How to Use CTV to Power Your ABM Strategy | MarTech

ABM is a proven marketing approach that has been a viable option for targeting B2B brands (and their buying commissions) for decades. CTV is one of the newer marketing channels out there and its adoption, especially for B2B brands, has been modest enough to avoid rapidly rising engagement costs from channels such as Google, Meta and LinkedIn.

The intersection of the two is still relatively unexplored, but I’ve seen it work beautifully for B2B brands with the right goals and expectations. Below are some practical steps to help B2B brands integrate CTV into their approach to ABM. These fall under the following initiatives:

• Know your use cases.
• Define your lists.
• Coordinate CTV with your entire channel mix.
• Measure the impact.

CTV for ABM: Use Cases

We’ve all seen those strange Salesforce commercials featuring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, but CTV works for more than just software giants. I’ve helped clients across a number of B2B industries realize CTV-driven growth gains. These are, in no particular order:

B2B SaaS companies

• Create awareness in competitive categories.
• Support expansion into new markets or vertical markets.
• Influence big deals with longer sales cycles.
• Challenge bigger competitors.

Professional service providers (agencies, consultancies, law firms, etc.)

• Promote thought leadership.
• Reach decision makers at target accounts.
• Support product or service line launches.
• Build brand recognition before conducting sales activities.

Manufacturing and Industrial B2B (supply chain management, construction supplies and equipment, logistics)

• Reach purchasing and operations leaders.
• Support the recruitment of channel partners.
• Create awareness for new product lines.
• Strengthen marketing efforts at trade shows and in the field.

Financial services and fintech

• Build trust with CFOs and finance teams.
• Introduce innovative solutions to a traditional audience.
• Support account-based campaigns for business prospects.
• Ensure differentiated positioning.

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ABM lists for CTV

Once you’ve identified when and why to deploy CTV, it’s time to define your list of target accounts. The right CTV partner or platform will allow you to upload company directories (which is compliant with privacy regulations as no individual contacts are involved). These lists are then linked to households linked to employees at those companies.

Match rates aren’t perfect – you can expect about 40-70% of those accounts to get good household matches – but the matches you do get are of exceptionally high quality.

If you’re just getting started with CTV, be wise with your list and take the lead with the greatest opportunity. For example, if you have 500 accounts on your list, start with 100 accounts where CTV has the opportunity to influence active deals or warm prospects.

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Coordination of CTV and other ABM channels

Both ABM and CTV require many cross-channel touchpoints to close deals. CTV will rarely take an ABM account from scratch to finish in a few commercials, so be sure to integrate it into a carefully orchestrated ABM strategy.

A simple sequence might look like this:

• Launch CTV campaigns to target accounts in the first three weeks. (This may take longer if you want to get creative.)
• A few weeks after launch, deploy LinkedIn and run ads to retarget accounts exposed to CTV ads.
• A week or two after your retargeting ads run, enable your sales team to reference your recent TV campaign in outreach.

This sequential approach creates multiple touchpoints throughout the purchasing journey, while keeping your brand top-of-mind with large-screen positioning.

Measuring the impact of CTV in ABM campaigns

As powerful as it is, CTV rarely leads to direct conversions. Measurements should focus on metrics that truly reflect the impact of CTV, including:

• Increase in account engagement: Did more target accounts visit your website after seeing your CTV ads?
• Speed ​​of the pipeline: Do accounts exposed to CTV move through the pipeline faster?
• Influence on deal size: Do accounts exposed to CTV sign larger contracts?
• Brand awareness: Do target accounts show higher brand recall? (Surveys are a great measurement tool here.)
• Depth of the sales conversation: Do prospects go into phone conversations more educated – or even mention that they saw your ads?

One of the best metrics in your arsenal here are geo-holdout tests, which you perform to compare markets exposed to CTV to similar markets that were not, and to measure overall deltas in pipeline and revenue.

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Why early adopters of CTV in ABM will win

CTV won’t be a fad in ABM campaigns anytime soon, but that means aggressive brands will have plenty of time to reap the benefits of early adoption. As with every other facet of ABM, first-party data and nuanced measurement will be crucial to realizing and quantifying the impact of CTV campaigns.

It’s not a linear path, but there is a pot of growth gold at the end for brands that are willing and able to do the work.