One of the easiest ways to make your data work is programmatic advertising. Using your vast amounts of data on sales prospects from marketing platforms, targeting qualified leads online is made efficient. B2B audience targeting allows marketers engaged in programmatic advertising to put digital ads in front of audiences who are most likely to make a purchase. Programmatic advertising is simply the automation of the buying and selling of ads online using technology platforms that connect advertisers with digital news publications where most ads are served.

Businesses that integrate their online advertising buys with B2B audience targeting data are more likely to reach their target audience. This strategic approach to online advertising can greatly improve conversion rates by focusing on specific audience types. While the strategy involves an initial outlay, the ROI is higher than other forms of paid advertising.

How Audience Targeting Works

Audience targeting relies upon the use of cookies to identify and categorize individual visitors. Many websites assign cookies to web visitors to track demographics and on-site behaviour, including pages viewed and whether a prospect returns to a page or site. Most people conduct much online research before making a purchase, and cookies can help you source potential leads.

Audience targeting enriches your first-party information with insights from third-party data sources. These data providers match multiple cookies to individual users, allowing for a more precise view of their online characteristics and behaviour. The collected biographical and transactional details of these digital audiences is of great value to businesses looking to target specific audiences. Using such advanced segmentation techniques means you target only the most qualified leads.

The ability to target users based on audiences isn’t limited to the major search engines. Some social media sites allow advertisers to single out B2B prospects. Some search engines also provide advertisers with technology platforms that help them use audience targeting data to buy ads across thousands of news publications across the web.

B2B audience targeting is focused on reaching prospects at target companies. People can be segmented by business, industry, job function, and many other categories. There are two major advantages to B2B audience targeting:

  1. Ad budget is used more efficiently with campaigns focused solely on the users who are most likely to buy.
  2. Ads can be targeted with greater specificity, improving the chances of reaching the right person at the right time.

B2B Audience Targeting in Action

Imagine your B2B provides bulk stationery goods for businesses of a minimum of 50 personnel. You want to ensure that you are reaching low-level management who are in charge of ordering.

By partnering with a third-party data provider, you can get the information you need already segmented with little effort required on your part in terms of targeting. You can send an email and place an ad that will appear on sites most commonly visited by such managers.

How to Find the Best B2B Audience Targeting Platform

How do you know which of the many audience targeting platforms is right for your business?

There are several features that the best B2B audience targeting applications have in common:

A Comprehensive Database: Larger data sets may allow you to reach more potential customers. They may also contain a greater number of audience segments for consideration.

Customer Support: Having the right people to ask as you learn how to navigate your new adtech tools is vital to your long term success with such a strategy.

Accurate Data: The entire purpose behind a targeted approach is to reach qualified leads. Outdated or incomplete data won’t help achieve this goal.

Advertising Network Integration: You’ll want to be sure that your B2B audience targeting tool is compatible with your ad network of choice.

B2B companies stand to benefit from including audience targeting solutions in their sales and marketing toolkits, reaching more qualified prospects at a lower cost to the business.