The Essential Guide to Account Based Advertising

ABMABM

S u m m a r y

Account based advertising campaigns transform traditional display advertising for B2B marketers.

Account based advertising improves marketing metrics by targeting specific messaging and offers to target accounts.

Metrics improve like:

• Impressions, traffic, and engagement for stakeholders in target accounts

• Sales pipeline velocity

• Conversion metrics such as lead generation and new sales opportunities

DLT, a Markie Finalist for their ABM campaign, used account based advertising to increase sales quote requests by 40% when they advertised to specific contacts and buying centers in target accounts.

When marketers reach their stakeholders in target accounts with specific messaging and ad campaigns, it’s a piece of cake to achieve marketing objectives.

Stakeholders

Buying Centers

Accounts

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n gP re c i s e B 2 B Ta rg et i n g

Ta b l e of C o n te n t s

ABM Markie Finalist Campaign Example

Conclusion

Account Based Advertising Introduction » Audience » Metrics » Cake Studies

Account Based Advertising Platform Essentials » B2B Audience Criteria » Campaign Functionality » Ad Networks » Metrics » Technology Integration

Appendix » Account Based Advertising Vendor Checklist

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4

Tra d i t i o n a l D i s p l ay Ad ve r t i s i n g Re p o r t C a rd

“Repetition enhances attitude and recall.*”

Many B2B marketers have and will continue to depend on display advertising to increase impressions.

It’s cost effective, even though ad dollars are spent on both target and non-target accounts. The alternative, mass advertising, like TV, print, radio, and billboards, is even less targeted and results in more wasted spend.

However, most demand generation marketers limit their use of display advertising to increase lead conversions. Click-through rates average around 0.1%, making direct attribution from an ad campaign to a landing page conversion expensive relative to other channels.

Demand generation marketers prefer to invest in search and email channels rather than traditional display advertising to achieve their direct click-through attribution leads goal.

But what if display advertising was only served to target accounts and target account segments to decrease waste? What if you could measure conversions of the ad traffic on the website in addition to the direct click-through from a landing page?

You can with account based advertising.

Traditional Display AdvertisingReport Card

Impressions

Traffic

Conversions

AB

C

*Source: Journal of Advertising

Traditional Advertising:Targets for B2B and B2C

Account Based Advertising:Targeted only for B2B

“ABA is 3x more efficient than traditional advertising.”

Brendon O’Donovan, VP Marketing, Aquicore

The most important part of account based advertising campaigns is the audience. B2B marketers use account based advertising vendors like Triblio to choose an audience using their actual B2B target accounts and account segments.

Stakeholders

Buying Centers

Accounts

Consumers Home Office

Non-TargetAccounts Students

6

W h a t i s Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n g ?

Account based advertising is exclusively designed for B2B marketers in 3 essential ways.

BenefitsIncludes:

Impressions

LeadsPipelineRevenuet

Metrics Target Audiences

Accounts

Buying Center

Stakeholders

Account Based

Advertising

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n gE s s e nt i a l I n g re d i e nt s

Audiences only use B2B criteria such as account, buying center, or stakeholder.

Metrics track performance by account at all stages of the customer journey from impressions and engagement to leads and revenue.

Audience definitions and metrics are directly synced with CRM, marketing automation, and web personalization.

1. Reduce waste because media is spent only on target accounts

2. Understand how advertising influences every stage of the marketing and sales funnel

3. Increase conversions by driving ad traffic to the website that will convert with personalization

7

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Au d i e n c e s

B2B ad audiences are defined in 3 major ways:

Vendor selection tip: The best software aggregates multiple sources of 1st party data, 3rd party data, and web visitor behavior data. Each source contains bits of account information that, when aggregated together, provide a rich account profile of known and unknown visitors in target accounts.

Account

• Employee Size• Revenue Industry• Geography• Named Account List• Sales Territory

Target any person in target accounts by:

Buying Center

• Funnel Stage• Readiness Score• Opportunity Stage• Deal Type• Department

Target any person in key departments by:

Stakeholders

• Email Contact• Buying Center• Title• Persona• Unknown Visitor Behavior• Content Interest• Campaign Response

Target only specific stakeholders by:

8

ABM

E s s e n t i a l Ac c o u n t B a s e d Me t r i c s

Essential account based metrics for advertising are measured at each stage of the demand generation funnel.

The following pages detail specific use cases of account based advertising during these stages, and how best to leverage account based advertising to get your products to sell like hotcakes and achieve your marketing objectives.

9

I n c re a s e S t a ke h o l d e r I m p re s s i o n s

B2B marketers use account based advertising to assist sales outreach and influence demand and pipeline velocity. Account based advertising warms prospects when business development reps reach out to schedule an initial meeting. It also increases the awareness of all stakeholders during the proposal stage.

Aquicore, an energy management software solution, wanted to scale 1:1 account targeting. To remain top of mind within existing sales opportunities, Aquicore targeted only the stakeholders in those opportunities with account based advertising. They got 3x more impressions with the same budget vs. traditional advertising.

