4 Benefits of Account-Based Marketing for Programmatic

For B2B marketers, getting in front of the right decision makers is essential for campaign success. But taking a “spray-and-pray” approach to B2B advertising can waste a lot of resources and end up targeting audiences who are unlikely to convert.

That’s why B2B companies are increasingly using account-based marketing (ABM) strategies to overcome key challenges, speed up sales cycles, and target larger accounts that provide a hefty return on investment (ROI).

ABM is a personalized and precise targeting strategy that tailors ad creatives, messaging, and delivery to specific B2B audiences and accounts. 

A report by Momentum ITSMA found that 84% of marketers experienced pipeline growth, 77% reported revenue growth, and 72% cited a higher ROI than other types of marketing thanks to their ABM efforts.

Using a demand-side platform (DSP) can help you serve targeted ads at scale. But before we go in-depth on the benefits of programmatic ABM, let’s go over a few key terms.

What is Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

ABM is a B2B marketing strategy that concentrates marketing efforts toward a set of specific accounts within a market. Instead of casting a wide net, B2B marketers use an ABM strategy to target ideal customers with personalized campaigns tailored to their needs or interests. Some examples of ABM include personalized gifts, events, resources, email campaigns, or digital ads that are designed to resonate with specific accounts instead of a broad set of buyers. 

There’s value beyond just lead generation when you leverage an ABM strategy. ABM advertising can also target and upsell key accounts or nurture decision makers who appear further down the funnel.

What is Programmatic Account-Based Marketing

In the past, traditional ABM heavily relied on physical-world activities and direct touchpoints to stand out from the noise. B2B marketers would host unique events to get one-on-one time with stakeholders, mail gifts to prospective clients, or purchase billboards outside of tradeshows to get the attention of key decision makers. 

Although traditional ABM works, personalization at scale is still a top challenge for many marketers.

One way to overcome that is by leveraging the power of programmatic. With programmatic ABM, you can target high-value B2B audiences based on account lists, firmographic, and persona-level data, ensuring you reach high-value accounts that are the right fit for your business while wasting less ad spend chasing unqualified leads.

4 Benefits of Account-Based Marketing for Programmatic

Programmatic ABM is a precise, measurable, and scalable advertising strategy that can help you target the right accounts and get the strongest ROI. Here are four of its main advantages. 

1. Programmatic ABM is Precise

With programmatic ABM, marketers can leverage tools that target select account lists and employees based on firmographic and persona-level data. For example, a B2B marketer could leverage 1st-party data to target a customer based on information like their industry, company size, location, revenue, job title, and seniority level. By using firmographic and account data, B2B marketers can create highly-targeted campaigns that are more cost-effective and precise than traditional marketing efforts.

2. Marketers Can Use Programmatic ABM to Engage and Track Progress Across the Entire Buyer Journey

Advertisers can leverage programmatic ABM to see what actions users take at each stage of the funnel. Understanding how professionals and decision makers are engaging with campaigns and creatives provides valuable insights that make it easier to iterate on campaigns and prioritize what to do next, whether that’s having someone follow up from the sales team or using different messaging. B2B marketers can use these insights to further segment audiences and target ads more effectively.

3. Programmatic ABM Streamlines the Customer Acquisition Process 

Rather than creating a broad message for a large audience, B2B marketers can personalize messaging based on their target personas or where specific accounts are in the funnel. This allows B2B marketers to focus less on expanding reach and more on fostering meaningful connections with key stakeholders. 

While programmatic ABM supports personalized messaging, this doesn’t mean marketers should only nurture the primary decision maker that they’re targeting. For ad campaigns to scale, it’s important to build a full-funnel strategy that nurtures prospects through the entire buying process and gets in front of team members, beyond the C-suite, who could influence a buying decision.

4. Marketers Can Leverage Programmatic ABM for Multi-Channel Campaigns

The B2B buying journey isn’t linear. Using a multi-channel strategy as part of a full-funnel approach can help B2B marketers reach their target audience regardless of their location, spot in the customer journey, or the device they’re on. 

For example, a B2B marketer could use a DSP to serve native and display ads at the top of the funnel to build awareness, go more in-depth on a product or service at the middle of the funnel with video and CTV ads, and use retargeting at the bottom of the funnel to push customers towards a final conversion.

Why is this important? Closing a B2B sale can take one to five months (sometimes up to a year, if not longer). Using a full-funnel approach allows B2B marketers to nurture leads who aren’t ready to buy and continue connecting with them long after the first touch. 

Get Started With Programmatic ABM

Alongside the rise of programmatic advertising, ABM has become an increasingly powerful strategy for B2B marketers. With programmatic ABM, you can nurture audiences across all devices, programmatic advertising channels, and stages of the B2B buying journey. Using programmatic ABM to create highly-targeted and personalized advertising campaigns will help you win over the right accounts and waste fewer resources.