buyers and should consider the impact on their ability to gain consensus.
- Functional support for sales teams: Madison Logic’s platform offers limited capabilities for sales teams that support ABM programs. Its sales alerts are managed through an integration with Salesforce CRM or HubSpot CRM to deliver scheduled reports.
RollWorks
RollWorks is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant. Its RollWorks Account-Based Platform provides a self-service user interface for account identification and scoring, account-based display ads, and account journey measurement. Its operations are mostly focused in North America, and its customers represent a mix of small, midmarket and large organizations in high tech, business services and manufacturing. RollWorks plans to improve audience management capabilities by adding new account insights, features for defining the ideal customer profile and enhanced account engagement scoring. In addition, RollWorks plans to add new third-party integrations for website chat (Drift) and CRM/SFA (Microsoft Dynamics).Strengths
- LinkedIn and Facebook campaign orchestration: RollWorks is one of the few vendors in this Magic Quadrant that provides a native capability to orchestrate (plan, create, manage and measure) LinkedIn and Facebook advertising campaigns. Marketers can orchestrate these campaigns without having to leave the RollWorks user interface.
- Accessible pricing: RollWorks offers eight subscription packages with a low entry price that varies based on media credits and features. This pricing enables access to ABM capabilities for small and midmarket organizations.
- Ease of buying: Customers surveyed by Gartner indicate positive sentiment and satisfaction with the sales and negotiation processes for both new contracts and renewals.
Cautions
- Account-level engagement scoring: While RollWorks captures account-level signals from channels and systems such as MAPs and CRM/SFA, these factors are not included in engagement scoring, which is only based on advertising and web engagement (by known and anonymous visitors). Consequently, engagement scoring does not reflect a comprehensive view of marketing and sales activity.
- Third-party integrations: RollWorks does not currently provide standard out-of-the-box integrations to enable the activation of audiences for content syndication, website chat (for example, Drift and Qualified) or sales engagement tools (for example, from Outreach and Salesloft). RollWorks supports manual export of account lists or an API that can be used for custom integration and for sales outreach; it offers a native capability as an option.
- Implementation partners: RollWorks does not currently have any partners that can be utilized for implementation services. Consequently, implementation, deployment and customer service are managed by RollWorks’ internal teams, which may not be readily available to support more complex or geographically diversified organizations.
Terminus
Terminus is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its suite of ABM products provides a full range of capabilities, including intent data and broad support for advertising campaigns across display, LinkedIn, ad retargeting, video, audio, and connected TV. Its operations are mostly focused in North America, where most of its clients are based. Terminus’ clients tend to be midsize to large enterprises, with the majority in technology and business services. Terminus’ roadmap includes enhanced dashboards and analytics, improved channel orchestration, and updates to display advertising campaigns. In the second half of 2022, Terminus plans to roll out native email functionality that does not require a MAP for activation of this important channel.Strengths
- Strong native channel orchestration: Terminus has strong native channel support, with display advertising, website chat and web personalization at the fore. While not supporting email management directly, it does offer dynamic email signatures, which allow marketers to insert custom banners that include personalized campaign messaging into the signature.
- Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity to boost product capabilities: Terminus has acquired three companies in the last 12 months to advance its vision and added significant new functionality to the product, including a Customer Data Platform (CDP), website chat as a native channel and psychographic account profiling.
- Thought leadership in ABM: Over the last five years, Terminus has invested in programs to educate marketers about ABM, including the “Flip My Funnel” event roadshow and podcast, three books and the first ever ABM course on LinkedIn Learning with over 20,000 students. Its thought leadership marketing helps marketers to shift from traditional demand generation approaches and embrace best practices for running ABM programs.
Cautions
- Social advertising channels: Fully integrated support for social ads is limited to LinkedIn. Marketers seeking to activate campaigns in Facebook must export audiences from Terminus and manually import the data into a Facebook campaign.
- Dashboards and analytics user experience: Several reviews in Gartner Peer Insights have highlighted usability concerns over reporting and dashboards, and these limitations may reduce end-user productivity in generating reports and analyzing data. Consequently, organizations need to evaluate these aspects of the product to ensure that they meet their user experience requirements.
