B2B Account-Based Advertising

Step 1 — Gather context

1. What's your advertising goal?
   • A) Build awareness at target accounts (top-of-funnel ABM)
   • B) Accelerate pipeline — engage accounts already in-cycle
   • C) Retarget website visitors who didn't convert
   • D) Support outbound campaigns with air cover
   • E) Re-engage churned or dormant accounts
   • F) Promote content/events to a target account list
   • G) Not sure — need a B2B ad strategy
2. What channels are you considering?
   • A) Display / programmatic ads
   • B) LinkedIn Ads
   • C) Facebook / Meta (B2B targeting)
   • D) Connected TV (CTV)
   • E) Google Ads (search or display)
   • F) Multiple / all channels
   • G) Not sure — recommend channels
3. What ABM/advertising platform do you have?
   • A) ZoomInfo MarketingOS
   • B) Demandbase
   • C) 6sense
   • D) Terminus (DemandScience)
   • E) RollWorks
   • F) LinkedIn Campaign Manager only
   • G) Google Ads only
   • H) None — evaluating options
   • I) Other — describe it
4. How are you defining your target audience?
   • A) Named account list (specific companies)
   • B) Firmographic criteria (industry, size, revenue)
   • C) Intent signals (accounts researching relevant topics)
   • D) Website visitors (retargeting)
   • E) CRM segments (pipeline stage, lifecycle)
   • F) Combination of the above

Step 2 — Strategy and approach

B2B advertising vs B2C advertising

Campaign types

1. Awareness / air cover

• Goal: Make your brand familiar before outbound touches
• Timing: Start 2-4 weeks before SDR outreach
• Channels: Display, LinkedIn, CTV
• Targeting: Full target account list + ICP firmographics
• Creative: Brand awareness, thought leadership, industry insights
• Metric: Account-level impression reach (% of TAL seeing ads)

2. Pipeline acceleration

• Goal: Move known opportunities forward
• Timing: Ongoing, aligned with deal stage
• Channels: Display, LinkedIn, retargeting
• Targeting: Open opportunities + buying committee members
• Creative: Case studies, ROI proof, competitive differentiators
• Metric: Deal velocity, engagement rate from buying committee

3. Retargeting

• Goal: Re-engage website visitors who didn't convert
• Timing: Continuous
• Channels: Display, LinkedIn, Facebook
• Targeting: Website visitors (matched to accounts via IP or cookie)
• Creative: Bottom-of-funnel — demo CTAs, pricing, customer stories
• Metric: Return visit rate, conversion rate from retargeted visitors

4. Intent-based campaigns

• Goal: Reach accounts actively researching your category
• Timing: Triggered by intent signals
• Channels: Display, LinkedIn, search
• Targeting: Accounts showing intent on relevant topics
• Creative: Solution-specific, addresses the researched problem
• Metric: Intent-to-pipeline conversion rate

Audience building best practices

1. Start with account lists, not keywords — B2B ads work best when targeting specific companies, not broad interest categories
2. Layer intent on firmographics — don't target all mid-market SaaS companies; target those showing buying intent
3. Include the full buying committee — target multiple titles/roles at each account, not just one persona
4. Exclude existing customers (unless upsell/cross-sell campaign)
5. Refresh audiences regularly — accounts move in and out of ICP and intent signals change weekly

Budget framework

Attribution

• Influenced pipeline — accounts exposed to ads that later entered pipeline (regardless of click)
• Account engagement lift — % increase in website visits, content downloads, or demo requests from ad-exposed accounts vs control
• Time-to-pipeline — how much faster do ad-exposed accounts move from awareness to opportunity
• Multi-touch — ads rarely generate direct conversions; measure their contribution alongside outbound, content, and events

Step 3 — Platform-specific guidance

In ZoomInfo (MarketingOS)

• Build audiences from ZoomInfo's 300+ firmographic, technographic, and intent attributes
• Target accounts showing intent on your configured topics
• Use WebSights data to retarget companies that visited your website
• Sync audiences to display networks, LinkedIn, Facebook, and CTV

