When it comes to digital advertising, you’ve earned your stripes — and you’re proud of it.
For years, you’ve cozied up to keywords, memorized banner ad dimensions, discovered the difference between good creative and bad creative, and spent a king’s ransom on ad space throughout the web and social media.
There’s just one tiny problem. Your recent ad buys aren’t hitting the mark like they used to. Or, upon reflection, maybe they never really hit the mark at all. B2B buying is changing faster than ever, and it’s practically impossible to reach the right buyers using traditional methods.
It’s time to gain ultimate efficiency and more control over the ad-buying process. Armed with an account-based advertising approach and the right tools, your revenue team can jumpstart its outreach and generate the kind of engagement that can supercharge conversions.
Let’s take a closer look.
What Has Changed About Digital Advertising?
Two technology platforms have recently revolutionized how B2B ad buyers reach their audiences:
- Demand Side Platforms (DSPs)
- Account Based Management Platforms
Demand Supply Platforms
DSPs are automation technologies that empower advertisers to bid on and purchase available media space online. Nearly 90% of all digital display ads are sold today via programmatic (i.e., automated) channels, and DSPs give buyers the power of control.
For instance, if you want to…
- Only run ads on certain electronic devices…
- Or appear exclusively in specific dayparts…
- Or pay less than $20 CPM…
…a DSP applies your preferences to the vast inventory of “your brand here” advertising opportunities across the web. You gain the ability to only buy the ads that are perfect for your business.
Account Based Management Platforms
These platforms aligns revenue teams by moving them away from strategies that canvass generalized audiences and toward pinpointing high-quality, target business accounts with more personalized outreach.
This approach provides deep intel on specific, relevant buyers so you don’t needlessly invest ad spend on mass audiences that, franky, contain a lot of excess and irrelevance.
When your advertising is more dialed into actual buyers through ABM, you can:
- Generate more impact and value from your spend
- Gain a clearer read on your addressable market
- Discover gaps in your content strategy
- Methodically improve your creative
- Add value to many other customer touch points (sales meetings, trade shows, etc.)
Using a sophisticated account engagement platform can revolutionize how you perceive and market and sell to your customers’ buying stages. When you connect keywords and creative assets to specific purchase process steps (Awareness, Consideration, Decision, etc.), you don’t just connect with the right prospects — you do it at the right time to significantly reduce advertising waste.
What to Look For
If you’re looking to gain B2B market-share by leveraging DSP ad buying within an ABM framework, here’s our advice:
1. Procure a Solution Made for B2B
Business brands need business advertising solutions — specifically ones that influence the diverse group of professionals contributing to an account’s buying decision.
Not all platforms have the B2B data you need. Others aren’t wired to reach businesses the way they collectively think or operate. Caveat emptor.
2. Build It Self-Serve
You’ll want the ability to control and automate your ad buying preferences, too.
For instance, can you set maximum bid rates on your own to reach an audience across channels and platforms at a set price ceiling? Can you stop advertising at a moment’s notice if your website temporarily goes down?
Make your wish list before engaging vendors. Determine how robust and easy their options are to run without the need for lots of back and forth, or relying on your vendor to make simple changes for you.
3. Ensure You Have Comprehensive Options
Don’t overlook the importance of making sure the systems you put in place allow you to present ads where you want them and in the formats you prefer.
That means being able to place:
- Web display and banner ad campaigns
- Social media ads
- Video ads
- Native ads and sponsored content
- And more
The list of options can go on and on — but only if your platforms support them.
Conclusion
In this day and age, it’s not only possible but crucially important to deploy ads in a manner that gives you lots of control with little hassle.
Technology is the all-important factor here, so enlist next-gen software platforms that give you confidence and satisfaction that your audiences are moving through the funnel and onto the big purchase.
