Are you eager to maximize your marketing efforts with LinkedIn Ads? Account-Based Marketing (ABM) might just be the strategy you’re looking for. ABM is all about focusing your efforts on high-value targets, ensuring a substantial return on your investment. Instead of chasing countless smaller accounts, ABM directs your resources toward bigger, high-impact deals.
In this article, we’ll explore some top tricks and hacks for leveraging LinkedIn Ads for your ABM campaigns. You’ll discover how to maximize your ROI, even when targeting the most prominent companies, and why LinkedIn’s unique capabilities make it the ideal platform for your ABM journey.
LinkedIn Ads for ABM Best Practices
With LinkedIn’s vast network of professional profiles, you have the potential to access decision-makers who can influence purchasing decisions within their organizations. The key to success with ABM on LinkedIn is making yourself visible and positioning your brand as an expert in your field. When you achieve this, you increase your chances of securing business deals and connecting with individuals who are in a business-oriented mindset. Read further to discover some effective tips for LinkedIn Ads ABM.
1. No Prospect Lists Needed
Unlike other platforms, you don’t need a prospect list for ABM targeting on LinkedIn. You can start with a simple company list and then utilize LinkedIn’s personal demographic filters to pinpoint decision-makers within these organizations.
This approach saves costs by eliminating the need for expensive prospect lists with personal information. Instead, company lists offer a more budget-friendly option. LinkedIn’s personal targeting filters efficiently sort profiles, ensuring your message reaches the right people. Moreover, the dynamic nature of your ABM list ensures it stays up-to-date as individuals join or leave companies, maintaining the relevance of your campaigns.
2. Retargeting with ABM
While most people associate ABM with targeting new clients, there’s a missed opportunity when it comes to retargeting. LinkedIn allows you to employ ABM strategies in retargeting, presenting a unique opportunity to capture warm leads. By identifying individuals who have visited your website, engaged with your content, or interacted with your ads and adding them to your ABM list, you can stay in front of these prospects.
This approach allows you to nurture these leads and increase the likelihood of conversion within the next 90 days. By segmenting them out from your general audience and creating personalized retargeting campaigns, you can ensure that they receive focused and relevant messaging.
3. Budget Proportionate to List Size
A common mistake many marketers make is allocating an excessive budget to a relatively small list, which can lead to oversaturation and diminishing returns. Initially, they may see significant results, but over time, their campaign’s effectiveness starts to decline, resulting in wasted resources.
The image below shows a big pop of results and then diminishing returns.
To avoid this, it’s important to allocate your budget to your ABM list proportionately. Rather than hitting your audience with an all-out approach, consider running a smaller budget over a more extended period. This allows you to slowly engage your target prospects, giving even the less active ones a chance to interact with your ads and convert. Avoid concluding that your list is no longer productive too soon. Instead, consider pausing or turning off your ABM campaigns for a brief period to reengage or activate those who may have become less responsive. This method maximizes your budget and improves your chances of converting potential clients at their own pace.
4. Personalized Ads for Big Targets
When targeting large companies with audiences exceeding 300 people, consider personalizing your ads for them. Tailoring your ads to such a substantial audience can significantly enhance your ABM strategy’s effectiveness. Imagine you’re aiming to secure a giant like Zoom as a client. In this scenario, it’s important to focus your efforts on personalization.
Rather than casting a broad net, you can target the company itself and hone in on the key decision-makers. Whether it’s the owner, founder, CMO, or the heads of various departments, you can direct your attention to individuals in director-level positions and above, particularly those in executive job functions like business development and marketing. By concentrating on these roles, you can saturate the two most critical departments within the company.
5. Saturate Deeply into the Company
Saturating your ABM campaigns deeply into your target companies can be more effective than expanding the list to include more companies. Target various departments, job functions, and seniorities within the same companies to maximize exposure and engagement.
Picture this scenario: You have a list of 50 companies you’re eager to collaborate with, but within each of these organizations, you find only three individuals at the decision-maker level. This translates to a total of 150 people to target. To expand your reach and maximize your impact, you have two options: you could either opt for a more extensive company list or, as the alternative and often more practical approach, saturate these 50 companies more comprehensively.
Instead of limiting your focus to positions like CMOs, founders, owners, or presidents, penetrate various levels and departments within these target organizations. By doing so, you can create a more extensive list, which allows you to saturate entire departments with your ads. This strategic approach ensures that when the time comes for your business to be considered as a partner or vendor, there are more individuals within that company who are already familiar with your brand, have seen your ads, and understand the benefits of what you offer.
6. Leverage LinkedIn’s Insight Tag
The image above is website traffic by industry ↑
The image below is website traffic by company size ↓
Unlike the usual ABM methods, where you create lists of potential customers, the Insight Tag helps you understand your website’s audience better, categorizing them based on their industries, company sizes, and job positions.
Instead of relying solely on predefined lists, you can use LinkedIn’s filters to reach out to similar companies, even if you don’t know their names. This means you can save money on buying expensive lists while still reaching a broader range of potential customers. For example, if you want to target software companies in the United States with 50 to 200 employees, LinkedIn’s filters can help you do just that. You can be very specific without knowing each company’s name.
Now, when it comes to retargeting, many ABM experts struggle with how to engage website visitors effectively. However, the Insight Tag can make this easier. It allows you to focus your efforts on companies and people who fit your ideal customer profile, considering things like where they’re located, what industry they’re in, the size of their company, and their job roles. This way, you can create a high-quality audience that’s more likely to bring you better results, making your ABM strategy work even better.
7. Qualify Traffic Before Retargeting
LinkedIn allows you to qualify your traffic before retargeting, a feature not commonly available on other platforms. Unlike Facebook, which often relies on retargeting everyone, LinkedIn allows you to tailor your retargeting efforts to the specific audience you want. This enables you to focus on high-quality traffic, which is especially useful when targeting high-value companies and decision-makers.
Conclusion
LinkedIn Ads offers a powerful toolkit for executing an effective ABM strategy. With precise targeting, personalized ads, and the ability to qualify traffic, you can maximize your ABM results on this platform. The key is to stay patient and strategic, adapting your budget and campaigns to the dynamic nature of ABM. By following these tricks and hacks, you can unlock the full potential of LinkedIn Ads for your ABM efforts.
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