Terminus Brings Both ABM And Traditional B2B Campaign Measurement Into Account-Based Scorecard

Terminus is promising B2B marketers a way to measure both traditional and ABM programs in a single Account-Based Scorecard and a way to manage account-level targeting of digital ads.

The Atlanta-based firm said its Account-Based Scorecard will help marketers avoid creating attribution reports manually or after-the-fact for their campaigns. The expanded capabilities in the platform are also designed to reduce digital ad fraud and comply with regulations like the EU’s GDPR.

According to Terminus chief product officer Bryan Brown, said the idea is to offer marketers a holistic approach to looking at everything from the accounts they’re trying to close, the effectiveness of a particular strategy and the overall revenue achieved through a campaign.

“The problem is when you’re measuring leads, you don’t have a way to think about it at the account level. We sell to companies, not leads,” Brown told B2B News Network.

Imagine a mid-market company that wants to expand into Europe, Brown said by way of example. Rather than just waiting for European prospects to come to a web site, the Terminus Account-based Scorecard would allow the marketing team to begin building a revenue funnel of 500 accounts or more. The scorecard’s engagement capabilities, meanwhile, would help the marketing team get a better sense of which accounts are downloading white papers or eBooks, reading blog blogs or attending a webinar.

“Without it, you have to wait for the lead,” Brown added. “There’s bound to be more than one person in an account. Waiting for the lead could take way too long.”

Getting more granular with ABM metrics can be more than a way for marketers to demonstrate their success, Brown said. It could also be a mechanism for securing buy-in for an ABM strategy from the sales team. Even board members in some companies, he pointed out, tend to spend more time asking CMOs about the demand funnel.

“Why did marketing automation succeed? No rep cared about email consent. They cared that marketing showed them that was going on with their leads. Marketing has the same dilemma with ABM,” he said. “If the marketing team says ‘We’ve got to change everything we’re doing and turn off inbound, it’s going to be a non-starter. We’ve learned from our customer base that you have to find a way to show value in a way that the sales team is already working today.”

Getting a better handle on ad spend and other marketing efforts with the Account-Based Scorecard is also part of a broader shift away from trying to surface up leads from any corner of the web and to be more thoughtful about customers with whom they might actually close business, Brown said.

“Just as any modern company wants to have a great customer experience, the average company is realizing they should be providing a much richer go-to-market experience, and the only way to do that is to be more thoughtful with your resources,” he said.