Account-based routing is the operational backbone that makes account-based marketing work. Without it, high-value leads get misrouted, sales teams duplicate outreach, and target accounts receive a disjointed buying experience. When you build lead routing on clean account-level data, you eliminate pipeline bottlenecks and deliver coordinated engagement across every stakeholder in the buying group.
Yet for too many businesses, account-based marketing doesn't come easy. A seamless ABM customer experience requires solving a number of data problems, including making your account-level data more accurate, comprehensive and complete.
How can you target the right people within the right accounts? With the right systems in place and data as the foundation, you can solve your pipeline bottlenecks and start executing true account-based selling.
What Is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-based marketing is a GTM strategy that concentrates sales and marketing resources on high-value accounts that match your ideal customer profile (ICP). Instead of broad lead generation, ABM treats individual accounts as markets of one. Success requires alignment across revenue-generating teams and a data foundation that enables timely, personalized outreach.
ABM is an operational model, not just a marketing tactic. Executing it properly requires systems and workflows that make account-based routing possible.
What Is Account-Based Lead Routing?
Account-based lead routing connects incoming leads to target accounts in your CRM, then assigns them to the correct account owner or team. This matters because in most CRMs like Salesforce, leads exist independently from accounts, which breaks account-based selling. Without lead-to-account matching, routing logic has no account context to work from.
Account-based lead routing solves this by connecting three critical components:
Lead-to-account matching: Links incoming leads to existing account records in your CRM so routing logic has the account context it needs to function.
Account ownership rules: Determines which rep or team owns the account based on territory, segment, or other criteria.
Dynamic team assignment: Routes leads to entire account teams rather than individual reps, enabling coordinated selling motions.
What Are the Risks of Not Enabling Account-Based Routing?
Misalignment Between Revenue-Generating Teams
Without lead-to-account matching, hot leads on key accounts slip through because reps aren't alerted to the account connection. Worse, leads already being worked get assigned to different reps. This creates disarray across sales, marketing, and customer success while leaving buyers confused and vulnerable to competitors.
Marketing and sales must be aligned on account ownership for ABM to deliver a coordinated buying experience.
A Slow and Disjointed Customer Experience
Internal friction between revenue operations teams damages the customer experience. Without optimized account-based routing, leads aren't scored correctly, get misrouted, or don't get routed at all.
The consequences of routing breakdowns at critical sales cycle moments include:
Brand erosion: Inconsistent outreach signals operational dysfunction
Pipeline inefficiency: Revenue generation efforts stall on fixable problems
Lost deals: Competitors win on speed and coordination
How to Enable Account-Based Routing
Account-based routing isn't a single switch you flip. It's a sequence of data and workflow decisions that build on each other.
The most effective operations teams approach it in three stages: matching leads to accounts, enriching records with the data that makes routing intelligent, and routing to account teams instead of individual reps.
Start with Lead-to-Account Matching
Lead-to-account matching is the foundational step before any routing rules can work. It links incoming leads to existing account records in the CRM. Without this connection, routing logic lacks the account context it needs to function.
What lead-to-account matching enables:
Correct ownership assignment: Routes leads to the rep or team who owns the account
Unified activity view: Surfaces all lead interactions on the account record
Duplicate prevention: Stops multiple reps from contacting the same account
Enrich Records with Firmographic and Intent Data
Routing decisions improve when records include enriched data beyond form fills. Firmographics like company size, industry, and location enable smarter prioritization. Intent signals tell you which accounts are actively researching solutions.
ZoomInfo's data backbone gives routing logic the inputs it needs to be account-based instead of form-fill-based. Different data types support different routing strategies:
Data Type | What It Reveals | Routing Application |
|---|---|---|
Firmographics | Company size, industry, geography | Align with territory and segment rules |
Technographics | Current tech stack and tool usage | Route to reps with vertical or tool expertise |
Intent signals | Active research and buying behavior | Prioritize high-intent accounts for faster response |
Route to Dynamic Account Teams, Not Just Individual Reps
Automated account hierarchies enable routing at scale. With account-to-account mapping, operations teams build parent-subsidiary relationships in the CRM automatically, then assign incoming leads based on criteria like geography or segment.
