Account-based marketing (ABM) can be a time sink if you don’t know which accounts to focus on. If you’re a B2B marketer or SDR who’s tired of juggling Excel sheets and gut feels, this guide is for you. We’ll walk through using Canopy to segment and prioritize your target accounts—so you can spend less time guessing and more time actually moving deals forward.
Why Bother With Segmentation and Prioritization?
Here’s the honest truth: most ABM campaigns flop because teams try to do too much with too little focus. Chasing every “maybe” account is a fast way to burn out, waste budget, and annoy your sales reps. Segmentation and prioritization are about working smarter—not harder—by putting your energy where it’ll actually pay off.
Step 1: Get Your Account List Into Canopy
First things first: you need a list of accounts to work with. Don’t overthink this—start with what you have. Pull a list from your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, whatever) or even a spreadsheet.
Quick tips: - Don’t stress about “perfect” data. You’ll clean it up in Canopy. - If you have buyer personas or ICP (ideal customer profile) notes, keep those handy—they’ll help later.
How to import: 1. Log in to Canopy. 2. Click on “Upload Accounts” (or whatever the latest UI calls it). 3. Drag and drop your CSV, or connect your CRM directly. 4. Map your fields—company name, website, industry, revenue, etc.
What to ignore:
Don’t try to upload 50 extra fields “just in case.” Focus on the basics: company, industry, size, and engagement data if you have it.
Step 2: Clean and Enrich Your Data
Let’s be real: most account lists are messy. Duplicates, missing info, outdated contacts—you name it. Canopy’s enrichment tools help, but they’re not magic. Here’s how to get the most out of them:
- Deduplication: Let Canopy do the heavy lifting here. Review the suggested merges, but don’t stress about catching every single edge case.
- Fill in the gaps: Canopy can enrich company size, industry, and sometimes contact info. This is handy, but double-check anything that looks off—especially if you’re working in niche markets.
- Custom fields: Add any custom tags or notes you use internally (e.g., “key competitor,” “renewal this quarter”). Just don’t go overboard.
Pro tip:
Garbage in, garbage out. Take 15 minutes to clean your list before you start slicing and dicing.
Step 3: Segment Your Accounts
Segmentation is just a fancy way of saying “group your accounts in a way that actually makes sense for your business.” Don’t let the tool overcomplicate things—start simple.
Common segmentation approaches: - Industry or vertical: Tech, healthcare, financial services, etc. - Company size: SMB, mid-market, enterprise. - Geography: By region or country. - Engagement level: Accounts who’ve visited your site, opened emails, or attended webinars. - Open opportunities: Deals in pipeline, or renewal dates coming up.
How to do it in Canopy: 1. Go to the “Segments” tab. 2. Use filters to create basic segments (e.g., Industry = “SaaS” AND Employee count > 200). 3. Save each segment with a clear name (“Enterprise SaaS – North America”).
What works:
Start with 2–4 segments you actually have the resources to go after. Don’t create 17 micro-segments you’ll never touch.
What to ignore:
Don’t get distracted by “AI-powered” suggestions for segments unless they’re genuinely useful. Trust your sales instincts.
Step 4: Score and Prioritize Your Accounts
This is where Canopy can help you separate the “nice to have” from the “must have.” Scoring is about ranking accounts so you know where to focus. Here’s how to make it useful (and not just another spreadsheet column):
- Build a simple scoring model: Assign points for traits that matter. Example:
- +10 if they match your ICP
- +5 if they engaged with your last campaign
- +3 for recent tech adoption
- Use Canopy’s scoring templates—carefully: Out-of-the-box models can be a good starting point, but tweak them. If “employee count” matters more than “web visits,” weight it accordingly.
- Check recency: An account that was hot last year might be ice cold now. Use engagement data to bubble up who’s active right now.
How to do it in Canopy: 1. Go to the “Scoring” or “Prioritization” section. 2. Set up your criteria and weights. 3. Let Canopy crunch the numbers—then sanity-check the results. If your top 10 accounts are all tiny startups, something’s off.
What works:
Keep it simple. A basic scoring model you trust beats a black-box algorithm you don’t understand.
What to ignore:
Don’t get hung up tweaking the model for weeks. You can always adjust later.
Step 5: Sync With Sales (and Reality-Check Your List)
No tool—not even Canopy—can fully automate ABM. Once you’ve got your segments and scores, sit down with your sales team.
What to do: - Review the top accounts together. Does this list pass the “does this make sense?” test? - Ask for feedback on missing accounts or weird outliers. - Update your segments and scores if needed.
Pro tip:
Sales always knows about outliers—accounts that look bad on paper but are actually hot, or vice versa. Don’t ignore their gut checks.
Step 6: Push Segments to Campaigns
Now you’re ready to actually use these lists—not just admire them.
In Canopy: - Export your prioritized segments to your marketing automation tool (Marketo, HubSpot, Outreach, etc.). - Use tags or custom fields to trigger personalized campaigns for each segment. - Track engagement by segment—not just by lead.
What works:
Start with one or two campaigns per segment. Test, tweak, repeat. Don’t try to run a dozen campaigns at once.
What to ignore:
Don’t obsess over “hyper-personalization” for every account. Focus on relevance, not one-off custom emails that never scale.
Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)
- Analysis paralysis: Don’t get stuck trying to make the perfect list. Done > perfect.
- Over-segmentation: More segments ≠ better results. Only create segments if you’ll actually use them.
- Ignoring new data: Refresh your segments and scores every month. Markets change fast.
- Blind trust in automation: Canopy is a tool, not a crystal ball. Use it to inform decisions, not replace your own judgment.
Final Thoughts: Keep It Simple, Iterate Often
You don’t need a PhD in data science to use Canopy for ABM segmentation and prioritization. Start with what you have, keep your segments simple, and listen to your sales team. Iterate as you learn. ABM is about focus—so pick your battles, and don’t let “shiny object” features distract you from the basics.
If you keep things practical, you’ll spend less time fiddling with lists and more time actually talking to the accounts that matter. That’s how you win.