Account-based campaigns are everywhere in B2B marketing talk, but actually getting one up and running isn’t as easy as the sales decks make it sound. If you’re here, you’ve probably poked around inside Experiense and realized there’s a bit more to it than just uploading a list and clicking “go.”
This guide is for marketers, sales ops folks, or frankly, anyone who needs to get account-based stuff working—yesterday. You’ll get honest steps, workarounds for things that aren’t as smooth as you’d hope, and a few tips to avoid headaches. Let’s get to the good stuff.
Step 1: Get Your Account List Ready (Don’t Skip This)
Before you even log in to Experiense, nail down who you’re targeting. This is the most important step, and it’s also where most campaigns fall apart. If your list stinks, your campaign will too.
How to build a good account list: - Use your CRM to pull recent opportunities, existing customers, or prospects by segment. - Clean it up. Remove duplicates, dead leads, and “accounts” with missing info. Experiense is picky about data quality. - At minimum, you’ll need: Company Name, Website, Industry, and ideally a unique ID (like from Salesforce).
Pro tip:
Don’t include every logo your exec team dreams about. Focus on companies you can actually reach and influence.
Step 2: Import Accounts into Experiense
Now, crack open Experiense and head to the “Accounts” section.
Uploading your list: - Click “Import Accounts” and upload your CSV. Map your fields to Experiense’s columns—be precise here. - Double-check for errors. If Experiense throws a fit about column names or missing data, it’s not just being fussy; your campaigns really will break later if you ignore this.
What to ignore:
Don’t waste time fiddling with extra fields unless you have a real plan to use them in targeting or messaging.
Step 3: Define Your Segments (AKA: Who Gets Which Message)
Don’t blast everyone with the same thing. Experiense lets you create segments based on account properties (industry, size, stage, whatever).
Set up segments: - Go to “Segments” → “Create New.” - Use filters: industry, location, account owner, or custom fields from your upload. - Give each segment a name that makes sense. “Q3 Targets - SaaS East Coast” is 100x better than “Segment 1.”
What works:
Start simple. If you try to slice your audience too thin, you’ll end up with segments so small they’re useless (or campaigns that never launch).
Step 4: Connect Contacts to Accounts
Experiense is account-based, but you still need actual people to send emails to or target with ads.
How to link contacts: - If you already have contacts in Experiense, use the “Match Contacts” tool. It’ll try to link people to their companies based on email domain. - If you’re missing contacts, you can import another CSV (“Import Contacts”). Just make sure the company name or unique ID matches what you used for accounts. - Check for mismatches—sometimes “Acme Inc.” and “Acme, Inc.” are treated as two different companies.
Heads-up:
Experiense’s matching is decent, but not magic. Double-check key accounts manually or you’ll end up pitching the wrong people.
Step 5: Set Up Your Campaign
Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Go to “Campaigns” and hit “New Campaign.”
Choose your campaign type: - Email nurture (the usual drip stuff) - LinkedIn or display ad targeting (if you have integrations set up) - Multi-channel (if you’re feeling ambitious, or just want to see what happens)
Build your flow: - Pick your segment(s) as the audience. - Set up the message sequence: subject lines, email bodies, ad creatives, etc. - Use dynamic fields if you want to personalize with company name, industry, etc.—but test it first. Bad personalization is worse than none.
What to skip:
Don’t go overboard with crazy workflows or branching logic unless you have a real reason. Complexity adds bugs and slows you down.
Step 6: Align Sales (or Whoever Owns Follow-up)
Account-based campaigns don’t work if marketing and sales aren’t talking. Experiense tries to help here, but it’s only as good as your process.
What to do: - Share the account list and campaign plan with sales. Get their buy-in on who’s being targeted and how. - Set up alerts or tasks in Experiense so reps know when their accounts engage (or don’t). - Decide who owns outreach after an account engages—don’t assume “the system” will magically handle this.
Pro tip:
If you skip this step, expect a lot of finger-pointing when results are iffy.
Step 7: Launch and Monitor
Time to go live. Hit “Start Campaign.”
What to watch: - Delivery rates: If lots of emails bounce, check your data quality. - Engagement: Open and click rates are a start, but track account-level activity—are multiple people from a company engaging? - Errors: Experiense will surface issues with contacts, integrations, or creative. Don’t ignore warnings.
Don’t obsess:
You’ll want perfection out of the gate, but something will always break. Fix, learn, and move on.
Step 8: Measure and Iterate
The truth: most account-based campaigns flop at first. That’s fine—if you actually look at the data and adjust.
How to measure: - Use Experiense’s built-in dashboards for account engagement, pipeline, and campaign performance. - Export data and check against your CRM. Are target accounts moving down the funnel, or just clicking emails? - Kill off segments or messages that aren’t working. Double down on what is.
What to ignore:
Vanity metrics. Who cares if your open rate is high if none of your target accounts are booking meetings?
A Few Honest Lessons From the Field
- Don’t overspend on data. Buy or enrich only what you need for your best-fit accounts. You’ll never use every data point.
- Integrations break. Expect to spend time troubleshooting CRM syncs, ad platform connections, and more.
- Start small. One segment, one campaign. Add complexity later—after you’ve got clear wins.
Keep It Simple and Keep Going
Account-based campaigns in Experiense can be powerful, but only if you keep your lists clean, your segments focused, and your process grounded in reality. Don’t get lost chasing every feature or metric. Ship something, learn, and improve. That’s how real teams win, even if the dashboard demos look fancier.