ZoomInfo's Dynamic Account Teams feature routes incoming records to entire account teams instead of individual reps. If your account team includes a channel manager, an account executive, and a solutions engineer, all three work the account in unison. This proved critical for Kaseya, a software company that was losing leads due to duplicate data and misroutes. According to Juliet Forte, Kaseya's Senior Marketing Operations Manager, leads were going cold because they weren't reaching the right reps fast enough. By implementing intelligent routing with clean data, Kaseya improved speed-to-lead and eliminated the friction that was costing them deals.
What Are the Results of Enabling Account-Based Lead Routing?
Account-based lead routing combines lead enrichment and lead-to-account matching to enable intelligent automation. You can create workflows that prioritize leads based on account data like company size and industry, routing only those that match your ICP criteria.
Complete Customer View Across Buying Groups
Lead-to-account matching combined with account-based routing gives reps a complete view of account activity. They see all lead interactions on the account record and can spot cross-sell and upsell opportunities across the customer base.
At the lead level, account data enables better segmentation, scoring, and prioritization based on buying journey stage. Everyone on the revenue team sees the full account context, including:
Buying group visibility: Track all stakeholders involved in the purchase decision
Multi-threaded engagement: Coordinate outreach across decision makers and influencers
Historical context: Surface past interactions and relationship history
Alignment of Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success
Lead-to-account matching and intelligent routing eliminate friction in handoffs between marketing, sales, and customer success. All team members see where accounts are in the buying journey. Conflicting assignments disappear.
Revenue teams work as one unit to deliver coordinated, consistent outreach across every stakeholder in the account.
Metrics That Matter for Account-Based Routing
You can't improve what you don't measure. RevOps leaders need to track specific metrics to understand whether their routing strategy is working or breaking down.
Key metrics to monitor:
Metric | What It Measures | What It Reveals |
|---|---|---|
Speed-to-lead | Time from form submission to rep contact | Delays here mean lost deals |
Reassignment rate | Percentage of leads re-routed after initial assignment | High rates signal routing logic problems |
SLA compliance | Percentage of leads contacted within defined response window | Measures whether reps follow up fast enough |
Duplicate rate | Percentage of incoming records matched to existing duplicates | High rates indicate data quality issues |
Account coverage | Number of contacts engaged per target account | Low coverage means you're not penetrating buying groups |
These metrics tell you where the system works and where it breaks. Track them weekly. Fix what breaks.
Account-Based Routing for a Seamless Customer Experience
Account-based routing transforms ABM execution by delivering:
Speed-to-lead improvement: Route to the right rep at the moment intent signals spike
Time savings: Eliminate manual account research and assignment decisions
Operational alignment: Remove conflicts between marketing, sales, and customer success
Buyer experience quality: Deliver coordinated, contextual engagement across stakeholders
Revenue impact: Convert more pipeline by engaging buying groups faster
With ZoomInfo, marketing and sales operations teams can improve their speed-to-lead, successfully run account-based marketing campaigns, and automate record assignment with an advanced routing platform.
With an integrated solution that offers the data hygiene and enrichment component critical for an aligned sales workflow, ZoomInfo enables an end-to-end ABM process that keeps you competitive and top of mind.
Talk to sales to see how account-based routing can transform your revenue operations.
Frequently Asked Questions About Account-Based Routing
What is account-based routing?
Account-based routing connects incoming leads to existing accounts in your CRM, then assigns them to the account owner or team. This enables coordinated selling across all stakeholders in target accounts.
Why is lead-to-account matching important?
Lead-to-account matching gives routing logic the account context it needs to function. Without it, leads remain orphaned and routing rules can't assign them to the correct account owner.
How does account-based routing differ from lead routing?
Traditional lead routing assigns based on form data like geography or company size. Account-based routing considers account ownership, relationship history, and buying group structure before assignment.
What data do you need for account-based routing?
You need firmographic data (company size, industry), technographic data (tech stack), and intent signals to prioritize accounts. Clean account hierarchies and ownership rules are also required.
How do you measure account-based routing success?
Track speed-to-lead, reassignment rate, SLA compliance, duplicate rate, and account coverage. These metrics reveal where your routing strategy works and where it breaks down.