- Geographic coverage: Terminus currently has minimal sales and customer success resources in regions other than North America, which may limit its attractiveness to companies not based in North America.
Triblio
Triblio (acquired by IDG Communications in 2020) is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant. Its ABM Orchestration Platform mainly focuses on intent data, orchestration, digital advertising, website personalization and sales activation. Its operations are geographically diversified. Its clients tend to be in North America or EMEA across a broad set of industries, and the majority of customers are under $250 million in annual revenue. Triblio plans to continue investing in global growth and improvements to existing products (ABM Orchestration Platform, Echo and Neon). The roadmap includes includes updates to the user experience and support for video ads.Strengths
- Multifaceted intent data: Triblio provides proprietary intent data and includes Bombora topic-based intent for no additional cost, creating a strong combination at a competitive price. The user interface for this capability is intuitive and allows for easy filtering of all intent topics and automatic lead-to-account matching when building lists.
- Support for multiple industries: While many vendors market and sell to the technology sector, Triblio is fairly distributed with customers in nine different industries, including professional services, financial services and healthcare providers. This customer distribution reflects the ability to support use cases across a wide range of industries.
- Competitive global offering with IDG: Triblio’s acquisition by IDG gives the company enterprise scale and global reach to support various sized organizations in multiple locations. Specifically, Triblio has an active sales and support presence in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia/Pacific.
Cautions
- Account measurement and analytics: Triblio has standard reporting and dashboards, but it lacks the level of customization or automation offered by other vendors evaluated in this research. Marketers should evaluate if reporting and analytics capabilities align with their requirements for basic and advanced analysis such as predictive modeling.
- Campaign orchestration across native channels: Triblio currently offers native capabilities for display ads, website personalization, ad retargeting and a sales content channel (Smart Pages), but it does not offer native channel support for content syndication, email or website chat at this time. Organizations should validate if the supported channels meet their requirements.
- Market awareness: Despite its acquisition by IDG, awareness of the Triblio solution remains low among Gartner clients, particularly among those in B2B marketing teams. Organizations that include marketing, sales and IT teams in a buying decision may need to create internal awareness of Triblio’s value proposition to build consensus.
Vendors Added and Dropped
We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant may change over time. A vendor’s appearance in a Magic Quadrant one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or of a change of focus by that vendor.
Added
As this is a new Magic Quadrant, no vendors were added.
Dropped
As this is a new Magic Quadrant, no vendors were dropped.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
The inclusion criteria represent the specific attributes that Gartner analysts believe are necessary for inclusion in this research.
To qualify for inclusion, vendors needed to demonstrate that they met the following criteria as of 31 July 2021:
- Proven ability to deliver ABM functionality as defined below in the Functionality section.
- At least $5 million in 2020 fiscal-year revenue for the vendor’s ABM solution and enough cash on hand to fund a year of operations at the current rate of cash depletion.
- At least 50 customers — not including pilot programs or free trials — that are using the vendor’s platform for ABM use cases.
- A minimum of 10 customers that are new to the vendor’s organization within the past 12 months, and which have successfully deployed the ABM platform in a production environment. A successful deployment is defined as being able to show production capability of more than one area from the inclusion criteria: Functionality as listed below in the context of an ABM use case.
- Must offer a purpose-built, stand-alone ABM platform that does not have any prerequisite licensing dependencies on a CRM lead management or B2B marketing automation platform. Companies that provide ABM capabilities as add-on modules or features but don’t package these capabilities as a stand-alone offering are not eligible for inclusion in this research.
Functionality
Audience management. The capability enables B2B marketers to unify account data by ingesting and activating their own first-party data while bringing in and utilizing third-party data sources via standard data connectors or APIs. This account data can be used to create and manage target account segments and audiences for campaign orchestration and activation. First-party data includes a minimum of two of the following types:
- CRM or SFA activity
- Website activity (known and anonymous)
- Marketing activity (which may include email, social media, content and events)
- Product usage and adoption scores
- Customer health scores
- Account or segment plans
In addition, third-party data includes a minimum of two of the following types:
- Firmographics
- Technographics
- Psychographics
- Intent
- Market intelligence
Intent data. This capability helps marketers to understand what an individual or company will likely do or buy next, based on behavioral information collected about an individual’s or company’s online activities. ABM platforms offer proprietary intent data and/or integrate licensed third-party intent data that uses a topic or keyword taxonomy for buyer intent.
