This is Part Two of a 2 part post. In Part One, we discussed how ABM display programs which serve ads to specific target accounts and contacts differ from traditional display programs that target broader audience segments based on their content interests, site visit, or search behavior. As any good B2B marketer or CMO will tell you, any marketing program that you deploy needs to be measured. Your Company must be able to establish a clear correlation between spend and sales outcomes within a reasonable period of time.
Traditional Display Programs – It’s Been All About “Form Fills”
Traditional display programs have always focused on measuring form fills (or leads) generated on the marketer’s website. For example, if a Company spends $5000 on display and can directly attribute 20 form fills on their website to a prospect clicking on the ad, and filling out the form, that would be a cost per lead of $250.
Tweet This: ABM Display prioritizes target accounts that engage. That’s actionable insights for sales #ABMDoneRight
Here is where many B2B marketers compare this cost per lead to a content syndication program at say $50 per lead for every form fill on a publisher’s website for the marketer’s content, and conclude that display is not worth the cost to them. With ABM, it’s now possible to go beyond traditional display program metrics of form fills and lead captures, and tie program outcomes all the way to new opportunity creation in CRM. With ABM you can now align display program spend with outcomes that your Sales teams truly care about.
Tweet This: ABM must go beyond measuring form fills to tie program spend to opportunity creation #ABMDoneRight
ABM Display Programs – Beyond Form Fills to Sales Opportunity Impact
ABM provides a whole new way to setup and measure display program success. With the “account-centric” approach of ABM, B2B marketers need to set-up programs as follows: a) Select a set of target accounts (100s) as control accounts. These accounts receive marketing program “care and feeding” based on resources and budget available. b) Select a second set of accounts (100s) as test accounts. These test accounts besides receiving the same marketing programs as the control accounts, are additionally served targeted ABM display ads. Another best practice is to baseline your website visits from both control and test accounts over 2 to 4 weeks prior to the launch of your ABM display program.
Tweet This: Set up your ABM Display programs for success by identifying Control/Test accounts upfront #ABMDoneRight
Selecting the Right Programs, and Kicking off a Reporting Cadence
ABM display programs can support one of several targeting strategies. As an example, an ABM Job Title Targeting program (cookie-based targeting) will work well for North America accounts. For international or global accounts in EMEA, APAC, LATAM and ANZ, since 3rd party cookie pools are not available or extremely limited, ABM IP programs are your only option. Our ABM social display programs give you a new way to target B2B audiences through Facebook and Twitter custom audiences with higher match rates. Now with your ABM display programs underway, here’s an example of a weekly report that you might want to use to track progress across all your ABM display programs. 
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Tweet This: Help sales teams with weekly ABM reports to prioritize engagement with target accounts #ABMDoneRight
ABM Measurement Done Right – Tie It All The Way to New Sales Opportunities
With ABM display, we can now go beyond traditional display measures of increase in site visits or form fills, by measuring ad clicks and website visits from target accounts – and then go even deeper into the engagement process by measuring increase in sales development (SDR) and sales team activity as well as new opportunity creation at target accounts.
We hope you found this two part post useful. Have questions? Please contact us and we’d be glad to discuss your specific ABM program goals and recommend the best strategies that will help you become an ABM Hero at your Company!