I got married during the pandemic, and as part of our ceremony, we recited Ithaka by C.P. Cavafy – a timeless poem that celebrates the old adage that ‘life is about the journey, not the destination.'

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.

That message of ‘journey over destination’ has shaped much of my life (both personal and professional), but it’s also applicable to the industry I’ve worked in for the past decade: the dynamic and often unpredictable world of account-based marketing (ABM).

Scalable ABM model at Adobe: A customer-centric ABM approach

From the world’s leading banks and largest retailers to technology, media, and entertainment giants, Adobe’s ABM programs dive deep into some of the world’s biggest brands.

Our current ABM journey is all about continuous learning, evolution, and one of our core areas of expertise, personalisation.

Of course, everything we do at Adobe is with an account-based mindset.

However, we’ve also been quietly building out a dedicated ABM 1:1 program. A program focused on embedding the 1:1 methodology at global level, helping deliver the transformative results that both our own business and our customers need.

Repeatability and consistency: How to grow an ABM program

We’ve learned a huge amount from previous iterations of our ABM programs over the past 10 years, with particular focus on two key areas that many programs lack: repeatability and scale.

Our ultimate aim? An ABM framework and system that brings consistency without losing the deep customer-centric focus that truly makes ABM such a game-changer for marketing and sales teams.

Rather than enforcing a rigid top-down structure, our approach is collaborative. We engage field marketing teams across global markets to bridge regional nuances, better understand what does and doesn’t work, and to ensure what we’re building is not just scalable, but also adaptable enough to land in local markets.

As a result, we’ve anchored our ABM strategy around three core pillars:

1. A customer-centric ABM approach that ensures a clear, unified process for customer messaging, engagement, and campaigns. We’ve pushed hard to be the custodian of the customer, to be fearless in ensuring they’re given the best personalised experience possible – in doing so, creating that priceless, partnership-level relationship.
2. Empowering field marketers to deepen relationships with both sales teams and customers. Our field marketers are the conductors of an amazing band, harmonising the unique rhythm and beat of ABM to produce that incredible customer music.
3. Measuring ABM success across reputation, relationships, and revenue. Of course, we obsess over all three ‘Rs’, but relationships are where we can make a lasting impact. That’s ultimately how we deliver on revenue and build our reputation.

Practicing what we preach with our own technology: Adobe on Adobe vision

As the company famous for selling account orchestration technology, the pressure is absolutely on – we must set the standard.  As such, we’ve made it part of our mantra to be our own best customer.

Step 1: Data is your decision-making friend

We call it our ‘Account Engagement Hub’. In a nutshell, it helps us with account selection and assessment. Most importantly, it includes intent and real-time data, which allow us to assess how different accounts are engaging with us – all backed and overlaid with detailed information from each sales stage.

Step 2: Content is still absolutely king

I know you hear me ABMers – scaling content remains one of our biggest challenges.

Our own technology is how we scale our content so efficiently to overcome this. We use Adobe Workfront to summarize our briefs before Adobe Express enters the equation to create global templates that can be tailored to specific customers and regions. We make them modular and can do it at pace!

I finally feel like I've cracked it: every customer value proposition we create is unique, but we’re simultaneously using a scaled methodology to ensure we have consistency – truly, a global content supply chain in action.

Step 3: Relationships still matter in B2B

Adobe is customer zero for two transformative pieces of our own technology: Adobe Real-Time CDP and Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition (AJO).

Much like every ABMer, I still wonder about that mythical buying group and the answers to those golden questions: Who are they? Where do they hang out? How do we get them onboard? When will they finally invite me into their secret inner circle?

That’s where our technology is the big enabler, helping us build small, highly targeted audiences (Adobe Real-Time CDP) to drive engagement with that ever-elusive buying group – with targeted content and a curated journey (AJO) that we, ultimately, guide.

All marketers (not just ABMers) know their audience is a constantly shifting target. It’s how we refine our approach to engage these individuals, how we deliver personalised engagement to convert them into advocates, that dictate success.

Step 4: Show the value, show the value, show the value

We’re in such a lucky position here: our sales teams sell to marketers – so they inherently get the importance of constantly showing value. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t take every opportunity to brag about marketing’s role as the architect in unlocking that key decision-maker, or boasting about which key executives were engaged through one of marketing’s personalised account sessions.

Now I sound like I’m gloating, but I just want to stress there’s still such a huge opportunity to engage these complex buying groups in quicker and even more personalised ways.

And that’s the journey we’re on right now. Now, I’m going back to pretending I’m on my way to Ithaka to keep discovering new things on this journey…

To hear more about upcoming innovations at Adobe, come us join at Adobe Summit.

Orla is the Head of ABM for EMEA and the UKI industry lead and is responsible for developing and delivering customer centric experiences to Adobe’s largest accounts.