How to review your ABM program in 30 minutes: a monthly checklist
A practical 30-minute monthly review for B2B ABM programs running LinkedIn and ChatGPT Ads: coverage, delivery, roles, creatives, waste, account movement, AI visibility and the three decisions to take.
A monthly ABM review should take 30 minutes and end with three decisions. Check, in order: coverage of your target list, delivery per account, the roles you reached, creative health, wasted spend, account movement through stages, AI visibility, and pipeline. Each step below has the question to ask, where to look and what action usually follows.
Before you start (2 minutes)
- Set the date range to the last full month and compare with the month before.
- Have the current target account list open.
- Invite one person from sales. ABM reviews without sales turn into marketing reports.
1. Coverage: did we reach our list? (4 minutes)
Question: How many target accounts saw at least one impression this month?
Look at: target accounts reached vs. the size of the list, and the accounts not reached at all.
Typical actions:
- Unreached accounts often have a LinkedIn matching problem: check company pages and list matching.
- If reach is low across the board, the budget may be too small for the list or the audience too narrow.
2. Delivery: was it fair across accounts? (4 minutes)
Question: Did a few accounts take most of the impressions?
Look at: impressions and spend per account, sorted from the top; cost per reached account.
Typical actions:
- Set or lower a daily cap per account for the accounts at the top.
- Exclude accounts with high spend and zero clicks over several weeks (budget hogs), unless sales says otherwise.
3. Roles: did we reach the buying committee? (3 minutes)
Question: Which job functions and seniorities took most impressions?
Look at: roles reached per campaign.
Typical actions:
- If juniors take a large share, exclude unpaid, training and entry-level members.
- If one function dominates, add role-specific ads or targeting for the missing roles.
4. Creatives: what's working and what's tired? (4 minutes)
Question: Which ads are best, which are rising, which are fatigued?
Look at: top creatives by CTR with enough impressions, trending creatives, ads with CTR down 30% or more in two weeks, and best creative by country.
Typical actions:
- Refresh fatigued ads with a new angle.
- Move budget to rising ads.
- Use the best creative per country as the template for that market.
5. Waste: where did money go without effect? (3 minutes)
Question: Which settings or accounts leak budget?
Look at: campaigns with Audience Network or audience expansion on, campaigns without exclusions, budget hogs, spend outside your target list.
Typical actions:
- Turn on the missing protections for every campaign.
- Add competitors and current customers to exclusions.
6. Movement: which accounts moved? (4 minutes)
Question: Which accounts moved up a stage, and which cooled off?
Look at: ABM stage changes, engagement score now vs. lifetime, accounts flagged "cooled off", new companies visiting your site.
Typical actions:
- Hand accounts that reached Considering or Selecting to sales with context.
- Decide for cooled-off accounts: re-engage with a new message, or pause.
- Add new engaged companies from your site to an audience.
7. AI visibility: are we named in AI answers? (3 minutes)
Question: For the buyer questions we track, did AI engines name us more often?
Look at: mention rate per engine, share of voice vs. competitors, questions where competitors are named instead of you.
Typical actions:
- Pick the top gap: run a ChatGPT ad on it and fix one page on your site.
- Re-audit pages fixed last month to see if they helped.
8. Pipeline: what did it produce? (3 minutes)
Question: How much pipeline came from or was influenced by target accounts?
Look at: deals at engaged target accounts, influenced pipeline, closed-won.
Typical actions:
- Compare with the previous month and the cost of the program.
- Note which accounts and messages sit behind new deals.
When to escalate beyond the monthly review
Some findings can't wait a month. Act the same week when:
- a single account takes a large share of spend with no response;
- an ad's CTR collapses after a change in targeting;
- a key account suddenly visits pricing or demo pages several times;
- a competitor starts appearing in AI answers for your core questions.
A weekly summary e-mail catches most of these early, so the monthly review can stay focused on decisions.
The three decisions
End the review with exactly three decisions, written down with an owner:
- One budget decision (cap, exclude, shift between campaigns or channels).
- One creative decision (refresh, new angle, new role ad).
- One account decision (add, remove, hand to sales, re-engage).
More than three and nothing gets done; fewer and the review was a status meeting.
A template you can copy
Use the same one-page template every month:
| Section | This month | Last month | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Target accounts reached | |||
| Cost per reached account | |||
| Top 5 accounts by impressions | capped? | ||
| Budget hogs (spend, 0 clicks) | excluded? | ||
| Share of impressions at Director+ | |||
| Best creative / fatigued creatives | |||
| Accounts that moved stage | handed to sales? | ||
| Cooled-off accounts | |||
| AI mention rate (tracked questions) | |||
| Pipeline influenced | |||
| Decisions (3) | owner |
Fill the numbers before the meeting; spend the 30 minutes on the notes and the decisions.
Common mistakes in ABM reviews
- Reviewing campaigns instead of accounts. Campaign averages hide which companies you actually reached.
- Changing everything at once. If you change budget, creative and list in the same week, you won't know what worked.
- Ignoring roles. A good CTR from the wrong people is not ABM.
- No sales input. Sales knows which "engaged" accounts are real opportunities and which are noise.
- No written decisions. If the review doesn't end with owners, next month will look the same.
Make it faster next month
- Keep the same date logic and the same order every month.
- Automate the anomaly checks (budget hogs, fatigue, missing protections) so they arrive before the review.
- Use a weekly summary e-mail to handle small issues as they happen, and keep the monthly review for decisions.
In IntentBid, these views live in ABM reports (coverage, Top accounts, roles, stages), the Creatives report, Spend Guard and the AI visibility dashboards, and the weekly Monday readout covers the anomalies.
FAQ
Who should attend the monthly ABM review?
The person running the campaigns and at least one person from sales. A sales leader is ideal once a quarter.
Which metric matters most?
Target accounts reached and cost per reached account, followed by accounts that moved stage. Pipeline is the end result but lags.
How long should an ABM program run before judging it?
At least one full quarter for pipeline. Coverage, delivery and engagement can be judged monthly.
What if we see no movement at all?
Check coverage and roles first. If the right people at the right accounts are not being reached, nothing else matters.
Should the review change the target list?
Yes, carefully. Remove accounts that are clearly out of fit and add engaged companies that match your ICP, but keep most of the list stable so trends stay readable.
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