Account-based Advertising (ABA) isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a proven method that smart marketers use to drive engagement with high-value accounts. Built on the fundamentals of Account-Based Marketing (ABM), ABA hones in on targeted advertising to prioritize quality over quantity—ensuring that your efforts aren’t wasted on irrelevant leads. With ABA, you're combining the precision of ABM with the power of personalized, multi-touch advertising to reach decision-makers right where they’re most active.
The appeal of ABM is clear: it helps businesses focus on accounts most likely to convert, sidestepping the inefficient “spray-and-pray” approach of traditional marketing. And ABA? It takes ABM’s precision a step further by layering in intent and insights data to maximize budget efficiency while maintaining a personalized experience.
But as with any strategy, misconceptions persist. Some view ABM as a cure-all for marketing challenges, while others find it overwhelming to implement. The truth is, it’s neither—and ABA provides a clear, adaptable approach that keeps precision targeting manageable and effective.
Here’s how to launch an ABA campaign that connects, resonates, and converts, bringing your ABM strategy to life across the funnel:
5 Steps to an Effective Account-Based Advertising Campaign
1. Align Marketing and Sales
In the beginning, your sales team may not be a big fan of ABM. After all, this strategy gives them fewer leads to work with which seems contradictory to the very nature of sales.
But it’s vital to align the two teams because your account-based strategy will not be effective unless sales are on board. There needs to be a shared goal and strategy that both departments can get behind.
The best way to get sales on board with ABM is by showing them that ABM can solve their biggest job frustration -- low-quality leads. That’s because ABM qualifies leads at the beginning of the sales cycle, not the end.
Once your sales team can see the value that ABM has to offer, getting buy-in fro
m them will be much easier.
2. Use Segmentation by Buyer Personas
To run an effective ABM cam
paign, you need to have a clear picture of who it is you’re targeting. You’ll do this by segmenting your audience via buyer personas.
Before you start identifying your buyer personas, you’ll need to have an ideal customer profile (ICP). An ICP helps you identify the companies you want to work with based on factors like:
- Company size
- Revenue
- Industry
- Geography
And a detailed ICP will also help you identify your buyer personas. These are the individuals you will be targeting within each company. Once you have your buyer personas, the marketing team can begin developing a personalized campaign to target those individuals.
3. Implement a Full-Funnel Advertising Campaign
The marketing funnel
is the path users take from first being introduced to your business to eventually becoming a customer. There are many ways to define this and break it down, but in the interest of simplicity, we’ll focus on three main stages:
Awareness: During the first stage, you identify your target accounts and help them become aware of your company. You can do this through content like an eBook, white paper, or blog post.
Engagement: From there, you’re going to nurture the relationship with your leads through more detailed content. This could be something like emails, buyer guides, or retargeting ads.
Conversion: The conversion stage is where your leads convert to a customer. You can utilize content like case studies and special offers during this final stage.
It’s important to structure your campaign so that you have ads for every stage of the funnel. This allows you to meet your prospects where they are right now and create a more personalized experience.
4. Create Personalized Ads
The reason ABM advertising is so effective is that it creates a personalized approach for your prospects. In the beginning, you do the hard work of understanding your leads and then you focus on creating personalized interactions with them.
88% of marketers have reported a lift in conversions due to personalization. 54% have experienced a lift of almost 10% while 13% experience a lift of over 30%.
Using customer data, you can create personalized ads that will feel relevant to your prospects. Personalized advertising will make your leads feel understood and like you understand their challenges.
5.
Utilize Customer Intent Data
And finally, you’re going to want to utilize customer intent data because this will help you develop the right ads. Intent data is often overlooked but it is one of the best tools at your disposal.
That’s because intent data gives you in-depth information about your customers’ research habits. This allows you to create marketing content that is in line with their current behavior.
Intent data helps you identify the types of content they prefer so you can create messaging that will resonate with them. It also helps you determine when and how you share this content with your prospects.
Plus, intent data can help you identify when your prospects may be looking for a solution like the one you offer. It can also help you predict customer churn ahead of time.
And it sets the expectations from the start that your business will anticipate and meet their needs ahead of time. Who wouldn’t want to work with a business like that?
Next Steps
Creating an effective ABA Campaign doesn’t have to be difficult or overwhelming. With the right strategy, you can build a campaign that will help you identify and target the right kind of high-value leads for your business.
Utilizing the above tactics and using an account-based solution like RollWorks will help you remove any friction so your campaign runs more smoothly.