ABM

C a s e St u d y :

Account Ads Improve ROI by 3x

10

Tra f f i c a n d E n g a g e m e n t

Account based advertising has proved to increase traffic and engagement in target accounts. CSC, a SiriusDecisions ABM ROI award winner, increased their website engagement in target accounts by 33% using account based advertising.

Another company, WealthEngine, a Gartner Cool Data Vendor, saw similar results.

WealthEngine offers data services to two segments: nonprofit and commercial companies. They wanted to increase their traffic and engagement in the commercial segment. Using account based advertising, unique visitor traffic in target accounts increased by 36%, and total page views increased by 26%.

ABM

C a s e St u d y :

33-36% Increase in Target Account

Traffic

11

I n c re a s e C o nve r s i o n s a n d S a l e s Me e t i n g s

Account based advertising increases web traffic from target audiences, and when paired with web personalization, will drive conversion results, delivering more leads and more sales meetings. How?

ABM software platforms like Triblio create one campaign with the same audience to merge account based advertising and web personalization. When account based advertising traffic visits a website or landing page, web personalization will dynamically serve content or a relevant offer to the target audiences’ interests. Because they immediately see what they are looking for, conversions and sales meeting requests increase. Instead of bouncing, they convert.

We b s i te m i r ro r s a d c re at i ve b e c a u s e of d y n a m i c p e r s o n a l i z a t i o n

Ad s i n c re a s e we b t r a f f i c

40% Increase in Sales

Requests

12

3x

Branding and Awareness

40%

SalesRequests

33%

Traffic and Engagement

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n g Re s u l t s

13

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n g + We b Pe r s o n a l i z a t i o n = C o nve r s i o n s

Account based advertising increases conversions. Account based advertising concentrates ad spend on target accounts. More spend leads to more impressions which drives traffic to the website.

When the ad traffic visits the website, conversions increase if the website is personalized and relevant to the target account.

They must see on the web a similar message and CTA as they saw on the ad.

Personalized Home PageAccount Based Advertising Conversion

Default Home Page

No conversion

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n gVe n d o r E s s e nt i a l s

Can your ABM platform execute your ad campaigns

like a piece of cake?

ABM

15

Ta rg e t Au d i e n c e s fo r B 2 B

B2B Audience Creation Criteria

Audience creation is the critical difference between account based advertising and traditional advertising. Account based advertising software must allow audience selection by account, buying center, or contact.

Audience SourcesAccount based marketing platforms depend on aggregating multiple data sources to populate an ad audience according to B2B criteria.

Account based marketing platforms must incorporate 1st party data from CRM and marketing automation platforms with 3rd party sources that match visitors’ account profiles. They should be able to define and reclassify visitors to an audience based on visitor behavior such as web and landing page traffic and response to marketing campaigns.

Account Matching

No matter what vendors tell you about their audience criteria data sources, or methodology, insist on receiving actual data. Provide any vendor your target account set or stakeholders, and ask them how many accounts they can match as part of their account based advertising audience.

Ve n d o r C h e c k l i s t *

Account Matching Prior to Purchase

Audience CriteriaAccounts

Buying Centers

Stakeholders

Employee Size, Revenue Industry, Geography, Named Account List, Sales Territory

Funnel Stage, Readiness Score, Opportunity Score, Deal Type, Department

Email Contact, Buying Center, Title, Persona, Unknown Visitor Behavior, Content Interest, Campaign Response

Audience Sources1st Party Data

3rd Party Data

Email, Marketing Automation ListsCRM FieldsCampaign ID, Visitor Behavior

IntentReverse IP AddressAccount FirmographicsDevice

*For a complete checklist, refer to appendix.

16

C a m p a i g n Fu n c t i o n a l i t y

Campaign Setup

Account based advertising has similar campaign set up options as traditional display advertising.

Ad Exchange and Network Access

Account based advertising should have the same ad networks and ad exchanges as traditional display advertising. Account based advertising software may also access B2B special media publications that are relevant for your target accounts.

Ad Buy Minimums

Choose a vendor with the lowest ad buy minimums. B2B campaigns can have small audiences. For some campaigns, you may want to increase awareness and engagement in existing accounts or pipeline which may have a total ad audience size of a thousand or less.

Ve n d o r C h e c k l i s t *

Easy Media Buying Tool

List of Ad Networks

Mobile, Video, Social, Display Capable

Minimum Ad $ Buy

Ad Network Integration

17

Metrics and Reporting

Standard display ad metrics to evaluate campaigns are the baseline. Account based advertising vendors should provide more.

Can you see closed loop reporting so you can tie ad impressions to web conversion metrics?

Can you get view through and click through conversion metrics by account?

What about influence and engagement by funnel stage, opportunity stage, pipeline, and revenue?

Account based metrics depend on the quality of data provided by your account based advertising software vendor. Ask vendors you are evaluating for metrics reports related to your target accounts.