Orchestrate display advertising. This capability enables marketers to orchestrate (plan, create, execute and measure) display advertising campaigns across the open internet and mobile apps for reaching target accounts. Due to current market expectations, ABM platforms must provide a “native” user experience for orchestrating and managing display advertising campaigns. Native functionality enables users to complete orchestration workflows, within the product, without having to access and use a separate third-party application or vendor services.
Orchestrate across native channels. Beyond the use of display ads, marketers also need the ability to orchestrate (plan, create, execute and measure) campaigns for reaching and engaging target accounts across channels. Due to current market expectations, ABM platforms must provide a “native” user experience for orchestrating and managing campaign workflows. Native functionality enables users to complete workflows, within the product, without having to access and use a separate third-party application or vendor services. At a minimum, ABM platforms should support campaign orchestration for at least one native channel from the following:
- Website personalization
- Content syndication
- Ad retargeting
- Social advertising (for example, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter)
- Website chat
Activate non-native channels. This capability enables marketers to activate target account segments and audiences across a range of external touchpoints by leveraging third-party integrations with marketing, sales and advertising tools. At a minimum, ABM platforms should support campaign activation with at least three of the following non-native channels:
- Website personalization
- Content syndication
- Ad retargeting
- Social advertising (for example, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter)
- Email (via marketing automation platform)
- Website chat
- Direct mail/gifting
- Sales cadences/sequences (via sales engagement platforms)
Embedded sales alerts. This capability notifies sales teams about key account activity, providing prescriptive insights to further engagement with buyers. Sales alerts may be delivered via email and integrations with tools for business communication, sales force automation or sales engagement.
Integrations with marketing technology (martech)/sales technology (salestech). These include core sales force automation and marketing automation systems, as well as sales engagement systems, social advertising networks and conversational marketing tools. ABM platforms should provide out-of-the-box, direct integration (via standard data connectors or APIs) with at least four of the following categories of complementary tools:
- CRM or SFA
- Lead management or marketing automation
- Marketing analytics
- Sales engagement
- Social advertising
- Third-party ad networks
- Direct mail/gifting
- Content marketing
- Conversational marketing
- Stand-alone customer data platforms
- Content management systems
Account measurement and analytics. This functionality includes reporting on website and channel-specific engagement activity, providing marketers with insight about campaign performance for target accounts. It also enables account-level engagement scoring across a range of marketing and sales touchpoints, comprising known and anonymous visits, which supports ABM activities from account selection through reporting and optimization. Furthermore, there is increasing market expectation that vendors will offer AI-related technologies such as machine learning frameworks and support for predictive analytics and/or recommendations. Accordingly, vendors should support at least one of the following advanced analytics capabilities:
- Account journey analytics to track and analyze engagement by stages of the customer journey or interaction channels.
- Predictive analytics/modeling that support the automation of other marketing activities, such as account selection, journey design, content and next best action recommendations.
- Attribution modeling (rule-based or algorithmic-based), that quantifies the influence of campaigns, channels or content on conversion events such as opportunity creation or closed/won deals.
Evaluation Criteria
The evaluation criteria and weights describe the specific characteristics and their relative importance that support Gartner’s view of the market. These criteria are used to comparatively evaluate ABM platform providers in this research.
Ability to Execute
Product or Service
This criterion refers to the vendor’s core goods and services that compete in and/or serve the defined market. This includes current product and service capabilities, quality, feature sets and skills and so forth. This can be offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the Market Definition/Description section and detailed in the subcriteria.
We specifically look for:
- Execution of the functionalities noted in the Functionality section
- Evidence of a consistent product release/update cadence indicating the overall health of a vendor’s product delivery
- Evidence of a meaningful and robust product roadmap that addresses market needs
Overall Viability
This criterion refers to an assessment of the vendor’s overall financial health, as well as the financial and practical success of its business unit. This criterion examines the likelihood of the vendor to continue to offer and invest in its ABM platform, as well as its position in the vendor’s current product portfolio.
