ABM: frequently asked questions about Account-Based Marketing

ABM, or Account-Based Marketing, is a B2B marketing strategy that concentrates resources on a select set of high-value accounts, instead of spreading efforts across a broad market. In ABM, marketing and sales work together to identify, engage and convert specific accounts with highly personalized actions. It is the opposite of volume marketing, where the same content is sent to the entire base.

Inbound marketing attracts leads broadly: it publishes content, waits for the right people to find it and converts those who show interest. ABM reverses this logic: you define which accounts you want to win and actively go after them with personalized actions. In ABM, you choose the customer before they choose you.

These are the three scale models of ABM. In 1:1 (strategic ABM), each account receives a fully personalized plan, ideal for the highest-value accounts. In 1:few, a group of accounts with similar characteristics receives similar actions. In 1:many, personalization is done by segment: greater scale, less personalization, ideal for expanding the program's reach.

Intent data are digital signals indicating that a company is actively researching a product or solution like yours. These signals include visits to comparison pages, downloads of specific content, searches for terms related to your market and engagement with competitors. In ABM, intent data lets you prioritize accounts that are already in the buying moment.

ABM is best suited when the average deal size is high, the sales cycle is long, the ICP is well defined and the sales team works with a limited number of strategic accounts. If your company sells to large companies with multiple decision makers, ABM tends to generate more ROI than volume strategies.

No. Many companies use inbound to generate broad awareness and ABM to accelerate strategic accounts already in the pipeline. Harpoon integrates with marketing automation tools such as HubSpot and RD Station precisely for those who want to combine both approaches.

ABM works for any company that sells B2B with a relevant average deal size and a defined ICP. The 1:many model allows SMBs to do ABM at scale without needing large teams. Harpoon was built for the Latin American market, where this company profile is the majority.

Account score is a score calculated automatically for each account on the platform, based on ICP fit, the level of engagement with your actions and intent data signals. The higher the score, the closer the account is to the buying moment. The score guides which accounts to prioritize and when to activate sales.

Grid mapping visually shows your team's penetration into each account's buying committee — which decision makers have already been mapped, contacted and engaged. The heat map overlays this mapping with each person's engagement level, showing where the opportunities and gaps are in the account coverage.

Cadences in Harpoon are sequences of automated and personalized actions to engage accounts and decision makers throughout the ABM journey. You set up the sequence of touchpoints (email, LinkedIn, call), define the intervals and the platform executes and tracks each interaction automatically. Cadences can be triggered by score or intent data triggers.

Activity tracking automatically records all interactions between your team and the mapped accounts: emails opened, clicks, website visits, LinkedIn interactions. This history is centralized in Harpoon and feeds the account score, giving marketing and sales full visibility into each account's engagement level.

Yes. Harpoon has native integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, RD Station, Pipedrive, Zoho and Microsoft Dynamics. Account, contact and engagement data sync automatically between Harpoon and your CRM, with no need for manual exports.

Yes. Harpoon integrates with Apollo.io and Clearbit for company and contact data enrichment. This integration lets you pull up-to-date company and decision maker data directly in the platform, without switching between tools.

Yes. Harpoon stores all data on AWS Amazon servers with strictly controlled access. The platform follows ANPD guidelines and operates in compliance with the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD). See our Privacy Policy for details on data collection, storage and processing.

Data is stored on AWS Amazon servers, located in the United States, with restricted and encrypted access. Access logs are kept for at least 6 months, as required by Brazilian legislation (Law No. 12,965/2014). No data is shared with third parties outside the contractual scope.

The platform price varies according to the plan contracted and the number of users. To receive a personalized proposal, fill out the contact form and a B2B ABM specialist will get in touch to understand your operation and present the available options.

Contracting is done via annual subscription, with payment in 12 monthly installments. The process starts with a conversation with our team of specialists, followed by the personalized proposal and the formalization of the contract. Access to the platform is released after payment confirmation.

Get in touch with our team to learn about demo and platform access options. Our B2B ABM specialists give a complete presentation of the features and can set up a personalized demo environment for your use case.