As most teams close out the year or head into planning season in January, I’ve been having the same conversations over and over.
ABM isn’t failing because teams lack tools.
It’s failing because the foundation isn’t set.
If ABM felt harder than it should have this year, here are three pieces of advice I’d carry into 2026.
1. Anchor ABM to business priorities
ABM struggles the moment it becomes a marketing initiative instead of a business one.
As new priorities are set for the year ahead, this is the first question to answer:
What is the business trying to accomplish?
That might be:
Vertical expansion
Cross-sells
Upsells
Horizontal expansion
Enterprise growth
When ABM is built around one clear priority, a few things happen naturally:
Buy-in is easier because the strategy supports company goals
Sales alignment improves because the motion is relevant
Account selection becomes obvious instead of debated
Your ABM strategy should exist to support one priority at a time.
That priority becomes your north star for who to target and why.
2. Build an ABM Council
One of the best decisions I’ve made in my career was creating an ABM Council.
Not a one-off meeting. Not a quarterly update.
An actual working group.
This council included:
Marketing
SDRs
SDR leadership
The purpose was simple:
Shape the ABM strategy together and pressure-test it before launch.
This changed everything.
SDRs trusted the strategy because they helped build it.
Marketing got real feedback instead of assumptions.
Execution improved because the plan reflected how work actually gets done.
I’ve since created a short guide that walks through how to set this up step by step because it has consistently led to better strategy and stronger alignment.
If ABM feels disconnected, this is often the missing piece.
3. Measure what actually matters
ABM does not exist to generate leads.
It exists to create pipeline and revenue.
Yet many teams still struggle to explain success because they’re tracking:
Leads
MQLs
Engagement scores
Platform metrics that don’t translate outside marketing
Try not to overcomplicate this.
If ABM is working, you should be able to clearly show:
Meetings booked from target accounts
Qualified opportunities
Pipeline created
Revenue won
To help with this, I built a new ABM forecasting sheet that walks through to set realistic goals for each of those metrics using historical conversion metrics.
When measurement is simple and grounded in revenue, ABM becomes easier to defend and easier to scale.
Looking ahead to 2026
If ABM didn’t deliver the results you expected this year, it’s rarely because of effort or intent.
More often, it comes back to:
Strategy not tied to business priorities
Lack of shared ownership with your SDRs
Measuring the wrong things
Get those three right, and everything else becomes easier.
Want help setting your ABM foundation for the year ahead?
If you’re struggling with any of these areas and want to head into the new year with clarity, let’s talk.
Getting the foundation right now makes everything that follows more effective.
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Author: Tyler Pleiss