We specifically look for:
- The health of the line of business offering ABM solutions, as evidenced by a consistent ability to generate revenue in the ABM platform market
- Customer and revenue retention rates
Sales Execution/Pricing
This criterion evaluates the vendor’s capabilities in all presales activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support, and the overall effectiveness of the vendor’s sales channels.
We specifically look for:
- The number of new customers acquired in the past year.
- Cost and pricing competitiveness as they relate to competitors with comparable capabilities, including:
- The published list price of the vendor’s product
- Any optional modules needed to meet the minimum product requirements defined above
- Annual maintenance fees (if any)
- Any required services, training, implementation fees, customization or related services
- Customer satisfaction with contracting and negotiation processes
Market Responsiveness and Track Record
This criterion refers to the vendor’s ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor’s history of responsiveness to changing market demands.
We specifically look for:
- A vendor’s success in creating and meeting a consistent demand for its product, measured in continuing client wins, adoption and usage among its installed base
- Demonstrated investment of resources in product development in new areas directly related or adjacent to ABM platforms in response to market demand or need
Marketing Execution
This criterion considers the clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the vendor’s message in order to influence the market, promote the vendor’s brand, increase awareness of products and establish a positive identification in the minds of customers. This awareness and positioning can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional activity, thought leadership, social media, referrals and sales activities.
We specifically look for:
- The vendor’s ability to execute tactical and strategic marketing programs and campaigns that engage buyers, customers and influencers
- The vendor’s ability to create and extend its brand as an ABM platform vendor and visionary in the space
Customer Experience
This criterion considers the products, services and/or programs that enable the vendor’s customers to achieve anticipated results with the ABM platform evaluated. Specifically, this includes quality interactions by technical support or account support teams. This may also include ancillary tools, customer support programs, availability of user groups, service-level agreements and so forth.
We specifically look for:
- The availability and viability of internal customer service and support capabilities, including support resources, customer success management, online customer communities, systems, policies, and global coverage
- Accessibility of external resources, including partnerships with marketing agencies, consulting organizations and technology vendors, along with related resources such as third-party tools or consulting methodologies
- Demonstrated ability to help customers achieve positive business value, as well as drive sustained user adoption of a vendor’s ABM solution(s)
Operations
This criterion evaluates the vendor’s ability to meet its stated goals and commitments. Factors include quality of the vendor’s organizational structure, skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the vendor to operate effectively and efficiently.
Table 1: Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria
Enlarge Table
| Evaluation Criteria | Weighting |
|---|---|
| Product or Service | High |
| Overall Viability | High |
| Sales Execution/Pricing | Medium |
| Market Responsiveness/Record | Medium |
| Marketing Execution | Medium |
| Customer Experience | Medium |
| Operations | Low |
Source: Gartner (January 2022)
Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding
This criterion considers the vendor’s ability to demonstrate a clear vision of its market and understand customer needs and translate them into products and services. We evaluate the vendor’s ability to listen, understand customer demands, and shape or enhance market changes with its added vision.
We specifically look for:
- The vendor’s unique value proposition to the market
- A comprehensive vision of external market forces (for example, B2B buying trends and changing regulatory landscape).
- Alignment with customer objectives and use cases for acquisition, retention and expansion
Marketing Strategy
This criterion evaluates the vendor’s ability to provide clear, differentiated messaging consistently communicated internally, and externalized through social media, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.
We specifically look for:
- How effectively the vendor communicates and accentuates any unique functionality or value proposition
- How effective the vendor is at reaching the buying center(s) for companies purchasing ABM solutions
- How effectively the vendor conveys differentiation and vision via events, thought leadership programs and overall visibility
Sales Strategy
This criterion considers the vendor’s strategy for using appropriate networks, including direct and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication to sell its ABM platform. We also look at a vendor’s ability to partner with customers to extend the scope and depth of its market reach, expertise, technologies, services and its customer base.
We specifically look for:
- The vendor’s direct sales strategy and team structure (for example, account executives, sales development representatives [SDRs] and sales engineers) for engaging customer segments by size, region or industry
- The vendor’s indirect channel strategy and the role of agencies and partners in the vendor’s sales process
Offering (Product) Strategy
This criterion refers to the vendor’s approach to product development and delivery. We evaluate how well a vendor is able to emphasize market differentiation, functionality, methodology and features as they map to current and future requirements.
