So…what’s the 411, anyway? If you’re a B2B marketer like me, you’re probably knee-deep in account-based marketing headed into 2017. And…if that’s the case – you’re probably wondering:
“What’s the big deal with cookies and IPs anyway? Does it really make any difference if my program is cookie-based or IP-based? How do I know when to use which?
Should I ever use both?”
That’s where this post comes in…I’m here to give you a quick rundown of what exactly it means for an ABM program to be cookie-based vs IP-based and when and where you can use each one.
The Scoop on Cookie-Based Targeting
Speaking of cookies, there are two terms being thrown around today that mean essentially the same thing: cookie-based ABM and ABM with Job Title Targeting (or ABM JTT as we like to call it at Kwanzoo). These programs use individual contact cookies to target users at key accounts. This is important because it allows you to go beyond reaching all contacts at accounts on your target account list to reaching only contacts with a specific job function(s) or title(s) at those accounts.
Say you sell a product that is specifically intended for a sales team – reaching users on a company’s IT support team would be less than helpful, wouldn’t it? That’s where cookies come in. ABM JTT allows you to make sure that you are reaching the intended end user at your target account.
Targeting the right Job Function
What exactly does this mean for you? You would like to sell your Sales solution directly to Company A’s Sales team. Instead of both Larry from Company A’s IT team and Hank from Company A’s Sales team receiving your ad (and costing you ad spend dollars), now just Hank from Company A’s Sales team will receive your ad – and you’ll save money!
Taking it a few steps further…
So that sounds pretty great. Saving money. Reaching the right team…here’s where I can tell you that ABM JTT (cookie-based ABM) allows you to take this a few steps further. Job function targeting allowed you to make sure that Hank from Sales got your ad – but we run into a dilemma if Hank from Sales is an analyst or associate (and not a key decision maker or buyer).
The beauty of using cookies is that the data available today allows you to target all the way down to job title. So you can specify exactly which job titles (Sales director, Sales manager, C-Level users, etc.) at your target accounts are relevant to you in terms of buying power.
Maybe Hank isn’t the right guy for the job (buying your product that is), but his boss Martha – a director in Sales at Company A – has buying power. ABM JTT can put your ads in front of Martha – instead of Hank who can’t buy your solution and Larry from IT who doesn’t care about your solution.
So we’ve got it down to reaching exactly the job titles that matter, but maybe we want to refine it just a little bit further and reach someone from Company A with a director-level or above relevant title at Company A’s US headquarters in SoCal. Well, we are in luck here. ABM JTT can do that too. Now you can not only refine based on Account, Job Function(s), and Job Title(s) – we can take it one step further and target specific job titles at specific accounts in specific locations.
Essentially, ABM JTT allows you to reach exactly who matters at companies that matter to you at the specific locations relevant to your sales team. Our ability to make ABM JTT programs this precise is made possible by our integration with Oracle|BlueKai whose database has over 1 Billion B2B cookies (60% desktop web cookies and 40% mobile device ids) available to us.
Expanding Your Reach with IPs
Well, it’s logical that you are wondering why in the world anyone would choose to run IP-based ABM programs if ABM JTT (cookie-based ABM) is all that and a bag of chips. The reason why IP-based ABM (ABM IP) programs are still widely used is because cookie-based targeting – in its current state – only allows us to reach contacts in North America (NAM), the UK, a few countries in EMEA (Germany and France), and Australia (at the company level only – no job titles).
What does it mean to target using IPs? First it helps to know what an IP is. An IP address or Internet Protocol address is the numerical label assigned to every device participating a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol to communicate. This is important because your target accounts have specific sets of IP addresses (called IP ranges) that identify the computers that they are using to connect to the internet.
With the data available today, we can identify the IP ranges for accounts on your target account lists. For us this means that we can serve ads directly to contacts at target accounts without serving ads to accounts you don’t care about. The best part? IP-based ABM programs let you serve your content to target accounts around the globe.
A Deeper Look: ABM JTT vs ABM IP Programs
Now that we’ve covered what ABM JTT and ABM IP programs are and what they can do for you, here is a breakdown of the pros and cons of each program type and the appropriate time to use them:
Should ABM JTT & ABM IP Be Used in Tandem?
In some instances, it may be appropriate to use both ABM JTT and ABM IP to target the same accounts. The appropriate time to employ both cookie-based and IP-based ABM programs together happens when the number of cookies that are available is not sufficiently large.
For example, if you are targeting an account list in France or Germany and want the precision provided by ABM JTT but need the increased reach provided by ABM IP. In this case, you would first reach maximum coverage with cookies and then supplement by running an ABM IP program to the exact same accounts – thus maximizing reach and engagement.
Another use case where you may do both is if you are targeting global enterprise companies with headquarters in several countries. In this case you would run ABM JTT programs to target users at the accounts in the geos where cookies are widely available (NAM, UK, France, Germany, and Australia) and extend your reach by running ABM IP to reach users in the rest of the world.
Well, That’s All Folks…
That’s all I have for you today. I hope this rundown of cookie-based vs IP-based programs has been helpful. Stay tuned for upcoming posts on ABM and more. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our team for more info.