Personalization used to mean effort. Now, it means intelligence.
But somewhere along the way, ABM personalization turned into a checkbox, with marketers labeling “Hi [First Name]” personalization and calling it a day.
That’s not personalization. It’s Mad Libs marketing. And even though the intent may be right, the execution is painfully generic.
Buyers don’t care that you know their name. They care about connection; that you understand their reality.
True personalization is relevance with context. It means delivering content at the right time, in a tone that reflects a buyer’s specific moment, not just their segment.
When it comes to scaling personalization in ABM, what matters most isn’t sending more messages, but sending smarter ones. And the only way to deliver that is to let AI do the heavy lifting.
In CXL’s recent webinar, Eric Siu (founder and CEO of Single Grain) breaks down how to scale personalization, without losing the human insight that makes it resonate.
Table of contents
- Why most ABM “personalization” fails
- The personalization paradox
- What works in LinkedIn account based marketing
- The compounding effect of creativity
- Playing the long game in ABM
- Avoid fragile systems. Keep workflows simple.
- Extend personalization beyond ads
- Actionable takeaways: What to do next
- Stop confusing automation with personalization
Why most ABM “personalization” fails
The market is flooded with fake personalization. People automate everything, mass-blast “custom” emails, and call it innovation. By now, we’ve all encountered lazy, surface-level messaging—first name, job title, maybe the city you live in.
It’s the equivalent of saying, “Hi [First Name, I see you breathe oxygen too.” It fools no one, and has zero effect on conversion, resulting in a content landfill that no one reads or trusts.
Personalization without insight is worse than none at all.
The goal isn’t to flex your workflow tools or build fancy automations. It’s to solve a relevant business problem faster than your competitors.
The personalization paradox
Most B2B companies and brands are pushing for more personalization. Yet the more teams scale with automation, the less authentic personalized B2B marketing feels.
Inboxes and feeds are full of AI-spun messages and mediocre outreach.
The fix isn’t more personalization, it’s better personalization.
Eric Siu dropped a stat that should make every marketer rethink their funnel: 99% of your market isn’t ready to buy right now.
That’s the real challenge of ABM in 2025—how to stay relevant to people who aren’t ready to sign today but might be tomorrow.
The key is to stay top-of-mind with relevance, not repetition. Personalize for business problems, rather than bios.
Because, if your personalization helps a buyer solve a real issue, you win mindshare, even when they’re out of market.
What works in LinkedIn account based marketing
LinkedIn remains the #1 B2B advertising platform. But most brands use it poorly. They run templated ads that look like everyone else’s, and that’s where most personalization strategies stop short.
Siu’s team at Single Grain went further. They built what he calls a “compounding personalization engine.”
(Image Source: Karrot.ai)
Using AI-assisted workflows to dynamically tailor ad creative and landing pages at scale, they tested LinkedIn ABM personalization campaigns with one simple twist: each ad dynamically included the target company’s logo and name. Nothing fancy. Just contextually relevant.
That minor change lifted CTRs 2–3x and cut cost per lead from around $2–3K to $500–$1K. And when brands paired those ads with matching personalized landing pages, conversion rates rose another 15–30%.
Here’s why it works:
- Familiarity effect: Seeing your own logo in a feed immediately triggers curiosity.
- Shareability: Employees share the ad internally—it travels through the target account organically.
- Continuity: Matching the ad with a personalized landing page increases trust and conversion.
If the landing page doesn’t, it feels like bait-and-switch, and buyers bounce instantly.
From one-off tactics to a compounding system
Most marketers stop at surface-level “tactical” personalization or what Siu calls the first sentence of the email era.
The new play is systemic personalization: using CRM signals, AI, and dynamic creative to stay contextually relevant through the full account lifecycle, from first impression to reactivation.