We specifically look for:
- The vendor’s product vision relative to the functionalities noted above in the Functionality section
- A consistent product release/update cadence indicating the overall health of the vendor’s ABM roadmap
Business Model
This criterion examines the design, logic and execution of the vendor’s business proposition to achieve continued success.
We specifically look for:
- The overall design of the vendor’s business model, including its value proposition, customer segments and capabilities such as people, technology and data
- The product license model (such as subscription versus one-time license fee) that effectively monetizes the value of the vendor’s ABM offering(s)
Vertical/Industry Strategy
This criterion refers to the vendor’s strategy to direct resources (sales, product and development), skills and products to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including verticals.
We specifically look for:
- A strategy that extends beyond technology companies, including software and services providers
- The vendor’s ability to direct resources, skills and investment to meet the specific needs of new market segments, users or vertical industry groups
Innovation
This criterion evaluates the direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or preemptive purposes.
We specifically look for investment of financial, management or technology resources, expertise or capital in the following areas intended to expand the scope, capabilities or global presence of the vendor and its products for its customers:
- Product development in new areas directly related or adjacent to ABM
- Third-party and partner relationships
- Mergers and acquisitions
Geographic Strategy
This criterion evaluates the vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the “home” or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries, as appropriate for that geography and market.
We specifically look for:
- The number of employees allocated to different regions where the vendor has a sales/marketing and/or support presence
- Tailoring of vendor’s go-to-market strategy for regional differences
- The depth and scope of partners available in those regions
Table 2: Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria
Enlarge Table
| Evaluation Criteria | Weighting |
|---|---|
| Market Understanding | High |
| Marketing Strategy | High |
| Sales Strategy | Medium |
| Offering (Product) Strategy | High |
| Business Model | Medium |
| Vertical/Industry Strategy | Low |
| Innovation | Medium |
| Geographic Strategy | Medium |
Source: Gartner (January 2022)
Quadrant Descriptions
Leaders
Leaders demonstrate broad support for all ABM critical capabilities and consistently meet customer needs across the three core ABM use cases (acquisition, renewal and expansion). They have high market visibility, high market penetration, strong market momentum, and a clear, long-term strategic vision and roadmap for growing their ABM platform business. Their customers report high levels of satisfaction and success with their implementations. Leaders also have initiated plans for geographic and international expansion.
Challengers
Challengers offer solid core ABM functionality but may lack the breadth and depth of Leaders, particularly when it comes to audience activation across non-native channels and integrations with the martech and sales technology ecosystem. Vendors in this quadrant may distinguish themselves for the level of support and customer success programs they offer to help customers realize value from ABM programs. They focus on established clients’ needs for ABM functions and strategic direction, rather than on setting a visionary pace with potential requirements. In addition, they may lack the marketing efforts, sales channels, geographic presence, industry-specific content or market awareness of the vendors in the Leaders quadrant.
Visionaries
Visionaries may set a strategic direction or demonstrate specific innovative capabilities in one or more functional areas that the market will eventually adopt. Although Visionaries show promise in enabling ABM, they may have gaps in broader functionality requirements or may be lacking in some aspects of their service and support resources, and/or business and partner ecosystems, which impairs their Ability to Execute. These gaps may limit their market presence and growth potential.
Niche Players
Niche Players provide a basic set of ABM capabilities, typically to a narrow segment of the market. They may be focused on organizations of a particular size, specific geographies or industries. ABM platform vendors in this quadrant may lack the breadth and depth of ABM capabilities offered by Leaders. Similarly, customers of vendors in this quadrant may adopt ABM solutions for only a subset of their total capabilities (such as display advertising). Vendors in this quadrant also may lack execution potential (such as insufficient resources in a key area or an underdeveloped market strategy), resulting in more limited market visibility and market presence relative to vendors in other quadrants.
Context
This research is Gartner’s first ABM platform Magic Quadrant. It reflects the growth of this product category, despite the economic disruption triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and a shift toward ABM programs by marketing and sales leaders. This Magic Quadrant focuses exclusively on stand-alone ABM solutions and does not include vendors that offer ABM capabilities as part of a CRM lead management or B2B marketing automation platform. Observations about vendors and their capabilities are valid as of publication of this research, noting that both vendors and the market continue to evolve.
