Be An Educated Consumer.
Recently I attended an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) conference and had the opportunity to speak with three attendees during different breaks who told me that they were already using a display advertising platform. “Great.” I said. “What made you choose that specific platform?”
Response #1: “A board member recommended it to us.”
Response #2: “I saw their advertising everywhere so I figured they were popular.”
Response #3: “They put on their own user conference so we thought they were big with robust features.”
“So, how did that choice work out for you?”
In all three cases, the person I was talking to put his or her head down and said something to the effect, “It is a bit frustrating. We had expected different results.”
How can you have any expectations when you didn’t bother to do due diligence on your display advertising platform? Two of these folks were VPs of Marketing. The third was responsible for all ABM marketing programs for his company.
Caveat emptor, my friend. Let the buyer beware. You wouldn’t want your kids to go to school and use the “my dog ate my homework” excuse would you–so why would you basically use that excuse at work?
“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” Warren Buffet
Not All Display Advertising Platforms are the Same. Compare.
Before you run your next display advertising campaign or pilot for ABM or demand generation, do your homework by getting answers to these six questions:
1. “Are we running a global campaign or one that just focuses on North America?” This is an important question to ask. Most display advertising platforms can provide some level of support for North America but few provide coverage beyond western Europe. What if you wanted to APAC, LATAM, or deeper into EMEA? Even if you are only running a North American campaign at this time, will you be running a global campaign or pilot months from now. Some display advertising platforms make you lock into an annual contract and you may not want to do that if they cannot provide global reach.
2. “What are my targeting options?” Whether you are running a global or North American campaign, you will want to know how specific you can go with your targeting. Many display advertising platforms only allow you to target job functions such as marketing, IT, or finance. Will that meet your needs?
If not, there are a few advanced platforms on the market that enable you to go beyond job function to target by job level, job title, or even your competitors’ or partners’ customers. Perhaps you have run campaigns based on job function and were not happy with the results. Maybe this time you want to go deeper and reach specific job levels at specific accounts, so you have less wasted ads, and reach more accounts for the same budget. Does it also make sense to you that better targeting may lead to better engagement?
3. “Does the platform serve up cookie-based targeting, IP-based targeting, or both?” Many marketers do not know the difference and have never given this question any consideration. Why does it matter? It matters so that you know what your targeting and reach capabilities are. Cookie-based targeting enables you to have greater precision when it comes to data. Deeper targeting on job titles, job levels, and so forth is only available with cookie-based targeting. Your media can be more targeted and therefore be more effective and efficient.
However, when you want global reach or further reach in North America, you should consider IP-based targeting. While not as precise as cookie-based targeting, only IP-based targeting enables you to reach accounts outside of North America for worldwide coverage. IP-based targeting focuses on an Internet Protocol (IP) address. This is the numerical label assigned to every device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol to communicate.
Your target accounts have specific sets of IP addresses (IP ranges) that identify computers that they are using to connect to the Internet. Some display advertising platforms can identify the IP ranges for accounts on your target account lists. This means that they can serve ads directly to contacts at target accounts without serving ads to accounts you don’t care about. You may want to use both cookie- and IP-based targeting if the number of available cookies is not sufficiently large.
Most display advertising platforms specialize in either cookie-based or IP-based targeting. There are a few platforms that provide both approaches. Be sure you become familiar with all approaches and know which platforms provide which targeting.
4. “How big is the reachable universe I can access with this display advertising platform? This is an interesting question that many marketers fail to ask when evaluating display advertising platforms. The range may surprise you. Many platforms offer somewhere between 200 million and 300 million reachable contacts. There are other platforms that offer over one billion reachable B2B contacts. That is a noticeable difference that can significantly affect your level of targeting and coverage. In any case, you should know the size of your reachable universe depending on the platform.
5. “How much real-time flexibility do I have with this platform?” Real–time flexibility can take on different meanings when it comes to display advertising platforms. Two ways you should look at it is for ad creative and for reporting. Some platforms will only let you set your ad creative for the beginning of the campaign. Then you have to use that same creative throughout the duration of the campaign. There are a few platforms that will allow you to change your ad creative at any time…in real-time. With this approach, you can change your ad creative to test different messaging or to optimize your campaign. This real-time flexibility may also extend into changing your ad creative depending upon buying stage. Make sure you ask your vendor about real-time flexibility so your expectations are set properly.
That goes for reporting as well. As with other features we have discussed, platforms differ. Some platforms provide real-time reporting while others only offer batch reporting. Depending on your decision-making processes, you may be fine with batch reporting…or you may want to make sure you have real-time reporting.
6. “What is the true cost of running a pilot on this platform?” You’ve bought into display advertising and you have narrowed down your platform choices down to two. The big question is “what is the true cost of running a pilot?” Keep in mind that the overall cost may run beyond just the price associated with the pilot. Some platforms require you to sign up for an annual contract–even though you just want to run a three-month pilot. But, beyond that, you are paying a price by the amount of reach you have or don’t have, the amount of targeting options you have or don’t have, the type of targeting you have or don’t have, and the amount of real-time flexibility you have or don’t have. You pay a price for not having some of those considerations–sometimes a price you really can’t afford.
Be Accountable.
Account-based advertising, while effective and a strong on-ramp to ABM, is an investment. Be sure to treat it as if you were spending your own money. Would you go out and spend $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, or more on a new car just because your uncle mentioned a model or because a certain brand spent a lot of money on advertising? Hopefully you would go a little further and research performance, safety, and maintenance features before you made your purchase.
When it comes to display advertising platform evaluation, it pays to do your homework. Learning the differences among platforms will ensure you pass the test of a pilot or campaign later on. Remember to A.S.K. Always Seek Knowledge.
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Ben Franklin
About Kelly Waffle: As Vice President of Marketing at Kwanzoo, Kelly brings more than 20 years of demand generation, marketing automation, and account-based marketing (ABM) experience. He has been a trusted advisor as a practitioner, consultant, and vendor and has won Marketo’s Revvie Award as well as Eloqua’s Markie Award. He was named to Onalytica’s 2017 Top 50 Martech Influencer List.