Tactical vs. systemic personalization
| Approach | Tactical personalization | Systemic personalization |
| Definition | Cosmetic tweaks — swapping [first_name] or [company] in ad copy | Integrated personalization across ads, landing pages, and CRM triggers |
| Goal | Get a click | Build account-level familiarity and intent over time |
| Example | “Hey [first_name], saw you work at [company]!” | Ad dynamically displays [company] logo → clicks to a landing page personalized to [company]’s pain points |
| Effort | Manual, one-off | Automated via AI workflows and CRM data |
| Output | One campaign | A compounding engine that learns from pipeline signals (e.g., deal lost → trigger new personalized ads) |
| Typical Results | Flat CTR, high CPL | 2–3x CTR lift, 50–70% lower CPL, 15–30% higher conversion rates |
By reframing personalization as a living system rather than a one-off campaign gimmick, you build momentum that compounds with every campaign—continuously learning from CRM data, lost deals, and engagement signals to drive sharper relevance over time.
If you’re serious about LinkedIn account based marketing, personalization isn’t optional. It’s your only competitive advantage.
The compounding effect of creativity
Great marketing doesn’t come from copying what works. It comes from questioning why it worked, and doing it better. Although templates make it easy to start, they also make it easy to blend in. The best marketers know when to break the format and build their own.
Siu suggests setting aside 30 minutes every week to brainstorm 5–10 new campaign angles. No automation, no AI prompts, just raw creativity. That half-hour separates campaigns that stand out from those that don’t.
Shallow creative gets filtered. Whereas creative depth with real insight is remembered and compounds. The more thoughtful your personalization, the more it stands out in an algorithmic feed.
Put thinking time on your calendar and test relentlessly.
Playing the long game in ABM
“If you want to build something longterm, it takes three years to see traction and thirty years to build something generational.”
— Eric Siu
Everyone wants results yesterday. But, since you’re marketing to people who don’t need you (yet), your job isn’t to close them. It’s to educate, build trust, and stay visible until timing flips in your favor. Personalization is how you do that.
A well-executed ABM program builds authority even when conversion rates look flat. Because when the buyer finally moves to “in-market,” you’re already on their shortlist.
That’s how CXL itself grew—by teaching relentlessly and staying top-of-mind.
Avoid fragile systems. Keep workflows simple.
“Nobody wants to do the repetitive work. Let AI do it. That opens up your job to do something more meaningful.”
— Stefan Maritz
The problem is most teams over-engineer their stack until nobody can run it without a 40-step SOP.
Siu calls these “fragile systems”—ABM setups so complex they collapse the moment someone changes a variable.
The fix is simple but a must:
- Document workflows: Use Loom or Scribe to capture every repeatable process;
- Simplify automations: Remove unnecessary steps;
- Keep a human in the loop: Automation is your engine. Humans are your brakes.
If your personalization stack can’t survive one team change or API update, it’s not scalable. It’s a house of cards.
Extend personalization beyond ads
ABM personalization isn’t just an ad strategy, it’s a company strategy.
A personalized ad followed by a generic SDR email kills trust faster than bad creative.
Your ads, emails, and sales plays should tell one coherent story, with personalization insights echoing through every touchpoint:
- Ads: Use company context (logo, name, business challenge);
- Landing pages: Mirror the ad’s message, not just the company name;
- Sales outreach: Reference the same pain point;
- Follow-up: Reinforce continuity and relevance.
(Image Source: Karrot.ai)
When your ABM motion feels unified, your audience feels seen. And when they feel seen, they act.
Actionable takeaways: What to do next
- Audit for lazy personalization: Go through your campaigns and kill anything that uses name/title-only tokens.
- Create one problem-focused personalized landing page: Pick your top account and build a page around their core pain. Match the ad headline to the page headline.
- Add company-level personalization to LinkedIn ads: Logo + name + relevant offer = baseline ABM differentiation.
- Document your system: Use Loom or Notion to map workflows. (Remember: Complexity kills scale so keep it simple).
- Commit to the long game: Three years to traction. Thirty to legacy. That’s how you build authority that lasts.
Stop confusing automation with personalization
AI can scale personalization, but it can’t fix bad strategy.
If your ABM playbook consists of automated outreach and lookalike targeting, you’re not targeting buyers, you’re spamming the algorithm.
The future of ABM personalization won’t belong to B2B brands that personalize the most but those that mean it.
Because real personalization isn’t about volume, it’s about resonance and creating moments that actually connect.
For a deeper dive:
→ Watch “Scaling Personalization: The Tactics That Make LinkedIn ABM Work” on CXL’s event archive.
→ Check out CXL’s course on Account-Based Marketing to sharpen your skill and learn how to execute tried-and tested ABM strategies.