• Display ads across programmatic networks using ZoomInfo's account-level targeting
• Cross-channel: run coordinated campaigns across display, social, and CTV
• ABM: target specific account lists with tailored creative per segment

• Track which ad-exposed accounts later visited your site (WebSights)
• Measure account-level engagement lift vs unexposed control group
• Connect ad exposure to pipeline creation in CRM via ZoomInfo's attribution

In Demandbase

• Account identification via IP + cookie matching
• Display, LinkedIn, and connected TV campaigns
• Intent data (Demandbase's own + Bombora)
• Journey stages: track accounts through awareness → engagement → opportunity
• Predictive scoring: AI identifies accounts most likely to convert

In 6sense

1. Programmatic display ads: Serve display ads to target accounts across the web. Build audiences from 6sense segments that combine ICP fit + intent signals + buying stage.
2. LinkedIn audience sync: Dynamic 6sense segments automatically sync to LinkedIn Campaign Manager. 6sense claims 50%+ better match rates than competitors. Supports all LinkedIn ad types — Sponsored Content, Sponsored Messaging, Text Ads, Dynamic Ads.
3. Retargeting: Re-engage website visitors (identified via Company Identification / WebTag) with display ads. Target specific accounts that visited key pages.
4. Contextual targeting: Serve ads on pages contextually relevant to the intent topics your target accounts are researching.
5. Dynamic audiences: Segments auto-update as accounts move between buying stages — ad audiences adjust in real-time. Accounts entering Decision stage get different ads than those in Awareness.
6. Cross-channel orchestration: Advertising is orchestrated alongside email, sales outreach, and CRM actions from 6sense's workflow canvas. Coordinate ad impressions with sales touches.
7. Campaign analytics: Multi-touch attribution tracks which ads influenced pipeline and revenue. Measure ad impact at the account level, not just clicks.
8. Pricing note: Advertising is part of 6sense's enterprise platform ($50K-200K+/year). Not available on the Free plan. For teams without enterprise budgets, consider LinkedIn Ads direct, Demandbase (similar enterprise), or RollWorks (more accessible pricing).

In Terminus (DemandScience)

• Display ads with account-level targeting
• LinkedIn integration
• Email signature banners (unique channel)
• Chat integration (chatbot triggers for ad-engaged accounts)
• Multi-channel orchestration: ads + email + chat

In RollWorks

• Account-based display and social advertising
• Deep HubSpot integration (audiences from HubSpot lists)
• Machine learning for account prioritization
• Site visitor identification (IP matching)
• Budget optimization across accounts

In LinkedIn Campaign Manager

• Company targeting: target specific company names, industries, sizes
• Job title/function targeting: reach decision-makers by role
• Matched Audiences: upload account lists or retarget website visitors
• Lead Gen Forms: capture leads without leaving LinkedIn
• Conversation Ads: personalized message-style ads

In Clay

• Ad Sync: Push Clay Audiences directly to LinkedIn Ads, Meta Ads, and Google Ads. Build enriched, signal-driven audiences in Clay → sync to ad platforms for targeted campaigns.
• Enrichment-powered targeting: Use waterfall enrichment to build precise audiences — filter by firmographics (revenue, employee count, industry), technographics (tech stack), and intent signals (job changes, funding, website visits).
• Dynamic audiences: Audiences auto-update as new enrichment data and signals flow in. Ad platforms receive refreshed audience lists automatically.
• ABM air cover: Pair Ad Sync with Clay's Email Sequencer or outbound tool integrations — run display/social ads alongside outbound for multi-channel ABM.
• Plan gate: Ad Sync requires Growth plan ($446-495/mo, 1 audience included) or Enterprise (2 audiences).
• Best for: Teams using Clay for enrichment who want to add advertising as a channel without a separate ABM platform.