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Me t r i c s a n d Re p o r t i n g

Ve n d o r C h e c k l i s t *

Account Based Reporting

Service Capabilities

Impressions

View-Through Conversions

Click-Through Conversions

Opportunity Creation

Engagement

Traffic

Revenue

Page Visits

18

Web Personalization

When account based advertising drives traffic to the website, it is essential to personalize the web experience relevant to the ad and account. Engagement, conversion, and influence metrics all improve when the target audience sees the same messaging and calls to action in ad campaigns as when they visit the web and landing pages. Without account based web personalization, you’ll only be able to measure impressions and traffic.

Martech Integration

Your account based advertising platform needs to integrate seamlessly with the rest of your martech stack.

At the very least, a viable account based advertising solution should include integrations with your marketing automation and Salesforce to sync audiences and provide integrated account reporting, Google Analytics for account reporting, and Google Adwords for audience creation.

I n te g ra t i o n s a n d We bPe r s o n a l i z a t i o n

Web Personalization

Technical Integrations

Marketing Automation Data Syncs and Reporting

Salesforce Data Syncs and Reporting

Google Analytics Account Reporting

Google AdWords Audience Creation

Case Study: Account Based Advertising

is a cakewalk for DLT...

DLT, a $900M IT solutions provider, leverages strategic partnerships with top IT companies to develop customized solutions for clients in the public sector. DLT’s sales, integration, and support experts possess deep subject matter expertise and in-depth knowledge of government mandated requirements and initiatives in areas such as a cloud computing, cybersecurity, and compliance.

DLT wanted to personalize marketing campaigns to their target accounts in a similar way as their sales and consultant teams do. Email was one channel used for personalization, but increasingly, DLT’s customers in federal, state, or local governments ignored email.

How do I nurture stakeholders if I don’t have their

email?

DLT 2016 Markie Finalist

N u r t u r i n g B eyo n d E m a i l

DLT advertises only to target accounts. When the ads increase web traffic, their website dynamically personalizes by target account increasing quote requests.

DLT has a 25 year history developing IT solutions for the public sector. With that experience they knew a number of the buying centers in their target organizations, but they didn’t have email information for many of the stakeholders in these buying centers.

To reach stakeholders in target accounts, DLT uses account based advertising. Using an ABM platform like Triblio, they created advertising audiences by contact and account to nurture and engage known and unknown stakeholders.

A B M Ad s a n d We b Pe r s o n a l i z a t i o n

When visiting DLT’s website, stakeholders from target buying centers experienced personalization by topic interest and organization type.

For example, on the home page, HERO banner images dynamically change according to a visitor’s organization. Visitors from education institutions see the image of a classroom while the DoD saw an image of fighter jets.

The CTAs are also different. Prospects are invited to learn more and request a quote, while customers could visit a support page or submit a quote request to their rep.

We b Pe r s o n a l i z a t i o n by Ac c o u n t

Personalized HERO Banners

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n g

“Our ABM success propelled us to a Markie finalist.”

Kristin Oelke, VP MarketingDLT

40% Quote Requestsin Q3 2017, fiscal year end for government

23

ABMWithin a few years, every B2B marketer will switch to account based advertising from traditional display advertising. Every marketer will:

With the right account based advertising software, you can have your cake and eat it too.

1. Want to buy ads only for target accounts.

2. Measure metrics across the entire funnel from impressions to engagement to conversions to opportunities to revenue.

3. Integrate with web personalization, marketing automation, and CRM to maximize campaign effectiveness.

Includes:Impressions

LeadsPipelineRevenuet

Metrics Target Audiences

Accounts

Buying Center

Stakeholders

Account Based

Advertising

C o n c l u s i o nAc c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n g i s a C a kewa l k

ABM

Appendix

Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n gE s s e n t i a l s C h e c k l i s t

Account Matching Prior to Purchase

Campaign Functionality and Ad Networks

Easy Media Buying Tool

List of Ad Networks

Mobile, Video, Social, Display Capable

Service Capabilities

Account Based Reporting

Impressions

View-Through Conversions

Click-Through Conversions

Opportunity Creation

Engagement

Traffic

Revenue

Audience Criteria and Sources

AccountsEmployee Size, Revenue Industry, Geography, Named Account List, Sales Territory

1st Party DataEmail Lists, CRM Fields, Marketing Automation Lists, Campaign Responses. Visitor Behavior, Named Accounts

Buying CenterFunnel Stage, Readiness Score, Opportunity Stage, Deal Type, Employment

3rd Party DataIntent, Reverse IP Address, Account Firmographics, Device

StakeholdersEmail Contact, Buying Center, Title, Persona, Unknown Visitor Behavior, Content Interest. Campaign Response

Account Based Web Personalization

Martech Integrations

Marketing Automation Data Syncs and Reporting

Salesforce Data Syncs and Reporting

Google Analytics Account Reporting

Google AdWords Audience Creation