To that end, as a B2B marketer responsible for leading ABM initiatives, you should:
- Study the evaluation criteria by which we determined each vendor’s Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision.
- Evaluate the vendors’ Strengths and Cautions.
- Assess vendors in any of the four quadrants, with a focus on those that align with your requirements and goals.
- Use this Magic Quadrant research in conjunction with our companion Critical Capabilities for Account-Based Marketing Platforms research, other publications related to ABM best practices and our analyst inquiry service.
Readers should be careful not to ascribe their own definitions of Completeness of Vision or Ability to Execute to this Magic Quadrant, which they often incorrectly map narrowly to product vision and market share, respectively. The Magic Quadrant methodology factors in a wide range of criteria in determining position, as shown by the extensive Evaluation Criteria section.
As readers build your business case and requests for proposal, factor in the time, cost and complexity of integrating your ABM platform with other core organizational and martech systems. Similarly, ensure that your organization develops a comprehensive plan to upskill end users of your ABM solution on key functionality to maximize time to value. Explore vendor managed services, as well as third-party managed service providers and vendor support packages to help with onboarding, training and ongoing education.
Market Overview
ABM has quickly become a key go-to-market model for many B2B companies, starting with the technology sector, and expanding to other industries, including professional services, financial services and manufacturing. Adoption of ABM to reach net new and existing customers at scale has continued to grow rapidly, partly due to the ability of ABM platforms to provide contact-to-account insights that enable better decision making, improve engagement across accounts and more easily demonstrate ROI.
ABM platforms are core to this effort. According to Gartner’s 2021 Technology Marketing Benchmarks Survey, 64% of respondents with an ABM use case and more than $100 million in revenue have a dedicated budget for ABM technology. These platforms help B2B marketing and sales teams to engage and report on prospective or existing customer accounts. They automate account selection and prioritization, audience management, activation and orchestration across channels, contact and account-level reporting, sales alerting, and engagement analytics. In addition, ABM platforms often include native display advertising and retargeting, content syndication and personalization capabilities, and proprietary intent data.
Trends Shaping the Market for ABM Platforms
The following trends are shaping the market for ABM platforms and their planned capabilities:
- Double-digit market growth. In 2020 and into 2021, vendors invested (and continue to invest) heavily around integrations, intent data, audience activation, improved reporting and alerting, AI-driven modeling, visualization, and user experience. The new functionality (through both acquisition and development) has improved ROI and increased buy-in from users outside of marketing, such as SDRs and account executives. As a result, Gartner estimates the market grew at 29% during 2020 (based on data from the vendors included in the Magic Quadrant analysis). In addition, for 2021, Gartner estimates a market growth rate of more than 35%.
- Viable options for all-in-one or best-of-breed solutions. While the number of ABM platforms has declined slightly from 2020 (through consolidation), the increased functionality from many platforms has allowed for viable choices, whether marketers are looking for all-in-one platforms or leveraging multiple platforms in a best-of-breed approach.
- Increased customer satisfaction. Over the last year, we’ve seen somewhat increased satisfaction and lower churn from clients that use ABM platforms and less skepticism from those that don’t. However, based on Gartner inquiries, there is still a fair amount of switching from vendor to vendor and skepticism outside key markets. This is expected for a market that is in the Trough of Disillusionment (see Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing, 2021). The market continues to remain on track for a very fast progression through the Hype Cycle.
- AI, machine learning and data-driven innovation in audience management and predictive intelligence. Leading ABM platform vendors have focused on improving their capabilities via merger and acquisition activity and/or organic development. For example, in May 2021, Demandbase acquired InsideView (sales insights, contact data and firmographics) and DemandMatrix (technographics) to boost access to third-party data in its Demandbase One ABX Cloud. And, 6sense acquired Fortella in August 2021 to enable sales pipeline forecasting and insights powered by AI. In addition, Terminus acquired CDP capabilities from Zylotech in September 2021 to improve data ingestion and auditing for account and contact data. Gartner expects these innovations to continue into 2022, as several vendors have data-driven roadmaps that enable marketers to improve audience management and orchestrate complex buyer journeys across channels via predictive intelligence.