In AdRoll (RollWorks ABM)

• Upload target account lists or build audiences from firmographic criteria (industry, company size, revenue, technology)
• IP-based and cookie-based matching to serve display ads to specific companies
• Machine learning account scoring to prioritize accounts most likely to convert

• Deep bidirectional integration — sync HubSpot company lists to RollWorks audiences
• Account-level reporting surfaces in HubSpot — see ad engagement on account records
• Trigger workflows based on RollWorks engagement data
• Often called "the ABM platform for HubSpot"

• Account-based display ads across 500+ ad exchanges
• Social ads (Facebook/Instagram) targeted at account lists
• Site visitor identification — identify companies visiting your website via IP matching
• Cross-channel budget optimization distributes spend across channels automatically

In Google Ads (B2B targeting)

• Customer Match: upload company email lists for targeting
• In-Market Audiences: Google's own intent signals for B2B categories
• Display network: target by company size, industry via Google's B2B segments
• Search ads: capture demand for B2B keywords
• YouTube: video ads with B2B audience targeting

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Launching your first ABM ad campaign

1. Define your target account list (TAL) — start with 200-500 accounts max
2. Choose 1-2 channels — LinkedIn + display is the standard starting point
3. Create 3-5 ad variants — test problem-focused vs solution-focused creative
4. Set a 90-day pilot budget — commit enough budget to reach statistical significance
5. Align with sales — tell SDRs which accounts are seeing ads, adjust outbound timing
6. Measure account-level — don't judge B2B ads on clicks; measure pipeline influence

Creative best practices for B2B

• Lead with the problem, not your product — "Still managing compliance in spreadsheets?"
• Use specific numbers — "Reduce audit prep time by 73%" beats "Save time on audits"
• Match creative to intent stage — awareness (industry trends) → consideration (case studies) → decision (demo/pricing)
• Personalize by segment — different creative for different industries, company sizes, or personas
• Keep it simple — B2B display ads have 1-2 seconds of attention. One message, one CTA.

Metrics to track

• Account reach — % of TAL that saw at least one ad impression
• Account engagement — website visits, content downloads from ad-exposed accounts
• Pipeline influence — $ pipeline created at ad-exposed accounts
• Cost per engaged account — total spend / accounts that showed engagement
• Lift vs control — engagement rate of ad-exposed accounts vs unexposed (if you have a holdout group)

Gotchas

1. Don't judge B2B ads by click-through rate — B2B display CTR is typically 0.05-0.1%. That's normal. Measure account-level engagement and pipeline influence instead.
2. Small account lists need larger budgets per account — targeting 100 accounts with $1,000/mo means $10/account/mo, which isn't enough for meaningful reach. Either increase budget or expand the list.
3. LinkedIn matched audiences require 300+ matches — if your uploaded account list has fewer than 300 LinkedIn-matched companies, the audience is too small to run. Supplement with firmographic targeting.
4. Intent signals lag by 1-2 weeks — intent data from platforms like ZoomInfo, Bombora, or 6sense is aggregated weekly. Don't expect real-time intent triggering for ad campaigns.
5. Sales-marketing misalignment kills ABM ads — if SDRs don't know which accounts are seeing ads, they can't reference campaigns or time outreach. Share the target account list and campaign messaging with sales before launch.

Related skills

• /sales-6sense

  — 6sense platform help (display ads, LinkedIn audience sync, retargeting, contextual targeting — advertising integrated with ABM intent data)

• /sales-zoominfo

  — ZoomInfo platform help (for MarketingOS-specific setup)

• /sales-intent

  — interpreting buying signals and prioritizing accounts

• /sales-account-map

  — mapping buying committees at target accounts

• /sales-cadence

  — coordinating outbound sequences with ad campaigns

• /sales-prospect-list

  — building target account lists for advertising

• /sales-funnel

  — funnel strategy (ads feed the top of the funnel)

• /sales-clay

  — Clay platform help (enrichment, audience building, Ad Sync)

• /sales-adroll

  — AdRoll platform help (RollWorks ABM, display retargeting, ecommerce integration)

• /sales-retargeting

  — Retargeting strategy across all platforms (consumer and B2B)

• /sales-do

  — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install:

  npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skills sales-do

Examples

Example 1: ABM air cover for outbound

Example 2: Retargeting website visitors

Example 3: Choosing a B2B advertising platform

Troubleshooting

Ads running but no account engagement

LinkedIn matched audience too small

Can't measure pipeline impact