ABM Stages make account scoring easy. Instead of building and maintaining complicated scoring logic inside your CRM, you define stages in ZenABM as simple conditions, built from your LinkedIn ad data, your HubSpot data, or both. Every account is then scored and placed automatically.
You do not need a HubSpot/Salesforce/CRM connection to use ABM Stages. They can work on LinkedIn data alone.
How stages work
You define an ordered set of stages that mirror your funnel.
Each stage has a set of conditions. When an account meets them, ZenABM places it in that stage. As accounts engage more, or as deals progress in your CRM, they move on their own. There is nothing to maintain by hand.
ABM Stages are calculated both at the general level and separately for each of your ABM Campaigns.
Building conditions
A stage is one or more condition blocks, combined with AND (all must be true) or OR (any can be true). Every condition is the same shape: pick a condition type, a metric, a comparison, and a value.
There are four condition types:
LinkedIn Metrics
Impressions, clicks, engagements, CTR, CPC and cost. For example, "clicks greater than or equal to 5".
Lifecycle Stage
A company's HubSpot lifecycle stage, such as "Sales Qualified Lead".
Deal Stage
A specific CRM deal stage, or that an account has an open deal.
Custom Property
Any HubSpot property at the Company level. Ideal for external data sources you track, like webinar attendance, whitepaper downloads, form fills on your website and more.
Combine CRM data (like Employee Range) with LinkedIn metrics. For example, "Aware" could be at least 50 impressions for 1-10 employees OR at least 250 impressions for 50-250 org size.
Setting it up
Check the defaults
Your start date: define an ABM Campaign
We use the earliest start date among your active ABM Campaigns as the cut-off point for stages calculation. Set up at least one ABM Campaign.
Define your Customer and Lost stages
Define Customer and Lost right away to get revenue attribution working. We highly recommend using a Deal/Opportunity for both. For example: Customer is a Deal in stage Closed Won.
Let it sync
What stages give you
The right accounts at the right time
Scoring surfaces which accounts are Interested now, so Sales works the ones that are ready.
Leading indicators of campaign health
Accounts entering a stage move long before pipeline does, which makes it the earliest read on whether a motion is working. See Dashboard.
Journeys overall and per motion
See an account's full stage history, and its progress within a specific ABM Campaign.
Stages where your team works
Stage is written back onto the HubSpot company record (or Salesforce Account).
Reading the results
You can click on any Stage Badge to see its dedicated page.
- Entering vs. progressing. For each stage, see accounts arriving and accounts moving on, so you can spot where they stall.
- Per-company history. Every account carries a full stage history: where it went, and how long it spent at each step.
- On the dashboard. Companies in ABM Stages is your funnel today; Companies Moving ABM Stages is momentum.
Best practices
Use ZenABM's own time-boxed fields to keep stages fresh. For example: Interested companies are the ones with at least 5 clicks in the last 30 days.
- Pull in external HubSpot signals. Whitepaper downloads, webinar attendance, form fills: anything living in a HubSpot property can drive a stage. Ad engagement plus a whitepaper download is a much stronger signal than either on its own.
- Stage order matters. We evaluate stages in reverse-waterfall order, starting from the lowest and moving up towards Identified. If a Company meets any stage condition, it is not evaluated further, so make sure the lower stages are meaningful.
- Keep making adjustments. If everyone piles into one stage, your thresholds are too loose or too tight. Adjust and recalculate.
LinkedIn-only conditions work on their own. Lifecycle, deal and custom-property conditions need a connected CRM. See HubSpot or Salesforce.