- Digital advertising disruption due to plans for cookie deprecation. Google’s plan to end support for third-party cookies with its Chrome browser by 2023 has created disruption throughout the digital ad ecosystem (see Google to Drop Cookies, but Still Hold the Cards). Since ABM platforms provide native support for display advertising, vendors have developed plans to address the loss of cookie data that has been foundational to ad targeting and measurement. These plans involve the use of alternative identifiers such as IP address or identity resolution technology that is independent of cookies. Given the evolving international privacy landscape, these plans can be disrupted by new laws and regulations. Consequently, vendors must remain agile in their approaches to delivering targeted account or persona-level advertising that complies with privacy law.
- Convergence with B2B marketing automation platforms. Vendors that provide B2B marketing automation platforms have been adding ABM and account-specific capabilities to their products that have traditionally focused on lead generation, lead management, lead scoring and lead nurturing activities across multiple marketing channels (see Magic Quadrant for B2B Marketing Automation Platforms). Most ABM platform vendors partner with MAPs and offer integrations to activate audiences for specific channels such as the delivery of email to known contacts. Gartner rarely sees an ABM platform vendor displacing an incumbent MAP vendor. However, with continued product innovation and merger and acquisition activity, we do foresee a future in which ABM platforms and MAPs will converge to form a new category. The resulting solutions will enable B2B marketers to pursue and orchestrate both ABM and traditional demand generation (lead management) use cases with equal facility.
Evidence
The following sources were used as part of the research for this Magic Quadrant.
Gartner client inquiries. These inquiries are related to best practices for ABM programs and the use or selection of ABM platforms.
Magic Quadrant customer check. This check is part of the data-gathering effort to help Gartner build on our existing knowledge of vendors in a particular market. During the kickoff of the MQ process for ABM platforms, all invited vendors were asked to submit customers that generally represented the inclusion criteria. The vendor provided customer contact information that was used to invite the reference to complete a 10-minute online survey. The data was collected as part of Gartner’s 2021 ABM platform Magic Quadrant in August 2021, with a total of 60 customers from 10 vendors.
Gartner Peer Insights. Data from reviews submitted by users of account-based marketing platforms.
2021 Gartner Technology Marketing Benchmarks Survey. It was conducted online from 1 March through 15 June 2021 among technology-focused organizations with more than $10 million in revenue located in Canada, the U.S. or the U.K. The survey respondents had to meet the following requirements:
- Respondents were required to have one of the following primary job functions or roles:
- CEO/president/founder
- Demand/lead generation
- Marketing leadership
- Sales leadership
- Web/digital social marketing
- Marketing operations/analytics
- Respondents were also required to have knowledge of the marketing budget and spend for their companies or business units and knowledge of the marketing campaign or program’s tactics. At the country level, quotas were established to guarantee a good distribution in terms of product offering (software, technology services and hardware) and company size (revenue).
A total of 500 responses were collected. The data presented in the Magic Quadrant is focused on the 326 respondents in organizations with more than $100 million in revenue.
The survey was developed collaboratively by a team of Gartner analysts, and it was reviewed, tested and administered by Gartner’s Research Data and Analytics team. Results of this study do not represent global findings or the market as a whole, but reflect the sentiment of the respondents and companies surveyed.
Evaluation Criteria Definitions
Ability to Execute
Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor for the defined market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills and so on, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.
Overall Viability: Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization’s financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood that the individual business unit will continue investing in the product, will continue offering the product and will advance the state of the art within the organization’s portfolio of products.
Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor’s capabilities in all presales activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support, and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.
Market Responsiveness/Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor’s history of responsiveness.
Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the organization’s message to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This “mind share” can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional initiatives, thought leadership, word of mouth and sales activities.
Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, service-level agreements and so on.
Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure, including skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.
Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers’ wants and needs and to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen to and understand buyers’ wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those with their added vision.
Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the website, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.
Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base.
Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor’s approach to product development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature sets as they map to current and future requirements.
Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor’s underlying business proposition.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including vertical markets.
Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.
Geographic Strategy: The vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the “home” or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that geography and market.
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